The person who recommended it to me described it as “life changing” but I never managed to get all the way through 
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I read it quickly so didn’t have time to forget who people were
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When I was commuting I’d finish a book in a day or two. Now I have to make time to read.
Recently re-read Bujold’s The Curse of Chalion, which just gets everything right.
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I saw this article, Alan Moore fantasy series. Must confess I’m intrigued but the fact Alan Moore has already written a novel passed me by. Has anyone read Jerusalem?
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Looking at the opening pages, I think it might be the one I’ve heard of, which plays somewhat Joycean games with English. I’ve never read it. The fact that it’s inspired by one of Blake’s epics adds a little interest, though.
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I seem to recall this being a major problem with… Wolf Hall, and a number of other Tudor books that I didn’t read but people told me about. Virtually everyone male is called Thomas, virtually everyone female is called Ann.
I woke up early on Sunday and read I am Number 4 in one sitting. I picked it up second-hand because I remembered there being a fuss about it when it came out. The striking taglines are the best part about it - it was a pleasant enough way to while away the morning, but not very good, alas.
Currently reading the latest iteration of Dreamland rules in prep for running it again, and I need to finish GURPS Thaumatology: Urban Magic.
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Regarding British history, still to this day I confuse Thomas Becket with Thomas More and don’t get me started with Henry the VIII wives, Catherine’s galore, I only get right the first two (mainly cause the first one is of Aragon and was daughter of the Fernando and Isabel of Columbus renown, and Anne Boleyn for being Queen Elizabeth’s mother). Passed that, I never get the order or all the names right.
I just picked up the second and third books in the series after reading the first a while back. I might have to find a refresher 
The other Wayfarers books are also on my reading list, really enjoyed the first.
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I am eternally grateful to Horrible Histories for providing me with catchy tunes to differentiate the Georges.
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I especially like ‘George the 4th and known henceforth as angry, fat and cross,
it’s true you beat Napoleon but were mostly a dead loss.’
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I have read it, its bloated but there are great swathes of his briliiance within in. The third book especially is wonderful, some fantastic chapters there, it’s just a little slog to get to them but I thought it was absoultely worth it.
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If you’re interested, I could be persuaded to part with my copy for a mate’s-type rate! Although it does look nice on my shelf. Here’s my Goodreads review of it:
"Stars. Tricky. It wouldn’t seem right to rate this colossal, deep, imaginative, thoughtful and thought-provoking book a mere four our them, and yet… and yet I spent much of its not-inconsiderable length (1200 pages) interested, but not engaged; Moore’s style is, much like his instructions to his artists when he writes comics, verbose to the point of exhaustion. He is never less than interesting, finding fascination in the smallest detail of the most (at first glance) inconsequential lives, but the sheer length of the book is terrifying, and tiring (especially if you got the single volume version… good for the biceps, less good for the soul).
I very nearly gave up when Moore springs forty-odd pages of Joycean non-speak on a poor reader just when he thinks they’re nearing the finish line. I could follow it, if I concentrated hard, and (where necessary) read it out loud to get the phonics right, but it was hard work, I frequently found myself questioning whether it was worth all the effort. In the end, I skipped the whole chapter, with no plans of returning to it. Maybe my experience of Jerusalem was lesser for it, but I finished the book, and I’m pretty sureI wouldn’t otherwise have done so.
So… why five stars? The sheer effort an author puts into a book shouldn’t be a reason for that, and it isn’t here. Jerusalem got five stars from me because after I skipped that chapter, the work became endlessly inventive, dizzyingly imaginative, informative and, finally, gripping, right to the end. The last 2/3rds of the final book easily rank amongst, and possibly above, Moore’s best (to me, at least) work, and the themes, questions and thoughts raised by Jerusalem will be with me a long time; possibly they’ll be with me while I draw my final breath, and if that isn’t high enough praise for you then I’m afraid I’m going to struggle to beat it.
What’s it about? You’ll probably have many different answers within these reviews - for me, it’s about people, and their relationships with other people, as all the best novels are. It’s also about a celebration of time and a place, multiple ugly warts and all that will soon be gone and, because Alan Moore is like that, it’s about every time, and every place. It’s about poverty, and the people destroyed by it, or made by it, or just stuck with it for generations, and its quiet acceptance by the perpetrators and victims of it. it’s about free will, or the illusion of it, or not. It’s about the likely fate of consciousness after death. It’s about the eternal city of planning applications, demolitions, and it’s about time and how we perceive it.
It’s hard work at times. It’s gloriously page-turning at others.
It’s about a little boy who chokes on a sweet. I liked it a lot."
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Very kind of you and thanks for posting the review. My read pile is overflowing at the moment but I’m adding this one to my good reads ‘want to read’ list for when I’m in the mood. Cheers.
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I read a German historical novel about that time and the author used their nick names or other ways to avoid the multitude of same first names 
It worked pretty well, was never confused.
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Try reading the Masters of Rome series by Colleen McCullough - a similar thing. Spans about 85 years and because of Roman nomenclature, lots of people have very similar names and often alive at the same time.
@Chewy77 for Henry’s wives, I was taught “Arrogant Boys Seem Clever, Howard Particularly” - Aragon, Boleyn, Seymour, Cleves, Howard, Parr. And for their fates - “Divorced, beheaded, died; divorced, beheaded, survived”
If you read a lot of historical fiction, you’ll find many authors use alternative names to differentiate. Like characters called Elizabeth are variously referred to as Elizabeth, Bess, Beth, Betty etc.
Wolf Hall not only leaves the reader (ie me) confused by the huge cast, but also refers to someone like Thomas Howard as ‘Norfolk’ when that seems appropriate, and sometimes just refers to characters by their relationship (‘his uncle’ etc). One thing you’re never in doubt about is who ‘he, Cromwell’ is. [Aside, I absolutely loved the whole trilogy, despite the problems with keeping up with all the names]
Similarly Russian novels commonly switch between patronymics and surnames, which unhelpfully have gendered endings. It’s very unkind and hard to get used to. But when a translator tries to simplify by using a name like ‘Anna Karenin’ it just sounds weird.
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In Shirley Jackson’s The Bird’s Nest, the four personalities of the protagonist are called Elizabeth, Beth, Betsy, and Bess.
That’s from a children’s song!
Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betty and Bess
All went together to seek a bird’s nest
They found a nest with five eggs in it
They each took one and left four in it.
Yes, it is, and the use of a children’s song gave the novel a tone of sinister humor that’s very characteristic of Jackson.
But I know a slightly different version:
They found a nest that had four eggs in it;
They took one apiece and left three in it.
Though now I think of it, the chapter where Elizabeth bathes actually flatly contradicts that, almost surely by conscious intent.