Title: Rebellious Spirits
Author: Ruth Ball
Type: Non-Fiction
Page Count/Review Word Count: 262
Rating 4/5
Disclaimer: While I aim to be unbiased, I received a copy of this for free to review.
If I have one piece of advice going into this book, it’s for you to stick with it. That’s because I wasn’t too convinced by the first twenty pages and so I switched it out and made it my “bedtime book”, which means I decided to get through it bit by bit before going to sleep. Then I actually picked it up and enjoyed it so much that I switched it out as my main book and ended up reading it in a day.
It’s basically just what it claims to be: the true story of smugglers, illegal brewers and other “audacious tales of drinking on the wrong side of the law”. It’s well-written and well-researched and while I did spot a couple of typos, I could live with them. In fact, I thought the overall editing was pretty tight apart from that, and it certainly didn’t make it any less of a book. Even the cover is excellent.
So all in all, whether you’re a drinker or not, I’d definitely suggest giving this one a go. I particularly liked the way that it took us through British history, making it easy to understand the different laws and taxes and the effect that they had on the average man on the street. Ball also includes the true stories of literally hundreds of different people from both sides of the law, and she stays neutral throughout, which is what you need from non-fiction. Good stuff!
Click here to buy Rebellious Spirits.
