Review
22 out of 27 BookBrowse readers rated The Tower, the Zoo and the Tortoise 4 or 5 stars. Here's what they had to say:
The Tower, the Zoo, and the Tortoise takes us inside the Tower of London, a place so saturated with history that ghosts ooze out everywhere. The care of a menagerie of animals (gifts to Queen Elizabeth, from all over the world) falls to one of the Tower guards, a Beefeater. These exotic animals are lost, uprooted from homes in jungles and plains, and now housed in moats and towers (Mark O). But the real story is the humans. Human characters who are all eccentric, flawed, but fascinating. With one or two exceptions, all of the characters seem familiar. Not because they are stereotypical, because they are anything but. They are familiar because they so resemble the people we all know who live quiet lives, waiting for joy to come or...
Beyond the Book
If you've read the
The Tower, The Zoo and The Tortoise you'll already have been taken on a veritable history tour of The Tower of London and the Yeoman Warders, popularly known as Beefeaters, who guard it. For those who haven't read the book yet or, for that matter have but would like a quick summary of some of the history of the Tower, here are a few highlights (and below the review you'll find more about the Beefeaters):
Where is the Tower and why was it built? William the Conqueror defeated King Harold at the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and was subsequently crowned king. A few years later,...
