Restoration is another of those books I’ve had on my shelf for years, unread. I knew about it via the 1990s film adaptation starring, among others, Robert Downey Jr. (not that I’d watched it, either). And it probably would have gone even longer unread but I needed a book from my collection published in the 1980s for a personal reading challenge and this is one of the very few I have but hadn’t read. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, and especially the character of Merivel, who narrates his story of life as an 17th century man with more than his fair share of foibles, but also a lot of heart. I now have a DVD of the film borrowed from my library, and the book’s sequel, simply titled Merivel, to my list of books to read.