The English Reformation: A very brief history by Alec Ryrie ( published by SPCK 2020: £12.99). The English Reformation, spanning the sixteenth and first half of the seventeenth centuries, with its cataclysmic religious upheavals changed the whole nature of English society and faith. This short book, a wonderful account of this period of English history, is a succinct and erudite summary of the events of so long ago that still influence our island nation in the twenty-first century.