The Honourable Company by John Keat

The East India Company did everything in triplicate. Everything down to its very first meeting on the 24th of September, 1599,. Literally, it is alleged 35 miles of records. It took longer than any other book I've ever written. And you're right, I thought I'm going to knock it off in a couple of years. Sadly, that looks like six years later. This was an extraordinary scholar who can read 18th century Indian Persian in a way that no one else alive can do. He's now got terminal pancreatic cancer and has 10 months to live. So that's definitely closing quite a lot of doors for future projects, as well as being incredibly sad.