Mini Reviews | We Will Never Stop Needing Books About Shakespeare

 

I truly do believe that. I don't think I will ever tire of reading about the greatest author of all time.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I stumbled upon this one recently and am so glad I did. The author masterfully fleshed out the Bard a bit more by recounting for readers the company he kept - from his time in Stratford-upon-Avon, to London, and back again.

This is aspect I had not really considered before - learning about Shakespeare through his friends. The debate will likely rage on forever whether or not Shakespeare really existed, or if it is simply a pseudonym for someone else. I firmly believe William Shakespeare was born in Stratford-upon-Avon, travelled to London after the birth of his children, became the greatest playwriter in history, then returned home upon retirement from theatre life.

Though this book does not purport to make a case for either side (though obviously sides with me given the content), it actually makes a fantastic case for Shakespeare being, well, Shakespeare. Through so much research, the author has found glimpses - MANY glimpses - of Shakespeare in the lives of those who knew him. Are we really to believe that those mentions in wills of deceased friends were placed there to through people off the track of the "real" genius behind the name? I hardly think so. Not only that, but Shakespeare is hardly the first writer to come from a bit humbler beginnings, and make it big in London. Why would it be possible for Ben Jonson to do this, but not William Shakespeare? Their educations would have been roughly the same, and both managed to write excellent characters in excellent plays that thrilled their audiences.

The author does a fantastic job showing who he was by showing us who he socialized with - either professionally, personally, or both. The book is divided into sections of those from his boyhood, to the fellow writers, actors, and so on who he worked with closely, or at arms-length.

Through the lives of his friends, Shakespeare is made just that much more whole to us, 400 years later. Though we will likely never know everything about him, this book certainly fills a gap.

Highly recommended.

 Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

I absolutely loved this one! Another accidental find, but a gem. Also, a chance to relive some of the best and worst scenes Shakespeare wrote.

The author also happens to be a chemist and in a very thorough and scientific way explored all the deliciously terrible ways the Bard killed off his characters.

It's pretty obvious that life in 16th/17th century London was hazardous. Plagues were always afoot, as were deaths by childbirth, public executions, and everyone's least fave: syphilis. 

Death stalked many of his most famous characters and is a constant theme across many of his plays regardless of genre. In all, Shakespeare killed off a multitude of characters in a whopping 74 different ways. The author discusses each at length, analyzing how realistic his methods were. She looks at the science of the time and what Shakespeare's understanding of that might have been to determine the likelihood of these deaths actually occurring.

It's easy to see why death was such an easy thing for Shakespeare to write about - his livelihood depended on it. When bouts of plague came around, the theatres closed and no money could be made. So the troupe headed off to the countryside, and in those times Shakespeare wrote  much of his poetry to support himself and his family. This cycle was repeated over and over. Death touched Shakespeare deeply personally as well, when his son Hamnet died at age eleven. Though Shakespeare would write comedies for a time after this, the tragedies were soon to come. And perhaps his greatest character ever, Hamlet, would soon grace the stage.

(Side note: When Shakespeare's First Folio was on tour a few years ago, it came to the Durham. The Folio was open to Hamlet's soliloquy and I am not even a little bit embarrassed to say I cried as I whisper-read it out loud. Volunteers asked if I was okay. I just nodded and kept reading/crying.)

The author discusses each type of death in its own chapter, including excerpts from the plays where said death occurred plus the larger context of what it meant to the plot as a whole. We see the whole gamut - poisoning (obviously), beheadings, suicide, war, and of course, bear attacks.

The author analyzes each of these and really gets into the yucky details at times. Yet, as it turns out, most of the time Shakespeare knew what he was talking about and the deaths were fairly realistic. I won't tell you which ones, that you will have to find out for yourself.

Highly recommended.

*************************************

Tee-hee-hee

(For those unfamiliar, this is a still from a show that airs on the History Channel called Pawn Stars. The show documents 'life' in a Las Vegas pawn shop run by Rick Harrison, the bald gentleman whose refrain is always, "The best I can do is..." when making an offer on an item.)

Book Review | Foul is Fair

Rating ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

THIS BOOK IS EVERYTHING AND I LOVE IT MORE THAN WORDS CAN DESCRIBE

However, I will try.

I completely and utterly loved Capin's first book, The Dead Queens Club. It is honestly one of the best books I have ever read about Henry VIII and his many wives. I know it seems strange to say that about a YA book told through the lens of a bunch of high-schoolers, but just trust me on it, okay? Especially with how perfectly she captured the essence and naivety of Katherine Howard, in Katie; my heart broke a million times for her in the book, just as it does for the real Katherine Howard.

OBVIOUSLY I am going to love Capin's second "retelling", right? RIGHT!

Okay, to be honest I was a little nervous at first because a lot of people said how violent it was and blah blah blah and I am sitting here thinking the whole time as I am reading these silly reviews, do they not know it is based on Macbeth? Is it more violent or bloody than the original material? Apparently they did not, in fact, know because when I finally got it from the library I dove in head first and LOVED EVERY FUCKING MOMENT OF IT.

The main character begins the story as Elle. She and her best friends, her coven, Mads, Summer, and Jenny, rule their world. They are rich and beautiful and everything belongs to them. The night Elle turns sixteen, the girls crash a party thrown by boys from St. Andrew's Prep. Elle becomes separated from her friends, and the golden boys of St Andrew's, they choose Elle as their next victim. Though we are thankfully spared the details of Elle being gang-raped by a group of the boys, there are flashback and references aplenty.

Little do these boys realize, they've picked the wrong girl.

Or perhaps, because of what happens over the course of the novel, they absolutely picked the right one.

The Queen shall have her revenge, and she will raise up a King, one of their own, to bring them all down.

Elle tells her parents that she was raped, but lies about where/when/who. They tell her they will do anything for her, and she says she wants to transfer schools. So she does. To St. Andrew's Prep. Now reborn as Jade (Elle's middle name), she will destroy the golden boys from the inside. She will befriend their girls, and she will make them all pay. Mack is a means to an end. He was not involved in her rape, but he is one of them, the nice one but still a golden boy. Never mind that though. Jade will manipulate anyone she needs to in order to get her revenge, and her coven is with her every step of the way.

I want to express all my feelings about this book but in a way that does not spoil anything because this book is so beautiful and savage and magical and raw. I am not really sure how to do that, honestly. I might ramble. Not often do books leave me grasping for words that are all jumbled in my head, that I can't actually articulate aside from shouting, "JUST READ THE BOOK AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND!" But I will try again.

The girls are ruthless, and I cheered Jade on every fucking step of the way. This is peak revenge fantasy and if people can't appreciate that for what it is, then too bad for them. (Seriously, I saw way too many reviews bemoaning the fact that Jade's parents never filed a police report after she told them she had been raped. Um HELLO! There would have been no story then. Shut the fuck up.) The golden boys tried to break her, thought they had succeeded. They took her power but watching her regain it and more - taking their power as well, and at their expense - was fucking beautiful. Honest to God, this is one of the most powerful books I have ever read and though I finished it weeks ago now, I can still feel it in my bones, in my soul. The story is in me and alive and is glorious even in its darkness.

Capin's writing style is unique here, as it is not entirely prose in the traditional sense, but it is prose, and that doesn't make sense I realize, but trust me. There are times where it becomes this stream of consciousness that flows on and on. Most often though there is a lyrical, poetic quality to the narrative that fits so well with the story itself, and also as this female-centered re-imagining of one of Shakespeare's greatest plays. If you are familiar with Macbeth you will recognize right away familiar names and lines, and it is comfortable even as the massacre begins. I was hooked from the first page and stayed up late, until I was finished with the book - what is a few hours sleep when reading a book that sinks it teeth and claws into you and won't let go? Nothing, that's what.

I am not sure how I expected the book to end, because I was so caught up in each moment, each golden boy coming to his perfectly perfect brutal end, that it did not occur to me that pretty soon they would all be dead and then what? The action kept going, right up until the very last pages, and I was nearly breathless at the end trying to understand everything that had just happened.

This is easily one of my favorite books of 2020 and I will read everything Hannah Capin ever writes (which I also said after I finished The Dead Queens Club). I noticed on Goodreads this is now listed a "book #1", so I am very curious as to how this could become a series? Even though perhaps not every question was answered, I don't think they all have to be. I think the end was brilliant, and wouldn't change a thing.

HIGHLY HIGHLY A MILLION TIMES RECOMMENDED.

Book Review | William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Mean Girls

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

This play was freaking amazing. Maybe that is because the movie is an absolute gem that I love, and giving it the Shakespeare treatment made it even better.

Tina Fey wrote the script for Mean Girls based off a non-fiction parenting book called Queen Bees and Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman - as if we needed further proof for how awesome Tina Fey is. If you have never seen the movie, I highly recommend it. Don't let the setting fool you; despite the trappings of high school melodrama, the movie is sharp, witty, and intelligent.

Naturally then, movie lends itself to being rewritten in a form the Bard might have taken, were he to have written about high school cliques, slutty Halloween costumes, and subterfuge. The only concerns I had going in were how Cady's many voice-overs would be addressed, and how some of the quick scenes from the movie would jump but still be able to mesh together as the movie did. This was handled in a satisfying way by making use of the balcony and of asides from characters while on stage. Those were also used in Shakespeare's actual work, and worked well. The same can be said here. It did not feel jarring or disjointed to jump from stage to balcony and back, because it mimics the same flow of the movie. He also made great use of stage directions and this is 100% written as if it were a play script.

Not only does the author do a fantastic job of fully immersing us in the world of Shakespeare through iambic pentameter (this truly sounds as if Shakespeare could have written it). but he gives some of my favorites lines moments to shine, including one of my all-time faves, "You go Glen Coco!" I laughed through so much of the book because it was a humorous to read as it is to watch.

I loved this book for three main reasons. The first and most obvious, because I already said as much, is because Mean Girls is one of my fave movies. The second reason is because I love Shakespeare. I am one of those who, as a kid, was already into Shakespeare by 5th or 6th grade. I didn't always understand everything I read, but I asked family and teachers when something stumped me, got answers, and I have been in love with his works ever since. The third reason is that this book, and the others pop culture faves that the author has given this treatment to can open up Shakespeare to a whole new audience. Shakespeare is intimidating and frustrating and sometimes even infuriating when you don't understand the language. But here we have something that is 100% of our modern world, dressed up in the fashion of 500 years ago. This makes Shakespeare that much more accessible to those previously put-off, because they can easily recognize movies they love and the plots playing out.

There are a few differences you may pick up on if you are one of those who has watched the movie a million times - mainly having to do with staging and movement. I was aware of the differences only because the author mentioned them in his note. While reading the actual play, I did not even notice. This is another testament to the strength of the author to reproduce this as it could have looked like in Shakespeare's hands.

The Shakespearean language will not trip you up if you have seen the movie a lot (or have most of the lines memorized, like me). I found that I heard the voices of the characters from the movie as I read the lines, which made the reading all the better and did not slow me down because I knew what the author was trying to say then without having to think about it or dissect Shakespearean phrases. Even so, this can still be enjoyed even if you do not know the movie inside and out. If you have not seen the movie, it will still make sense, but you won't catch some of the subtle things that reference the movie, or Tina Fey herself.

Highly recommended.

How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare

Rating: 5 Stars

Loved this book. Loved, loved, loved it. I breezed through the book in a matter of hour one morning - obviously meaning that I did not yet memorize the passages yet for myself. I was interested in the explanations first, and will go back through when my daughter is a little bit older for the big passages. That is kind of a gimme, seeing as how she is yet a toddler. Though, she does have one phrase memorized already, because we say it together before bedtime every night: "And though she be but little, she is fierce" (A Midsummer Night's Dream) and we shout 'fierce' together, because she is.

I was a bit skeptical (as a teacher) about the method the author uses of just rote memorization. But as I read, and realized the author was also explaining what the passages meant in accompanying t-charts, this method makes perfect sense. The author does not just list a bunch of passages, tell you to memorize them, and move on. He begins little by little, first with shorter couplets and such, before moving on to the massive soliloquies. 

This book has so much to offer besides the memorization of certain passages. The author also explains what they mean, gives background of Shakespeare's life and work. The book is just filled with so much Shakespeare-y goodness, I really don't know where to start. I would definitely recommend it to those who find Shakespeare intimidating or *gasp* boring (do I really know people like that? I might, but given that I am not quiet a out my adoration of Shakespeare, perhaps these people in my life have chosen to remain quiet?) Either way, I do believe there is something for everyone here - very obviously including children.

Ludwig states that he started teaching his daughter Shakespeare when she was six years old. I think that is fantastic. Shakespeare is, without question, the single greatest writer in the history of the world. There's no argument, he invented so many words and phrases, most of which we still use today. I guarantee you (and me too, even) use phrases or variations every day that we have no idea started with Shakespeare. His contributions can never be overstated and that is why I wanted this book - I want my daughter to know and love his words as I do.

I did notice some reviews from parents who did not like some of the author's choice of passages - mainly those with sexual overtones. My suggestion: don't teach your child those if you feel they are so inappropriate. Is that really hard? You'd think this would be common sense. There's nothing saying you MUST TEACH YOUR CHILD ALL THE PASSAGES IN THIS BOOK. It would be easy enough to apply the method he uses to ANY Shakespeare passage that you love or enjoy and teach your child in that way. I mean seriously, come on.

I absolutely, positively, 100% recommend this book for anyone wanting to learn more about Shakespeare and his words, to memorize and know his works, not just children. Fantastic read. Go get it!

Shakespeare's Shrine: The Bard's Birthplace and the Invention of Stratford-Upon-Avon

Rating: 3 Stars

Oh you funny Victorian tourists. 

I feel like I should have liked this one better than I did. I think perhaps the reason is, is that the writing was kind of dull at times. I am not particularly interested in Victorian England, and that is really when Stratford became Stratford. So, there's that.

The book, however, does a fine job of tracing the history of the home. The author introduces us to the house in Victorian times, traces the ownership and the task of authenticating it, as well as restoration and the habits f tourists writing their names on the walls. (Yeesh!) It just was not done in a very engaging way to me, and again this could go back to the fact that the place came to be what it was during the Victorian era and nothing makes that interesting to me, unfortunately not even Shakespeare.

I appreciated the fact that there were numerous photographs, carvings, etc. It would have been nice to see these in color though, and not printed directly on the page with the text so they remained in black and white. Or, black and cream, as the pages were not white. The author also had quite an exhaustive list of notes and bibliography that runs some 40 pages. The research is there and it shows, but still it was kind of a struggle to finish this one. That bummed me out, given my Shakespeare obsession. I wanted to like this book a lot better but in the end it was just much more dry than I care for. I don't mean it was overly academic, because I do enjoy my academic texts as much as the next nerd, I really just think it is because the Victorians bore me to tears.

So, give it a go. There's tons of history and information about how that little house in Stratford-upon-Avon became what it is today. Perhaps you will enjoy it more than I did.

Shakespeare's Freedom

Rating: 3 Stars

Do not be fooled by the slimness of this volume. This is by far Greenblatt's more academic work relating to Shakespeare, as compared to Will in the World (also very good though, from what I hear. It's on my to-read list, I hope to get to it soon). This might come as a surprise but there is a ton of information packed into this one, despite only being 160 pages. Greenblatt explores the themes of beauty, hatred, power/authority, and autonomy and he does so well, almost too well.

I think I would have rather heard this as a lecture instead of reading it, as it is a bit dry. However, it is interesting nonetheless due to the content. It is not yet another book about what we *might* know or suppose happened in Shakespeare's life. Instead, Greenblatt looks at his plays and uses them to explore said themes as mentioned above. It might bother some that some of the lesser-known (if there is such a thing) plays are used as opposed to say, numerous obvious examples from Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet, etc. This is a must for any Shakespeare fan, but probably not as enjoyable for the casual reader.

The Millionaire and the Bard: Henry Folger’s Obsessive Hunt for Shakespeare’s First Folio

Rating: 4 Stars

I first have to note that I picked this book up at the museum here while the First Folio was on display as part of it's tour for Shakespeare400. It is the most beautiful book I have ever seen in my entire life. Unfortunately we were, of course, not allowed to take pictures, but you can bet I was standing over that glass case every chance I had that someone else was not waiting to view it. It was open to Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy and I must have read the words a hundred times in the two visits I made to the exhibit. If it has not yet come to your state and will be soon, you must see it. It is completely worth whatever museum admission fee you might pay. It is absolutely breathtaking.

More than anything, this book makes me want to see the Folger Library and bask in the glorious beautiful of so many Folios in one place. Unfortunately they are not accessible to the public and that is terribly disappointing. I do not think I qualify as a special enough scholar with the exact credentials needed to gain access. What a pity.

I understand being obsessed with things, being so obsessive that I have to collect everything possibly related to whatever the subject is. Unfortunately, I will never have the funds to fuel any kind of obsession the way Folger did. He was able to spend obscene amounts of money to secure more First Folios than any other collector in the world, on top of playbills, paintings, and all sorts of Shakespeare-related items. Not only that, but he then proceeded to construct a temple to house his treasures that still stands to this day, one of the foremost authorities on the greatest writer to ever live.

The book begins with a jaunt through the life of Shakespeare, which of course makes sense. Without him, Folger might instead have been collecting the works of Jonson or Marlowe. The bulk of the text though relates to that first purchase that Folger made, then his subsequent quest to collect every Folio he could find - regardless of condition. Like Folger, I am of the mindset that condition does not matter. To have as many copies as possible would be the ultimate goal. Not to mention all the lose pages - it's even mentioned at one point that it may be possible to create another two or three Folios just from said loose pages. This is completely fascinating to me, to see all of those documents and books together in one place.

While I enjoyed the book over all, the actual portions dealing with the acquisitions of the each major Folio were a bit dry and took me the longest to get through. I'm not quite sure why, it is not a poorly written book and the there is no sudden change in style. Perhaps it is again that aspect of money, and knowing that there is no way I will ever be able to indulge myself in anything of interest quite the way Folger was able to in his lifetime? Who knows. But, either way, this section did take me the longest to get through and it has never taken me so long to read a book related to Shakespeare before.

The text really picked up for me again once Folger began planning his grand library and I was anxious to see how it would turn out. The fear he would pass away before it was complete unfortunately came true as I worried it might. But, his wife Emily was there to carry on the dream and I was at least glad to see that the library was completed in her lifetime. I do not find it strange, as the author kind of thought people might, that Henry and Emily Folger are interred in the library that bears their name. it makes complete sense to me that this would be their final resting place, surrounded in death by the collection that was so important to them in life.

One issue I take with the book is the idea that Folger was 'rescuing' the Folios. First and foremost, Shakespeare belongs to England. To think that he and his words would be better taken care of here in the US than in his native England seems kind of pompous. I do not think that was Folger's intention, to be that pompous. Or maybe it was, but as the text states, "His was a selective and singular madness" (page 276) and I think his intent was solely to collect s many as he could. I can understand why the English took issue with the great robber barons of the day rummaging through the cabinets so to speak, and carrying off anything of value that they could find.

Two more quotes I found interesting:

"At the library that bears his name, there is little remembrance or recognition of Folger's other life, the one that paid for it all" (page 273)

and

"In a library filled with signs and symbols that evoke the age of Shakespeare, there is none that evokes the industrial age of Henry Folger" (page 273).

It is unfortunate that in Folger's triumph in giving the world this library, he himself is largely forgotten. We tend to look back now on the industrial age somewhat negatively, to look at the likes of Rockefeller, Vanderbilt and Morgan as these robber baron-esque types who were only concerned with making money for themselves. While Folger certainly was part of that age (he worked at Standard Oil for Rockefeller), he was also a philanthropist and his library is the proof. He could have kept his collection private and never shared it with the world. He chose not to. And so, his and Emily's legacy will live on. Highly recommended.

The English and Their History

Rating: 3 Stars

Rating:

This book is exhausting. So exhausting, in fact, that I am not even sure I can review it properly. I have read more than my fair share of books. One might say reading is my 'thing'. I am especially fond of that little island now called England and its amazing history, going way back to the Iron Age people, through Roman Britain, the Anglo-Saxons, the Normans, the Plantagenets, and the Tudors. Beyond that, my interest starts to wane. In the past with books about the history of England, I have always given up a bit after James VI/I. Sometimes I make it through the execution of his son, Charles I, but rarely. I vowed this time, with this one, to make it through. And so I did. Barely.

So, this one began in what is typically still referred to as the Dark Ages, despite our knowledge of the time growing more clear all the time with new discoveries. The Anglo-Saxons and Alfred are possibly my most favorite of the eras in England's history, so it is always nice to see him given his due. Alfred is, after all, the only king in the country's history to be called 'the Great'.

My concerns with the book come very early on though, as I feel there were many aspects of England's history that were glossed over or not mentioned at all from those early years, in favor of much more material covering the last two hundred years. For example, while we see Edgar Aetheling mentioned, there is almost zilch about his grandfather Edmund Ironside and his brief co-reign with Cnut - it is generally thought that Edmund was murdered by or on Cnut's orders so he could assume complete power. Subsequently there is nothing about Ironside's sons who were spirited out of the country and Cnut's reach. That in itself is a fascinating story and deserved a place. The course of history might look very different for England had someone aside from William I become king. There were many other times that this lack of detail jumped out at me - perhaps because these are among the time periods I know best. The author calls the circumstances of William II's (William Rufus) death 'mysterious', but does not fully elaborate. It is considered mysterious for a number of reasons, considering he was shot in the chest with an arrow and the culprit left the scene immediately - while Henry I (his younger brother, the youngest son) headed straight for the treasury to secure it and the crown, effectively stealing it from Robert who was next in line. Further more, it was strange to me that the author considered Matilda (Henry I's daughter) the antagonist in the civil war between her and her cousin Stephen. When Matilda's brother Henry died on the White Ship, she became the only legitimate heir. At least twice Henry I made his nobles swear an oath to support Matilda's claim as queen, but given the fact that there had never been a queen who ruled in her own right, as soon as Henry I was dead they naturally (for the time period) looked elsewhere. Stephen was the usurper, the antagonist, though Matilda certainly did herself no favors by alienating some who she needed support from. In the end, Stephen agreed for Matilda's son to become king as Henry II, despite Stephen having a son of his own. So began the 300 year rule of the Plantagenets.

There was very little attention given to another of my favorites - Eleanor of Aquitaine. She is hardly mentioned, and only as Henry II's wife. We get a glimpse but that is it and no where does it say that without her gathering the ransom, her son Richard I would likely never have been released from prison. While Richard cared very little for England and preferred his lands in Aquitaine, or the Holy Land on Crusade, him being overthrown by John even earlier could have caused even more destruction.

By the time we get to Elizabeth, all of my favorite periods were covered. This amount to roughly 200 pages out of nearly 900 (1,000 if you count the end notes, index, etc). For the rest of the time it was pretty rough going for me, because it just does not hold my interest the way early England does. I truly don't even understand it myself, how I can be totally enthralled by the first 1,600 years and not care one iota about the last 400. But I was determined to slog on through. As a result, it took me a while and I frequently set it aside for something else. I have to be quite honest and admit I skimmed the Industrial Revolution. Glad it happened and all, but it is a terrible snooze to read about.

I found the Victorian era more interesting to read about this time around, so perhaps there is hope for that in the future. World War I and World War II were great reads from the English perspective, as anything I have read about them in the past have been strictly from an American viewpoint. Throughout the book there were tons of maps to aid the reader with the text, which I have always found especially helpful when discussing battles and troop movements. My only real complaint about WWI material involves the omission of Gavrilo Princip. You may not recognize the name, as so often he is simply referred to as 'the assassin of Archduke Franz Ferdinand'. I feel like it is a disservice to history that his name is routinely ignored. Like it or not, for better or worse, hi actions set of a chain of events that culminated in The Great War, which in turn lead directly to WWII.

I can't speak for the accuracy of the rest of the text due to my limited knowledge of those eras, but I at least found them somewhat engaging - enough to continue reading anyway. This is certainly not a book I would consider as my first if I knew nothing about England's history. It is quite the endeavor and not one to enter into lightly if you are looking for a quick read. On the other hand, if you are more interested in the time periods after the Tudors that are less interesting to me, then this may just be the book for you, as that is the bulk of the material.

100 Documents That Changed the World: From the Magna Carta to WikiLeaks

Rating: 3.5 Stars

Review:

I really love books like this, the '50 Objects..." or "12 Maps..." that 'changed the world' type books. This book is no exception, as it covered several documents that truly did change the world, for better or worse. While I disagree somewhat with some of the items included ('War and Peace' and '1984' - I do not consider books to be documents per se), the majority really do help the book live up to its name. How can you go wrong when writing about Magna Carta, the Emancipation Proclamation, the Apollo 11 Flight Plan, and Anne Frank's diary in one volume?

Turns out, you can. Or, at least not 'go wrong', but you can be lacking in detail and description at times. I understand this is not meant to be exhaustive, seeing as how it is quite slim to begin with, so I will get my complaints out of the way before I delve further in to discuss some of the specific documents addressed that I felt were among the most important. There is only one actual page of textual information devoted to each document, though that page often included a small picture of those who signed, witnessed, wrote, etc. the document. The opposite page was usually a picture of the document itself. Additionally, for a good portion of the beginning, nearly all of the documents were from Western Europe. Not all, but a good majority. Surely there were other important documents that could have been included from around the world and not just those few.

Now, to the documents I found most fascinating - it is also kind of embarrassing to admit that I did not know some of the facts I learned from this text. In my defense perhaps we were not taught those aspects in school? So many of these documents today exist now in the National Archives and I wish desperately to see them - namely the Fort Sumter Telegram announcing they were surrendering, and the Emancipation Proclamation. These were two hugely important documents that exist as a testament to the resolve of our young country - we were willing to go to war with ourselves to achieve the ends we wanted. The telegram began the war and the proclamation set us on the road to ending it. As an aside, I never knew that the E.P. ONLY freed slaves who were living in the states that had succeeded from the Union - AND applied only to those held by the Confederacy. So, apparently it was a shrug and a 'sorry' to the slaves living in areas recaptured by the Union, or the nearly 500,000 living in those border states who had not succeeded.

I am curious about the exclusion of the Gettysburg Address as an important document and thought perhaps it was excluded due to the inclusion of the Emancipation Proclamation. But both Martin Luther's 95 Theses were included, followed directly by the Edict of Worms. Those documents were separated by only four years, but concerned the same topic, so not sure why Lincoln's famous speech was not considered important enough?

Fun Fact: Apparently our Founding Fathers were not terribly responsible. The original copy of the Constitution had vanished at some point after its signing and no one knew where it was until 1846! Also, it has only been on display since 1952; I didn't realize it was such a short amount of time when I visited in 8th grade on a class trip.

A little dirty laundry gets aired here in the form of which states ratified the 19th Amendment and when - you keep it classy Mississippi, not ratifying until 1984. I am not surprised that many southern states were among the last to ratify it.

The 15 year old girl in me who will forever love Titanic could not help but be wistfully glad to see the inclusion of Titanic telegrams included as important documents that changed the world. Movie references aside, it really was a wake-up call to these shipping companies that safety measures needed to change and improve to avoid another tragedy on such a scale.

There were several documents relating to World War I and II, which should come as no surprise. The Treaty of Versailles is always troubling to me, as it basically assured that there would be another war - how could there not be? Germany was forced to take all the responsible for the Great War, only for the fact that they were the last ones standing when the war came to an end. It should shock no one that the Nazis were able to rise and grab power so swiftly; the treaty was crushing and the reparations were impossible.

When I think of a document, I think of something of the non-fiction, factual variety. This is why I struggle with the inclusion of books - manuscripts - in this text. However, I feel that Anne Frank's diary certainly deserves its place. The importance of this diary can not be overstated and if you do not believe me, try standing in the Annex and imagining living in this cramped space with seven other people, the majority of whom you struggle regularly to even get along with. It is one of the most humbling experiences I have ever had in my life and could not imagine spending two years in that place. Anne's diary gave a voice to the millions who had theirs cruelly and violently taken away. I did NOT like, however, that Miep Gies was simply referred to as the 'family friend' who later saved Anne's diary after the family had been taken away. Even with the focus being on the document itself, surely Miep deserves much more credit than that.

There were so many documents that I found interesting, I could keep writing for a while. I will finish this up with reference to a certain CIA document, dated August 6th, 2001, that stated very clearly an attack on the US by bin Laden was imminent. Unfortunately, this memo was handed to one of the most incompetent presidents in the history of our country, while he was staying at his ranch in Texas. You know, one of his 406 vacation days taken in his presidency, or some absurd number that the GOP conveniently likes to forget whenever they complain about Obama playing a round of golf. As a follow-up, the Iraq War Resolution was included but I couldn't even bother to read such garbage.

So, overall, this really is 3.5 stars. There were so many documents that belonged here, but at times their importance almost felt diminished simply because often only the bare facts were included. It is by no means a be-all, end-all for any of these documents and while I can recommend reading this one, I would also suggest further reading on any of the documents that interest you.

A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare: 1599

Rating: 4 Stars

Review:

I will be upfront right away and say that I do not believe for one moment that anyone but William Shakespeare of Stratford-upon-Avon wrote the plays credited to him - not Bacon or Devereaux or anyone else. For a man who wrote, "The play's the thing" (which I realize is followed by, "wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king", but just go with it here), it makes sense to me that we don't know much about his personal life. The plays, the sonnets, those are what mattered to Shakespeare. Fame did not. If it had been important, he would have taken the route of fellow author and frenemy Ben Jonson, and put together a Folio in his lifetime for himself. While the identity of Shakespeare is not the subject of this particular book, I always feel it is important to mention this, given the amount of ridiculousness out there purporting anyone else to be the true Bard.

I've read Shapiro's work before and one thing I appreciated from this book especially is that he is very up front about what little information we actually know to be fact about Shakespeare. In the introduction he says quite plainly that he does his best to acknowledge when facts are unknown and will not deal with conjecture as much as he can avoid it.

1599 was quite the year for Master Shakespeare, and for England in general. Shapiro weaves the story of the country and the story of the playwright together very well, breaking his book up into four seasons, then within each section chapters varying back and forth between life in London and life for Shakespeare and Company. I can imagine London was not a very comfortable place to be living toward the end of Elizabeth's reign, after decades of religious upheaval, assassination plots (real and imagined), the threat of the Armada, Ireland's constant 'rebellions', and so forth. This was the backdrop against which Shakespeare wrote and performed some of his greatest works - Hamlet, As You Like It, Henry the Fifth, and Julius Caesar. It is in this time frame we truly get a sense of Shakespeare the writer, the actor, and the businessman. We get glimpses of how he related to his fellow writers and actors (Will Kemp, anyone?!) and the rivalries that came with his line of work.

Shapiro details the many books and plays that were banned and burned at this time for fear of their traitorous content, and it seems Shakespeare was lucky enough to be one of the few that escaped any kind of censorship. Imagine if he had not been, we might have even fewer copies of his plays than we already do.

This is a superbly written book that really gives the reader a feel for what life was like across the social spectrum for people in many walks of life in that fateful year. Shakespeare has been one of my favorite writers for as long as I can remember, since I first tried to make sense of Romeo and Juliet way back when I was a 5th grader with a habit of reading every book I could find on my uncle Kraig's bookshelf (that's how I discovered To Kill a Mockingbird the following year and my life was never the same). Many times I have wondered what it would be like to travel the city in Shakespeare's time, to see the sights and sounds of HIS London, to see the people and places and other plays that gave him inspiration. Imagine my pleasant surprise to find this gem so early on in the book (page 81):

"But Shakespeare's was an aural culture, the music of which has long faded. Lost to us are the unrecorded sounds reverberating around him - street cries of vendors, church bells, regional and foreign accents, scraps of overheard conversation, and countless bits of speech and noise that filled the densely packed capital."

Simply, beautiful.

The Age of Shakespeare

By Frank Kermode

Rating: 3 Stars

Review:

Quite a bit of information packed into such a short text. I was expecting more of an overview/introduction into England at the time of Shakespeare. While it did give that certainly, the text also mainly focused on the plays themselves, and how they related to life in England at the time, under both Elizabeth and James. It's broken up into different stages in Shakespeare's life and looks at the culture and climate of (mainly) London at the time. An interesting little read and for once even though it was not what I expected, it still held my attention.

Shakespeare's Kings: The Great Plays and the History of England in the Middle Ages: 1337-1485

Rating: 4 Stars

Review:

If you are half as interested in Shakespeare and the Plantagenet dynasty as I am, you will enjoy this one. It is both a history text and an analysis of the Bard's greatest historical plays. The author does a fine job comparing the two, providing first the historical events, then how Shakespeare presented those events. The two did not always match up, but the author also provides sufficient explanations for why Shakespeare wrote this scene this way, or changed the chronology, etc. And it must be remembered too, as the author points out, "...but then (Shakespeare) was not a historian; he was a dramatist. The play was the thing; and if he could amuse, inspire and perhaps very modestly educate his audiences, that was enough."

My only real issue with the book has to do with punctuation: semi-colons are EVERYWHERE.

Otherwise, enjoy!

Additionally:

I also found this quote to be well-said and a concise way to wrap up the historical aspects of the text, and forgot to include it in my review:

"(Bosworth) marked the end not only of the Plantagenets and the Wars of the Roses, but also of the Middle Ages. The England of Henry Tudor and his successors would be a very different - and happier - place." Though, I might add, this would perhaps be truefor some; though not for any of his son's wives (except Anne of Cleves), or the many victims of the religious struggle between Catholics and Protestants.

Alias Shakespeare

Rating: 2.5 Stars

Review:

While Sobran makes a compelling case, he is entirely condescending throughout - often times making assumptions in the same way that he belittles Stratfordians for. It was a chore just to finish this one when muddling through that, which is sad to say, because Oxford himself is so intriguing - regardless of whether or not he is the man we know today as Shakespeare.

The evidence presented is certainly thought-provoking. While I personally will hold to my belief that Shakespeare was Shakespeare, I enjoy reading the evidence that anti-Stratfordians have to offer. Some make interesting arguments and present interesting evidence. Hopefully others do it in a less condescending way. This is not a terrible book as a whole, the most frustrating thing was not the theory, but the author himself. If the authorship question is of interest to you, give this one a try.

The Shakespeare Thefts

Rating: 4 Stars

Review:

Despite some issues with the author's writing style, this was a quick, interesting read.

Oh, what I wouldn't give to own a First Folio.

Additionally:

Okay, so I realize that review was severely lacking in anything that actually resembles  real review. But it is so lovely and romantic to think about the Bard's words still being accessible to us today, recorded for posterity by men who knew him personally. I found Rasmussen and his team's work interesting, but after a brief introduction into their roles, they all but disappeared, much like many of the Folios they seek. I found the anecdotes interesting, my favorite was 'The Pope's Sticky Fingers'. I'm highly intrigued by the copy in Japan that, at the time of printing, they've been unable to yet see up to point of publication in 2011.

As a side note, I appreciate that there was no discussion about the identity of William Shakespeare. I believe he is the man who has been presented through the ages, not Bacon, not anyone else. It is a debate I don't much care for anymore.