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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
Grabbed this on a whim as an audiobook to get me through a solo road-trip.
An enjoyable and informative (though by no means exhaustive) overview of William Shakespeare's life and work, how little we actually know about him, and how we came to know what we do.
The last chapter on debunking the various alternate authorship theories was quite good.
An enjoyable and informative (though by no means exhaustive) overview of William Shakespeare's life and work, how little we actually know about him, and how we came to know what we do.
The last chapter on debunking the various alternate authorship theories was quite good.
Love all of Bill Bryson's books. Unfortunately with this book he was saddled with a person that there is very little historical information so a lot of the information is suspect and guess work. Still it's Bryson so you know it's going to be entertaining and humorous.
Loved this book! I only have a few more plays to read (feel free to visit https://allshakespeareproject.wordpress.com/). It does a great job putting us into Shakespeare's world. I also like how Mr. Bryson takes a good look at whether Shakespeare actually wrote the plays and poems.
V
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This overview of Shakespeare’s life improved greatly as the pages increased. At first, it honestly felt like Mr. Bryson was begrudgingly completing a college research paper and, becoming exasperated by the lack of factual information, instead presented a (very interesting) history of Elizabethan London! The emphasis right from the beginning was how little we actually know about the life of William Shakespeare. It was fascinating to learn that most of what has been presented to us as biography is in fact, conjecture. Mr. Bryson, in typically wry, readable, and exciting form, instead provided a history of the main players in London during Shakespeare’s life then placed the known puzzle pieces into the solid history. The final chapter was ultimately my favorite as it addressed the many theories about alternative authors of Shakespeare’s works, then debunked them one by one. Overall, this lovely, brief analysis of the life of Shakespeare was a nice supplement to some of the more weighty, academic biographies out there.
Hilarious, engaging and (surprisingly) very educational.
A good solid summary of Shakespeare's life and work, and the people and events surrounding him.
I had no idea we knew so few hard facts about Shakespeare’s life.
informative
lighthearted
medium-paced
I loved Bryson's approach - especially his discussions on Shakespeare's language. It was an easy listen, read by the author, and I loved his attention to why the Shakespeare-was-the-author deniers are wrong. It was a joy.
informative
reflective
slow-paced