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3.78 AVERAGE
3.78 AVERAGE
This was a cute and interesting book. I never realized just how much we DON'T know abnout Shakespeare. As always Bill Bryson entertains as he educates.
This is the first Bill Bryson book I've read, and I can see why he is popular. His style was friendly, and I liked the way he dealt with the subject matter. I feel like he takes a subject that could potentially be stuffy and inaccessible and livens it up.
A short and entertaining introduction to the man and his work, it’s easy to feel Bryson’s love for the language and the stories.
What struck me most was how little we actually know about the man.
What struck me most was how little we actually know about the man.
This biography of William Shakespeare is mostly about how much we don’t know about him. I found it interesting how people of the time didn’t care about spelling things consistently, including their own name. I’ve worked as an editor for years, and the notion of spelling words haphazardly is completely contrary to everything I’ve ever been taught.
This has more detail than I really needed. I had no idea how unhinged some people can be in trying to find facts about Shakespeare as well as how obsessed some people are trying to prove Shakespeare didn’t write the plays that we read and see performed today. Part of the reason some folks don’t believe he could have written what is ascribed to him is that he didn’t have the kind of formal education other of his contemporaries did. “Shakespeare’s genius had to do not really with facts, but with ambition, intrigue, love, suffering—things that aren’t taught in school.”
There is some humor in this as Bryson’s work is known for—mostly the jokes come at the expense of the Puritans who hated joy and were forever trying to shut playhouses down. There is also a lot of talk about how frequent plagues shuttered the theaters and devastated the population, something to keep in mind since all of us, in the last year and a half, were a bit shocked how a pandemic meant closing much of the world to attempt to avoid overwhelming hospitals and trying to keep the rates of severe illness and death down. It was a new thing for people who live today, but a completely common occurrence back then.
This has more detail than I really needed. I had no idea how unhinged some people can be in trying to find facts about Shakespeare as well as how obsessed some people are trying to prove Shakespeare didn’t write the plays that we read and see performed today. Part of the reason some folks don’t believe he could have written what is ascribed to him is that he didn’t have the kind of formal education other of his contemporaries did. “Shakespeare’s genius had to do not really with facts, but with ambition, intrigue, love, suffering—things that aren’t taught in school.”
There is some humor in this as Bryson’s work is known for—mostly the jokes come at the expense of the Puritans who hated joy and were forever trying to shut playhouses down. There is also a lot of talk about how frequent plagues shuttered the theaters and devastated the population, something to keep in mind since all of us, in the last year and a half, were a bit shocked how a pandemic meant closing much of the world to attempt to avoid overwhelming hospitals and trying to keep the rates of severe illness and death down. It was a new thing for people who live today, but a completely common occurrence back then.
This was well-written and certainly had the typical flavor of a Bryson book. I just don't find Shakespeare all that interesting, I'm afraid (but that does not affect my rating).
A brief but solid biography, providing Elizabethan and Jacobean context while delineating the few actual facts we have about Shakespeare from the legends and suppositions that have become well-known over the centuries since he lived and wrote.
Well written and a delight to read. I learned so many fascinating things about Shakespeare and I love Bryson's writing. Funny and informative
There's a lot we don't know about the life of William Shakespeare, but this book goes through much of it and also has an interesting discussion about conspiracy theories about the authorship of his works. Interesting read; I learned a lot.
funny
informative
medium-paced
This was a very infuriating read. I was after a light-hearted mini biography, but what I got was a dry book from which I learnt very little. Most of the book was spent repeating how little we actually can know for sure about Shakespeare and how experts disagree on almost everything about his life. This is obviously not the author's fault as many records, the few that were kept in the first place, have been lost in the 400 years since, but the constant repetition of maybes and 'we can't know for sure' was frustrating. Even the topics that were discussed were not done in the interesting, witty way that I was hoping for and I honestly remember very little from the 200 pages that I read... except that the whole world knows very little about Shakespeare and agrees on even less.