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Title: William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius by Anthony Holden ISBN: 0-316-51849-2 Publisher: Little Brown & Company Pub. Date: 01 July, 2000 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $29.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (7 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: excellent - should be on every English student's shelf
Comment: Somewhat to my surprise, this is a first-rate popular biography of a genius about whom we know practically nothing. Not that this has stopped any number of amateur sleuths from the Baconians to Eric Sams from trying to find clues in the poems and plays. Holden's is by far the liveliest and most readable. He doesn't make the mistake Anthony Burgess did of spraying his own personality over Shakespeare in the usual tom-cat fashion; nor is he bonkers, excessively academic or portentous. If you want to discover as much as can be known or surmised about the Bard, especially the early years, then Holden's book is fascinating. His thesis that the SHakespeares all closet Catholics, and that the young WS was sent as a teenager to recusant Lancashire to teach at Sir Thomas Hesketh's house as good an explanation as any of how the "rude groom" acquired polish and knowledge of how aristocratic families lived. His gloss on his marriage, the untimely death of his son Hamnett and his growing interest in his daughters all substantiated by apt quotations.
A wonderful piece of detective-work. Alongside Joanthan Bates's The Genius of Shakespeare it's a great new addition to the modern enthusiast's library.
Rating: 1
Summary: Painful Reading
Comment: I found the book to be extremely hard to get through, wordy and boring. The entire book focuses on direct quotations from all of Shakespeare's works with little focus as to why the quotations were included in the text. The book gives the reader little of his personal life, personality, or political views, but focuses only on hundreds of people that he knew and met throughout the years giving detailed explanations of names, and their backgrounds. I found the book to be very boring, with little content on Shakespeare as a person; the book featured only comments on his hundreds of works. If you are EXTREMELY well versed with Shakespeare's works, this is a good pick for you. If you have some to little knowledge, pick something else. For the student who needs interesting information on him as a person, choose another book. I found it to be dry, repetative and only in depth on quotations from thousands of plays.
Rating: 5
Summary: One word more
Comment: Some of the other reviews incite me to add yet a few more words. Holden does NOT blur fact and fiction. He consistently lables speculation and inference, identifies sources, outlines opposing views, gives reasons for his choices, and qualifies his conclusions. His reading of the plays, while brief, reaches deeply into the heart of Shakespeare's works. This is a responsible and valuable book.
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Title: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson ISBN: 0767908171 Publisher: Broadway Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
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