Off the shelf
Excerpt: "Shakespeare's Book" by Chris Laoutaris
Chris Laoutaris explores the Shakespearean printing mystery behind the Pavier-Jaggard Quartos, published a few years before the First Folio.
Excerpt: "White People in Shakespeare"
White People in Shakespeare examines what part Shakespeare played in the construction of a “white people” and how his work has been enlisted to define and bolster a white cultural and racial identity.
Excerpt - "Super-Infinite: The Transformations of John Donne" by Katherine Rundell
“Spiritually speaking, many of us confronted with the thought of death perform the psychological equivalence of hiding in a box with our knees under our chin: Donne hunted death, battled it, killed it, saluted it, threw it parties.” Read more…
Excerpt: "The Final Curtain: The Art of Dying on Stage" by Laurence Senelick
Shakespeare’s plays provide ample opportunity for dramatic deaths onstage, and 18th-century English actors like David Garrick transformed simple stage directions in the text into “stirring set-pieces,” as Laurence Senelick writes in the below excerpt from his new book, “The Final…
Arthur Murphy's 18th-century collection of humor - Excerpt: "Laughing Histories" by Joy Wiltenburg
“Murphy may be the first person in history to subject laughter to such intensive and extensive study, at least from the perspective of a laughter professional,” writes Joy Wiltenburg about the 18th-century writer’s 500-page compilation of humor, in this excerpt…
Excerpt - "Susanna Hall, Her Book" by Jennifer Falkner
In the opening scene of Jennifer Falkner’s novella “Susanna Hall, Her Book,” the queen of England has just arrived at New Place in Stratford-upon-Avon. But Susanna, the eldest daughter of William Shakespeare, has reasons for not wanting to host Henrietta…
Gaming and grieving with Shakespeare: Gabrielle Zevin’s new novel puts the ghostliness in gameplay
Sophia Richardson explores how Gabrielle Zevin’s new novel about video games, “Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow,” is also a book about Shakespeare.
The soliloquy and Hamlet - Excerpt: 'The Elizabethan Mind' by Helen Hackett
Helen Hackett explores Shakespeare’s use of the soliloquy in “Hamlet,” including the famous “To be or not to be” speech, in this excerpt from her new book, “The Elizabethan Mind: Searching for the Self in an Age of Uncertainty,” published…
A summer Shakespeare adventure: 'Her Majesty’s Will' by David Blixt
Austin Tichenor recommends an adventure novel starring a young Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare, who uncover a plot to assassinate Queen Elizabeth.
Excerpt: Jonathan Bate's preface to the RSC's second edition of Shakespeare's complete works
“To know Shakespeare thoroughly and read him well aloud, it was necessary to have a usable edition of his works, a text that did away with printer’s errors and the vagaries of old spelling and punctuation, that explained the more…
Excerpt - "William Shakespeare’s Avengers: The Complete Works" by Ian Doescher
The Bard meets the MCU in Ian Doescher’s reworking of the four Avengers films as a Shakespearean play. Read an excerpt from the epic Battle of New York scene from the first Avengers film.
Bottom's dream - Excerpt: 'Reading Shakespeare Reading Me' by Leonard Barkan
This excerpt from Leonard Barkan’s new book “Reading Shakespeare Reading Me” explores Bottom’s awakening and recollection of his enchantment as a donkey in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”