Shakespeare

by Bill Bryson

[celinenyx]

I was a nice, fun, quick read, and I feel smarter afterwards. Mission accomplished.

Strengths:
- Mr Bryson makes a good distinction between fiction and fact. As he clearly notes, there are a lot of scholars that think to know how Shakespeare was as a person, even though no one could ever have that knowledge
- Every chapter there is a nice chunk of background information on the time period. For the history dummies out there, this book makes sure you know what it's talking about
- Bryson has a certain way of storytelling that makes Shakespeare an engaging read
- I appreciate his humour immensely

Weaknesses:
- The names. Oh lord, the names. Really, after a while I just couldn't remember all those similar looking British names
- Just like the people's names, I sometimes had problems with the names of Shakespeare's plays. At one point he starts composing lists of which play had been written when by different theories. He completely lost me by then
- I'm not that big on deciphering Elizabethan sentences, so a translating now and than would have been helpful