Shakespeare | Raging Biblio-holism

New Boy

May 23, 2017 by Drew

The Short Version: It’s a month before the end of the school year and Osei, son of a Ghanaian diplomat, is starting his first day at a new school in a new city: Washington DC. He meets fellow sixth grader Dee and the two immediately fall for one another. But troublemaker Ian (not to mention the barely-covertly racist teachers) are having none of it… and by the end of the school day, much will have changed for everyone. The Review: […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Fiction, Hogarth Shakespeare, Literature, New Boy, Othello, Shakespeare, Tracy Chevalier

Nutshell

November 18, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Trudy has separated from John, her poet husband, and shacked up with his brother, Claude. As the two plot John’s murder, there is an additional witness: John & Trudy’s baby, who approaches his nine-month-terminus and relates to us this most unfortunate story of woe… The Review: When I first heard that Ian McEwan was writing a story set from the perspective of a fetus nearly come to term, I was admittedly a little concerned. Would it be […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Book, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Hamlet, Ian McEwan, Literature, Nutshell, review, Reviews, Shakespeare

Roundup, September 2016

September 30, 2016 by Drew

James Bond: Vargr by Warren Ellis and Jason Masters 4 out of 5 The Short Version: After a revenge mission in Helsinki, Bond returns to London and is handed a case from his fallen comrade’s workload. A new drug has hit English shores and his job is to break up the trafficking operation – but what should be a simple in and out job turns out to be anything but. The Review: The idea of Warren Ellis taking on James […]

Categories: Fiction, Roundup • Tags: 007, A Chooseable Path Adventure, Action, Choose Your Own Adventure, Classics, Family, Fiction, Graphic Novel, Hamlet, I'm Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reed, Ian Fleming, James Bond, Jason Masters, Jens Peter Jacobsen, Literature, Niels Lyhne, Philosophy, Ramona Ausubel, Riverhead, Ryan North, Shakespeare, Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty, Spy, Thriller, Tiina Nunnally, To Be or Not to Be, Transhumanism, Translation, Vargr, Warren Ellis, William Shakespeare

Romeo and/or Juliet

June 27, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Maybe you think you know the story of Romeo and Juliet… but do you really? Do you know about the part with the robot suits? Or the time that Juliet got super buff? What about a version where they don’t even die at all, not even a little? Write your own version(s) of the classic story with seriously thousands of possible outcomes! The Review: I missed the boat, somehow, on Ryan North’s delightful original choose-your-own-adventure (or, sorry, “chooseable-path […]

Categories: Fiction • Tags: A Chooseable Path Adventure, Choose Your Own Adventure, Fiction, Humor, Literature, Riverhead Books, Romeo and Juliet, Romeo and/or Juliet, Ryan North, Shakespeare

Vinegar Girl

June 6, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Kate Batista is a strong-willed woman nearing 30. She went from being a promising biologist to being a college dropout, taking care of her doddering scientist father and bubbly, boy-crazy younger sister – and she doesn’t quite know what comes next. Meanwhile, her father’s research assistant’s visa is about to expire and so the two men cook up a plan to keep Pyotr in the country. All they need is Kate to agree to marry him… The Review: The […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Advance Review, Anne Tyler, Baltimore, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Hogarth, Hogarth Books, Hogarth Shakespeare, Kiss Me Kate, Literature, Reviews, Shakespeare, Taming of the Shrew, The Taming of the Shrew, Vinegar Girl, William Shakespeare

Shylock is My Name

January 20, 2016 by Drew

The Short Version: Simon Strulovitch is a present-day art dealer in Northern England whose daughter is running amok. As she rebels from him and from their shared Judaism, he chances a meeting with Shylock himself – and finds his only option for satisfaction being to demand his pound of flesh. The Review: It should come as no surprise that one of the world’s foremost Jewish authors would take on one of Shakespeare’s thorniest plays and most anti-Semitic plays. What does surprise – […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Advance Review, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Hogarth Shakespeare, Howard Jacobson, Judaism, Literature, Philosophy, Religion, Reviews, Shakespeare, Shylock, Shylock is My Name, The Merchant of Venice, William Shakespeare

The Gap of Time

September 30, 2015 by Drew

The Short Version: Leo and Xeno are childhood best friends – but when Leo’s manic jealousy gets the better of him in adulthood, believing that Xeno is having an affair with Leo’s wife, it splinters not only their friendship but Leo’s family. But all that is lost can be found again and, some sixteen years later, a young girl named Perdita and a boy named Zel fall in love – and bring two families back together again. The Review: Covers are […]

Categories: Fiction • Tags: Advance Review, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Fiction, Hogarth, Hogarth Books, Hogarth Shakespeare, Jeanette Winterson, Literature, Reviews, Shakespeare, The Gap of Time, The Winter's Tale, Theater, William Shakespeare

The Bookman’s Tale

November 7, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: Peter Byerly can barely function in the world since the loss of his wife. But when he stumbles across a portrait of her seemingly painted in the 1800s, he finds himself forced to reenter society and wrapped up in a mystery that might actually solve the mystery of Shakespeare’s true identity once and for all… The Review: There is great debate in our society about the identity of the man who wrote the plays attributed to William […]

Categories: Fiction, Mystery • Tags: Apocrypha, Book Collecting, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Booksellers, Charlie Lovett, Ephemera, Fiction, Literature, London, Mystery, Reviews, Shakespeare, Stratfordians, The Bookman's Tale

Station Eleven

September 4, 2014 by Drew

The Short Version: A famous actor suffers a heart attack onstage during a Toronto production of King Lear – and outside, civilization is just beginning to crumble. An incredibly virulent pandemic decimates the world population in days but some survive. Spanning an impressive breadth of time from the actor’s early days to nearly twenty years after the flu hit, Station Eleven examines five lives that converge in ways nobody could have expected. The Review: This is one that grabs you from the get-go. […]

Categories: Fiction, Literature • Tags: Advance Review, Apocalypse, BEA14, Book Review, Book Reviews, Books, Emily St. John Mandel, Fiction, Flu, Georgia Flu, King Lear, Literature, Reviews, Shakespeare, Station Eleven, The Tournament of Books 2015

Raging Biblio-holism

The overwhelming urge to collect, consume, and consider books

Tag: Shakespeare