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Apr 19, 2008

James rated it:

This is a delightful little romp through Elizabethan and Jacobean England. It’s witty, in typical Bryson style, and it’s filled with obscure facts about England during Shakespeare’s time. Sometimes you’ll just laugh out loud.

Bryson uses lots of ink to tell the reader what Shakespeare was not. Apparently, fans, scribblers and even scholars have spent so much effort in conjecture about Shakespeare because so little factual evidence of his life exists outside of his plays. Bryson thoro More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Nov 05, 2011

Shovelmonkey1 rated it:

Well, that was a quick and easy read, very pleasant too thank you Mr Bryson. After reading this book I have learned loads about Shakespeare - NOT! Having being forced to study him for A-Level English and worship at the alter of Shakespeare like a good student I was also suprised how little is known about him. My best memory of learning about Shakespeare was being asked to write an essay on the use of natural symbolism in "A Winters Tale". Being a slightly cocky and beligerent teenager More...

2 comments like (4 people liked it)

Mar 13, 2008

Jason rated it:

(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com:]. I am the original author of this essay, as well as the owner of CCLaP; it is not being reprinted here illegally.)

No matter where on the planet you're from, it seems that there is at least one figure from the early Renaissance period (1400-1600 AD) who's had a huge and profound impact on your society's culture ever since: here in the English-speaking world, for example, that would be playwright and p More...

0 comments like (10 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2007

Elizabeth rated it:

There's a saying that someone with a Liberal Arts education can speak well on many subjects, for about five minutes. Bill Bryson's Shakespeare was written for the liberal arts student in all of us. It's a very clever, and not poorly researched, analysis of what is known, and what is not, about William Shakespeare. And since it's Bryson, it's an egaging and easy read. No one else would note that many of the proponents of other people having written Shakespeare's plays were named Looney, Batty, an More...

1 comment like (11 people liked it)

Apr 13, 2009

Martine rated it:

I love Bill Bryson. The man can take any subject and make it interesting, simply because he has this unfailing flair for adding details which make you grin. He does so to great effect in Shakespeare, his two-hundred-page biography of the man affectionately known as the Bard, which will delight Shakespeare aficionados as well as people who know virtually nothing about Stratford's most famous export product, such as myself.

Two hundred pages is not much for a biography of the world's g More...

9 comments like (5 people liked it)

May 27, 2011

Jeanette rated it:

Shakespeare's biography is sketchy, and ever thus it shall remain. This little book represents Bill Bryson's attempt to collect what scant information exists, and to debunk a few spurious claims. I can't say I know much more about Sweet Will now than I did before reading the book, but Bryson is not to blame. People didn't reliably keep records 400 years ago. There were no standardized spellings for English words, so a lot of what was written down is indecipherable. Furthermore, no one antici More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 17, 2008

Matt added it

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0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 27, 2007

Mazzeo rated it:

This audio book focuses on the concrete facts known about the life and works of William Shakespeare starting in his life time and coming through to the present. Given the volume of work available on Shakespeare it surprised me that Bill Bryson, who until recently focused on personal experiences, in a memoir sort of way, would tackles the subject. It’s not a question of talent, but his work is interesting largely because of his views, reactions, and musings on the topic. Additionally, this is More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 12, 2007

Erin rated it:

This was interesting and informative. I knew very little about Shakespeare as a person other than what was presented in Shakespeare in Love which was very liberal in its interpretation of the facts. Bill Bryson presents a well researched, easily digestible little book but ultimately it proved somewhat frustrating because the main point that he makes is that there's really very little historical record of anything to do with Shakespeare. Almost everything we think we know about him (including More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 04, 2007

Robin rated it:

I've always been a Shakespeare fan since I first saw Julius Caesar performed in my school cafeteria in 6th grade. Like a lot of people, I do rather wonder what the man himself was like -- and this book is a wonderful look at just why we'll likely never know. Bill Bryson is just as witty and readable as always -- the man does have a flair for making apparently difficult topics appealing to almost everyone, see A Short History of Nearly Everything. The great thing is that while there are hundre More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 12, 2009

Stephanie rated it:

Bryson has always been one of my favorite writers, but here, wherein he turns his attention to a subject near and dear to my heart... just, wow. It's such a splendid book, marvelously written and well-researched. He focuses more on all that we do not know about Shakespeare, and how facts about him have been invented for centuries to fill in gaps. He also reflects on the Elizabethan and Jacobean societies and the role of Shakespeare's work within them. Loved it. Seriously. Adored. **Swoon**

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 30, 2008

Guy rated it:

Most people not obsessed with Shakespeare, faced with the 16,000+ books about him that have already been written, would conclude that everything worthwhile that could be said has been. Not Bill Bryson... and lo and behold, he's right! Bryson's insight was to see that what was needed was a book that would cut away the forests of conjecture to reveal the little that we really know about Shakespeare... and why this is so.

Along the way he pokes fun at some of the more off-the-wall Shak More...

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May 06, 2010

Jocelyn rated it:

As usual, Bill Bryson tells a great story even though he isn't making it up. Consistently funny. I love the way he uses adverbs and adjectives. The thing about this book is that he hasn't actually got much to say about Shakespeare, because so little is known about him. Bryson spends a lot of time discussing Shakespeare's contemporaries, and Elizabethan/Jacobean theater, and what we don't know, and wild scholarly theories with absolutely no real evidence to back them up. But even though a lot of More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Apr 16, 2008

Lynne rated it:

Let me start out...I am not a fan of Shakespeare (or Shakspere, Shaxspier, Shkspr - see book), never was. Yet this book was great, delving into the mystery of his life. I had no idea just how little we know of him and how scholars spend their whole careers in pure conjecture about him. This is a well written, fascinating book and even made me just a little curious to go out and read Shakespeare...ok well maybe not that curious. Anyway, I recommend it to anyone who likes a little mystery mixed wi More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 12, 2007

Jenny rated it:

Two of my favorite things: Bryson and Shakespeare! Together! And they don't disappoint! Bryson is just witty and clever enough to spice up what is otherwise merely a thorough debunking of the classic Shakespearean biography. Truth is, we know almost nothing about The Bard's real life, and Bryson chronicles this non-knowledge for just under two hundred fairly entertaining pages. A quick read, but a worthy one. (It must be said: not knowing much about the man who wrote Shakespeare's plays does not More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 05, 2009

Huckleberry rated it:

It's almost annoying how well Bryson writes...he feels effortless to read in the same way as Julian Barnes or Hemingway. It's a joy but the annoyance comes in the delusion that I should be able to do something that seems so simple.

Though disappointingly short, this is an excellent read and was the perfect companion for a cold post-Christmas Sunday afternoon. Bryson is honest throughout about the lack of information that exists about Shakespeare, and much of the book tells of the del More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

sage rated it:

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0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 04, 2012

Terry rated it:

This book asks a simple question "What do we actually know about Shakespeare?" and then does a wonderful job of exposing how little we do. The book is a trickle compared to the water spout of Shakespeare works that come out each year but I hope it washes away many of them. Even though he wrote a book on the fellow, Bryson refuses to use the term Shakespeare which suggests the immensity of research on the man.

The author constantly refers to his sources when pointing out thin More...

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Dec 30, 2011

Scott rated it:

A delightfully splendid book that I can highly recommend, both due to its brevity and its entertaining prose. Bryson brings the world of Elizabethan England to life, well as much as that is possible in light of how little is known about the details.

My favorite thing about Bryson's writing in general is his talent for delivering information without being verbose or pedantic. In both of those senses, this book does not disappoint. Herein you will find details about Shakespeare, h More...

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Dec 26, 2011

Marta rated it:

Leave it to Bryson to write about a subject that has been done literally thousands of times and still make it not only fascinating but feel new. Setting all presumptions, assumptions, and previous theories about Shakespeare aside, Bill Bryson gets down to the bare facts that exist on the elusive historical figure and allows readers to come to their own conclusions. He covers everything from his early life and family to his plays to his death to, finally, the long tradition of doubters as to whet More...

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Oct 18, 2011

Danny rated it:

I'll admit it. The minute I start hearing about Shakespeare or British life in the 1600s, I go a little hazy. I start to get tired. So tired. And eventually I give up reading whatever it is that I'm reading.

Out of all the Shakespeare biographies out there, I chose Bill Bryson's, "Shakespeare: The World as Stage" because it was by Mr. Bryson, who is hilarious, and because it is short.

"Maybe I'll learn something!" I thought.

Well, I did. Bu More...

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Aug 01, 2011

Janet rated it:

As someone who has only ‘discovered’ Shakespeare in her 40s, I think this book is the perfect introduction to him and his life.

I didn’t really know an awful lot about Shakespeare apart from the fact that he died on St George’s day, and that this date is popularly given as his birth date too. This is taken from the Christening records which show he was baptised on 26th April. It was usual for babies to be baptised within a few days of birth due to high infant mortality rates. Oh, and obviousl More...

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Jun 11, 2011

Chuck rated it:

This book is from the Eminent Lives series. A collection of short biographies that are "succinct, essayistic, and enlivened by a strong point of view..perfect for an age short on time." This is a quite accurate description of this life of Shakespeare, which covers his life in less that two hundred pages.

Thus, I wonder what is left out. But is anything. Certainly, as the book proves, there is not much we actually know about the life of Shakespeare. Bryson, in his terse and More...

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Jun 02, 2011

Benjamin rated it:

A wonderful read. Bryson is both informative an entrancing in this short study of the Bard of Avon. He sets out to prove two things, more or less: that Shakespeare was almost definitely Shakespeare, not Francis Bacon or any other among the 50 plus suggested "Shakespeares," and that we know quite a bit less about the man's life than we imagine, "which," Bryson writes, "is one reason, of course, [the book is] so slender." He skillfully proves Shakespeare was Shakes More...

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Apr 11, 2011

Donna rated it:

Though my readings habits cover a variety of genres of fiction, I've never really spent a lot of time reading non-fiction. I hope to delve more into historical non-fiction in future, as it comes closest to telling a story with a beginning, middle and end. This slim book by Bill Bryson is no exception. I was fascinated throughout my reading experience, which lasted only a few days, to my chagrin.

I'd never read Bryson before, but he'd been recommended to me by many friends who knew of More...

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Sep 10, 2010

Marigold rated it:

I really enjoyed this short course on Shakespeare by one of the wittiest men ever, Bill Bryson! I've read some of the longer bio's on W. Shakespeare but it's challenging to remember the details when they usually throw in lots of information about each individual play, & lots of pseudo-information that's really speculation - because we know so few concrete facts about WS. I enjoyed this book because Bryson goes out of his way to stick to what we really know & leave out the glamor & glorifications More...

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Aug 07, 2010

Becky rated it:

So some people have said that the more you learn, the more you realize how little you know. Apparently that's how it is with Shakespeare - the more you try and find out about him, the more you realize how little is actually known about him.

Bryson presents what is basically a compilation of all the other research done into Shakespeare's background. He doesn't hold back in mocking people who have speculated and impresses upon the reader the importance of only sticking to the cold, hard More...

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Jun 24, 2010

Brant rated it:

I picked this one up at a garage sale with a, "What the heck, why not?" kind of attitude. This is my third attempt to read a Bryson book all the way through, yet to succeed (made it mostly through "Walk in the Woods" and I made it through a third of one of his early travel books). I guess I don't understand what the big deal is about Bryson. Yeah, he is cynical, yeah, he is a good writer, but I don't think he has a reached a level of carte-blanche-I'll-write-about-anything-an More...

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Jun 13, 2010

astried rated it:

I had the first inkling of mistery surrounding Shakespeare's history from Jasper Fforde's Friday Next series. Reading this books gave me more background of what the problem really was and people involved in it. It was astounding how little the scholars know about Shakespeare's life and how much assumptions and wild guesses gotten print across the years. As Bryson said, he tried to only present the fact, which why his book is so short :) Had he really only wrote about Shakespeare's life fac More...

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Mar 04, 2010

Chris rated it:

I wish I owned Shakespeare because man, would I be richer than Bill Gates.

Bryson's book is okay. It's a quick read and is ideal for any student who is starting at in the study of Shakespeare. For a long time student, the best bit of the book is the last chapter where Bryson demolished the "Shakespeare didn't write Shakespeare" ~~heretics~~, ~~sillies~~, ~~nutters~~, people's arguments.

Overall Bryson simply presents the facts and doesn't not speculate or guess (I love wh More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

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