You know how people ask about desert island books? For a few years my pat answer has been The Complete Works of Shakespeare and occasionally someone tries to tell me that I'm cheating for choosing a box-set. I owe Paul Collins thanks for providing this extremely readable history of the First Folio, which I can now use to stuff down the pie hole of haters who won't let me take the Bard to a desert island with me.

Seriously, if publishing is your thing, then this is like an episode of CSI but for books. I learned so much about the history of publishing by using the first folio as a case study that I doubt that there is a better book to use as a lens.