I always say Shakespeare’s plays: they are endlessly fascinating, so layered and complex, so staggering in simple terms of language, that you could read and reread them, again and again, until a rescue boat arrived (or didn’t arrive). His plays remind us of the miracle of the human imagination, which defies the most basic laws of physics—the creation of something from nothing (or nearly nothing—some shards of old recycled plotlines), and the
