Shakespeare Books

Today even well trained actors balk at having to do Shakespeare. This book provides the tools necessary to bridge the daunting task of getting your mouth around the words and understanding what you are saying. Thanks to the authors for creating a book that captures their extensive knowledge and expertise in a user friendly volume.

Beyond the pronunciation dictionary, essential to every North American actor and director of Shakespeare, the book's notes on scanning Shakespeare's verse set forth briefly in ten clear pages, not extended pedantic garble, what an actor must know, since scansion may dictate pronunciation. The additional notes on dialects, accents, Latin and other foreign languages used by Shakespeare, and the observations on differences in poetic diction in each of his plays, also have great value.

This is as essential a tool for any actor performing Shakespeare as the voice, body and mind! I highly recommend it to anyone who is serious about their craft.

GREAT FIND!! Any and every word Shakespeare ever wrote is in this book with the proper pronounciation. This is a "must have" for any Shakespeare actor, or for someone who wants to read Shakespeare and know exactly how to say every word. Also, the verse speaking techniques are excellent. If you are serious about Shakespeare, get this book!

This incredibly thorough and efficient book is essential to any person who wishes to study or truly appreciate Shakespeare. I've been an actor and a student of English literature for many years, but I did not have the access to or admiration for classical works that I have gained since using Younts' and Scheeders' text.
The poetry is better this way! You need to know how to say it if you want to perform it! Actors, Directors, and Lovers of Shakespeare, GET THIS BOOK!!!

I have seen productions of this play several times and each time it's hilarious! Now reading it I realize what geniuses the Reduced Shakespeare Company are - especially the writers Jess Borgenson, Daniel Singer and Adam Long! The book is worth it's price just for the footnotes. Their clever, witty, and yes - bawdy (Shakespeare would have been proud!) humor is priceless!

I am a high school drama teacher, and we bought copies of the Compleat Works of William Shakespeare Abridged for classroom use. They have been delightful to use, and perfectly correllating with the Reduced Shakespeare Company DVD that we have enjoyed in the past. The best part of all is how the kids retain the recognition of lines and scenes, even when we are viewing or reading other versions of his works. They love getting in front of the class and working up these zany parodies of the classics. I rate it 5 out of 5!!

Absolutely Hilarious! I would love to go see this play, however the book has annotations that are priceless, so you won't want to miss this either. You won't be able to put this down.

I bought this to decide whether or not to audition for a part in a local theater group performing the play. I didn't audition because I was on the opposite side of the atlantic ocean at the time, but five stars without question. The Reduced Shakespeare Company does a hilarious job of telling every single shakespeare play faster than ever before. Read this play!

Awesome. As fun as a show can be. Audiences will love it. Readers will laugh aloud heartily.

In his wonderful and fascinating book Unspeakable ShaXXXspeares, Richard Burt, the leading scholar of Shakespeare and film studies, pioneers research into the manifold ways Shakespeare enters into American popular culture. Concentrating mostly on film but attending as well to television sit-coms, Burt offers penetrating insight into everything from mainstream adaptations of Shakespeare to "low" spin-offs in which Shakespeare's language almost entirely disappears. Burt explores both what film and mass media have done to Shakespeare and also what Shakespeare enables our culture to do trhough film and other electronic media. Readers intersted in this book will be happy to know that Burt has since edited a related collection entitled Shakespeare After Mass Media and has co-edited Shakespeare, the Movie II.

One doesn't usually expect to find oneself laughing when reading a book of criticism written by an academic, much less a book on Shakespeare. But Burt's book is frequently just that, funny to the point of making me laugh out loud. Burt has a refreshingly off-beat sense of humor, and the materials he has discovered--such as an adult movie version of Hamlet--aer themselves often hilarious as well, though not always intentionally so. But far from being just a laugh riot, the book is also a serious, critically sophisticated analysis of Shakespeare's fate incontemporary mass media, where much of hte lnagugae is cut or confined to well-known quotations. Burt's final chapter on films about teaching Shakespeare is quite moving, and Burt has the courage to raise difficult questions without pretending he is able to answer them. He is right to think that the questions are more important than the answers. Burt is to be congratulated for writing his book in a clear and engaging prose style without sacrificing the complexity of his thought.

One of the many strengths of Burt's truly excellent book is that it not only discusses Shakespeare adaptations but uses Shakespeare, or of ShaXXXspeares, to discuss post-war American popular culture. Burt's theory of the loser as critic has ramifications for all criticism, not just Shakespeare. This is a profound, original, and engaging book.

I happened to be doing research for my thesis on Shakespeare in the university library and, while looking for other books, I was intrigued by the three XXXs in the title of Burt's book on the shelf, so I pulled it off and looked through it. What a daring work of cultural criticism! When I saw the chapters on Shakespeare porn, I marvelled both at the courage of the man to write such a book and how at the publisher who took it on. Of course, I check it out and read it. I especially was drawn to the chapter on action films and Burt's point that while the films cannibalize others, no one in the films ever eats; the characters are anorexic. The book is full of similarly wonderful insights. I am a cinephile, and very much appreciated Burt's quite hip approach to ShaXXXspeare. Now, it's back to those other, rather staid books of Shakespeare criticism, I was orginally looking for.

Whatever you think about Shakespeare, it is impossible not to agree with the points Burt makes in this book. His analysis is right on the money and you will never be able to look at Shakespearean movies or literature in the same way. A fantastic book and a must read.

Very good collection of Shakespeare. All his plays and sonnets together in a hardcover, easy to read, beautiful collection. Of course may be not suitable for book collectors but perfect for almost every other reader. The very low price of this product (at least the time this review was written) makes this collection a "must" for every serious reader of Shakespeare.

Great editions with helpful annotations. Portable with individual editions as opposed to the giant single edition. Only down side: the long poems aren't included.

This is apparently only from Amazon, and is based on the 40 volume set of paperbacks published by Penguin Group from 1999 to 2002. Then the entire 40 volumes appear in the one volume The Complete Pelican Shakespeare (Pelican Shakespeare). So why only 38?

What it is missing:

It does have King Lear, but not the other King Lear(s), from the paperback that contains the 1608 original long quarto version and the 1623 scaled down First Folio version, both in the same book. The King Lear contained in the set is from the paperback that contains the more common conflated text, in popular use since Alexander Pope. So, there were two King Lear paperbacks published, and you get one of them in hardcover -- the most commonly used one.

The Narrative Poems (Venus and Adonis, Lucrece, The Phoenix and the Turtle, The Passionate Pilgrim, and A Lover's Complaint) are not in this set. I have no idea why this was left out, and it seems inexcusable.

All of these are available in the one-volume Complete Pelican Shakespeare, but both sets are missing The Two Noble Kinsmen, partially authored by Shakespeare (maybe because it appeared in no folio?). This is available in the Riverside, which is a very good, scholarly edition, but the Riverside has its own set of problems.

The Pelican version is easier to read than the Riverside, is also based on good scholarship, has better print quality (at least with the volumes I possess), has full character names throughout the play rather than three letter abbreviations, and has a numbering system that lets you know when there is a note on the text to explain difficult or out of date words or phrasing. It also updates the spelling of a few of the words, like "murther" to "murder" and "owe" to "own" where appropriate, but does not overdo it. All of this makes it worth getting this set.

I ordered this set two days ago for $59.60, on 7/7/08, and apparently the price went up today (7/9/08) to $119.60. It is worth it at either price in my opinion, to have the plays in separate books, in hardcover, and in larger print than in the complete sets. I would recommend watching for price decreases, but who knows? It may never fall that low again. I just know it was about $89 and lower for many months.

Having the plays in individual books is very convenient and increases the enjoyment, but I would still recommend, for the enthusiast, to get one of the complete sets even if you have the single editions, for they always come with extra materials that are interesting and are great references. They are just not as easy to carry with you wherever you go.

Having recieved my set just over a week ago, I've examined all thrity-eight volumes, and have even read a few from beginning to end, and I have to say that this is one incredible deal. The price comes to little more than $1.50 a book, which is less than a fourth of what you'd pay for just a single paperback edition of any one of these plays.

The volumes, while plain in appearnce, are well made, using acid-free paper, solid bindings, and a satin ribbon for marking one's place--they will clearly last for years, no matter how often they're read. And the essays that begin each volume are also first-rate. While each volume contains the same brief accounts on the theatrical world and the texts of Shakespeare, they also offer individual essays on each respective play that do an excellent job of placing the plays in their proper historical and literary contexts. Also, the notes at the bottom of each page are an excellent reference for making clear -- without having to flip to the back of the book -- all of the obscure allusions and words one typically encounters when reading Shakespeare.

Finally, I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to be free once and for all from those large single volume Shakespeares that I'm used to reading--you know, those hefty tomes the size of the New York City phone directory with tiny print that can only be read comfotably while sitting at a table. For years I've wanted to own a multi-volume collection of Shakespeare, but the price has always been prohibitive--that is until now.

To sum up, if you're considering buying the collected works of the greatest writer of all time, a writer who rewards repeated readings with ever-new and amazing insights each time you take him up, then this is the collection to get. To buy any other edition would be a waste of money.

This is just an absolute steal at $60. There are negatives: the set doesn't include the narrative poems (e.g. The Rape of Lucrece and Venus and Adonis), and it doesn't include The Two Noble Kinsmen, which most scholars agree was written partly by Shakespeare and partly by John Fletcher, and is of particular interest because if Shakespeare wrote parts of it, it is his very last surviving written work. Also, the hardbacks are not of the highest quality -- they're not bad by any means, but these are not deluxe volumes.

But these things are completely outweighed by the sheer amount of Shakespeare you're getting for the money here. 37 plays and 154 sonnets (and of course, these are some of the absolute best plays and poems of any era, in any language), all for less than $2 apiece. That's spectacular. Technically, you can get Shakespeare's works cheaper, if you want to get one of the huge 1,000+ page tomes of densely packed text like the Riverside or Oxford Shakespeare. And, those are probably better scholarly texts, as well, so serious students and scholars should probably use them. But this is by far the cheapest way to get all of the plays in their own separate hardbacks, which was the deal breaker for me. I bought these plays because I want to READ them, and no set out there is as reader-friendly as this one. If, like me, you simply want a set of Shakespeare's works that is easy and fun to read (and looks sweet on the bookshelf!), then you have to get this. You won't regret it.

...particularly if you are one of those people who think Shakespeare is boring or too difficult (most of us remember the NIGHTMARE of getting through one play at school, right?). Well, kiss boredom goodbye, banish your nightmares and prepare for a TREAT! This is funny, intelligent, fast-paced and heartbreaking, all at the same time - rather like Shakespeare, in fact!

If you're a sucker for Shakespeare, like me, I would defenately bye this book. I had a proffessor who told me once that people go to the movies to escape from reality. This movie supports that statement. When I watch this movie or read the screenplay I fall into another time were love is the object your heart longs for most. One thing I like about this movie is how it brings facts into a fictional affair. The "actors" portrayed in this movie really did exist and they played in the very theatres dipicted; I love that! Marlowe, Shakespeare's "enemy" was really stabbed in a bar fight and there are many more factual things about the movie. I also like how the writers made it so that Will Shakespeare gave Viola the sonnet Shall I Compare Thee To A Summers Day and incorporated Romeo and Juliet into the movie. Sheer genious! And a great tear jerker! Wonderfully acted and written. It makes you fall in love with a time period almost forgotten. I simply loved it!

This movie showed us what true love really is. One person said "Ryan should have gotten best pic". Well, Red Line was way much better than that pic becuase it explored emotions and showed the feelings of each character. Ryan...good effects. Shakespeare In Love is well written and well acted. It is a love story that is never told. Just like our own lives.

I truly love this book! It shows passion,love,comedy,and history.The movie, Shakespeare in Love is my favorite movie, so I loved this book!

Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard wrote the screenplay of Shakespeare in Love. The film is marvellous and so powerful that no one can resist that love drama. The story of Romeo and Juliet is itself so frightfully emotional that no one can resist the charm of the tragedy and the pain of the love story. So many artists, in so many genres and arts, have tried themselves at adapting this story, this play, this tragedy to their stages or screens or canvasses, and all have been inspired so deeply by Shakespeare's story that Romeo and Juliet have become a true galaxy of masterpieces and stars. The latest ever produced is Shakespeare in Love and the screenplay is richer, more poignant and freer than the images of the film. The screenplay is enriched with stage directions that are so brilliant, so precious that the text, the dialogue, what is going to become the words of the actors, is enhanced and beautified by them. After a while we don't even know what is the gem and what is the golden bed that carries the gem. The screenplay is by itself a work of art, a masterpiece, and the film, if you watch it again afterwards, finds tremendous new meanings and undeemable finesse in the recollections you may have kept of all those lines that are not said, that are not shown, that are at best translated into images, settings, flying visual impressions that the words of the stage directions anchor in your memory, your heart and your brain with delicate tendrils that cannot break anymore. Any lover of Shakespeare, any lover of literature, any lover of love dramas and hate tragedies must read that screenplay to see how laughter and tears can intermingle in an unbreakable alliance. Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, Universities of Paris, IX and II.

this book was recommended by the instructor for a course on Shakespeare I took, to help those of us who were new to the literature and language of Shakespeare. It was an amazing resource and made it much easier to read and write about the plays. It's clearly written, explains the story well and any historically significant information that might be of importance to the play's history. This is an excellent suppliment for anyone reading Shakespeare.

This really does sum it up best:

"Shakespeare's genius is marked by his rare ability to appeal to theatergoers of all types and all levels of education. But for most modern folks, the Greek and Roman mythology and history, let alone the history of England and the geography of sixteenth-century Europe that his works are laden with, are hardly within our grasp. Isaac Asimov comes to making obscure issues clear to the layperson, selects key passages from 38 of the great bard's plays plus two of his narrative poems and, with the help of beautifully rendered maps an figures, illuminates us about their historical and mythological background."

Asimov is a genius, Shakespeare is a genius, it takes one to know one.

October 21, 2007

If you want to understand Shakespeare or just appreciate him more,this is a "must have" book.

Highly recommended for Shakespeare fans.

Gunner October, 2007 Comment | Permalink

This is the book if you want to start exploring Shakespeare. And don't get me wrong: it is not shallow -- on the contrary! -- but it is a very uncomplicated reading. Totally worth it.

As usual with Asimov works, this guide is absolutely superb!! I fully recommend it to readers attacking Shakesperare for the first time

I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel! This book is fantastic historical fiction. I thought it was going to be a historical romance but, oh no. It's not. If that's what you're looking for, read this anyway. I've never been more enthralled by battle scenes, politics and, oh, the drama! It's witty, smart and poignant. There's nothing to disappoint, aside from having to wait for the next installment!

This book is the perfect gift for any Shakespeare buff. I can't wait for a sequel.

I wont reiterate all the fine praise that all the other reviewers have input here, all the reviews state exactly how I feel. I just feel the need to say Bravo Mr. Blixt! This debut IS, a literary masterpiece. Clap clap clap, let's all give a standing ovation. Historial fiction does not get any better than this. The reader is immediately pulled in and the author does not let you go until you close that last page almost 600 pages later. A reader picking up this novel will get everything a novel has to offer. Action, adventure, murder, mystery, romance, family feuds, battles, duels, politics, kidnapping, humor and real people who lived at this time of the 1300s Renaissance Italy. Jammed packed with all you could ask for and I doubt that any reader would be disappointed. Sensational!! I am eagerly awaiting a second book.

Lots of reviews praise David Blixt for his historical accuracy, and they involk the 'Shakespeare buff' label...yeah, yeah, yeah - they are right BUT don't let that scare you - if you are not a 'Shakespeare Buff' or history buff - you will also LOVE this book. Mr. Blixt writes about history, but the way he writes is full of adventure, imagry, and intrigue. He's right up there with Clive Cussler, Dan Brown and Tom Clancy - only its better because you feel SMARTER after you read Master of Verona. I can't wait until Orlando Bloom makes the movie.

This book is a masterpiece. To call it a mere historical novel is like calling the Iliad or the Divine Comedy adventure stories. They're that-- and a great deal more. So is this book. It interweaves historical characters with characters from Shakespeare (some of whom were also real people) and still others from the author's own imagination.

The period detail is superb, the dialogue sparkles; the personalities of the main characters are subtle and complex; the action sequences stunning in their vividness and realism.

Even the minor players are intriguing, and the reader comes to care about their fates as well. I found myself rooting for the bluff and decent Bailardino Nogarola (a historical figure), and feeling a grudging respect for the cynical, hardbitten, but at heart ethical warrior, Asdente, a fictional creation who bears the name of a character from Dante's "Inferno."

Towering over all the other characters, though, is the master of Verona himself: Cangrande della Scala. Blixt's portrait of this larger-than-life historical figure is brilliant and unforgettable. He's the linch-pin of the story-- a medieval Julius Caesar at once utterly charming and totally devious, who embodies a fascinating combination of nobility, ruthlessness and steely authority.

The author also touches on an area ignored by historians: who were the mothers of the numerous out-of-wedlock children fathered by Cangrande? We get a glimpse of the anguish of one such woman-- clearly not a peasant or a prostitute, but a woman of some social standing-- as Cangrande (whose marriage was childless) coldly claims the son he fathered with her and takes the child away to be raised as his heir. The author offers an explanation when he mentions later in the book how certain men eagerly pimped their wives and daughters to Cangrande in exchange for a piece of property or an advantageous business deal. You don't find this kind of insight in the average historical novel.

Another excellent feature of this novel is that the author
clearly defines for us what is fact and what is fiction. His list of characters at the beginning indicates which are historical figures, which are from Shakespeare, and which ones are fictional creations. There's also a useful Afterword where the author cites his sources, separates the factual and fictional aspects of his story, and defends (very successfully, I think) his decision to mix the two in his narrative.

In my review title, I suggest that readers bring at least a little knowledge of Shakespeare's Italian plays to their reading of this book. Oh, you don't HAVE to, but it's fun to spot characters and phrases from those plays scattered throughout the text. Of course there's the obvious Romeo and Juliet "back-story," but there are a lot of other Shakespearean bits. It doesn't hurt to know some Dante, as well, although no knowledge of either poet is required in order to enjoy the book.

More than merely interesting, this work is absolutely mesmerizing, and is an even more amazing achievement when you find out it's the author's first novel. Despite its length I finished it in a couple of days and was sorry when it ended. I'll look forward to the sequel, and hope Blixt won't make the mistake of killing off Cangrande. Without him, the sequel will be as disappointing as the second season of HBO's "Rome" without Julius Caesar.

This was the text for my college Shakespeare classes over 20 years ago (different edition of course) I still have it and still use it. A wonderful book for students and those who want not only the complete works but some well written and authoritative information about Shakespeare and the world in which he lived and wrote.

The texts of the plays are well foot-noted and the type is easy on the eyes. Well worth the investment.

If you can't afford the Oxford Edition of Shakespeare's complete works than this is the next best edition you can find.

While reading reviews of this edition elsewhere on the Web, I came across this review by David Allen White, professor of English @ the U.S. Naval Academy and editor (with Charles Boyce) of Shakespeare A to Z:

"Re-writing Shakespeare is nothing new. The Nahum Tate version of King Lear--with the happy ending--held the stage for nearly a century and a half. The great actors of the romantic age, Kean and Booth and Macready, not only spotlighted the heroes in the tragedies but felt free to beef up their roles. Directors began more than 50 years ago to monkey with the historical settings of the play, often with imaginative and instructive results. Scholars, critics, and directors have ridden various hobbyhorses through the plays for years, introducing us to Freudian Hamlets and Marxist King Lears and feminist Tamings of the Shrew.

"Recent Shakespeare production and scholarship, however, add a perverse twist to this long tradition. We no longer care what the Bard actually wrote. Years of deconstructionist theorizing have taught us that words are needy and we, readers or actors or scholars, have the right, indeed the obligation, to give them the gift of meaning--our meaning, the more bizarre the better.

"For the 23 years that I've taught Shakespeare at the United States Naval Academy, I have always used the same text, The Complete Works of Shakespeare, edited by David Bevington of the University of Chicago. Professor Bevington is an old-school scholar with a distinguished career. The book he edited had many advantages: large print, full character names before each speech, specific indications of settings, modernized spellings, solid introductions that connected the plays to the students' experience of love and politics, morality and order, passion and faith, and comprehensive but not overwhelming notes. Every few years a new edition would appear, and I would open it with interest and a little apprehension. But the changes would be minor--thinner paper (approaching the substance of tissue, a malady afflicting many recent books), hints here and there of encroaching academic perversity in the notes--nothing sufficient to make me seek another text. The 4th edition's introduction to The Tempest caused me to swallow hard: We learn there that Prospero's authority "is problematic to us because he seems so patriarchal, colonialist, even sexist and racist in his arrogating to himself the right and responsibility to control others in the name of Western and Christian values." But this is an imperfect world, and I soldiered on.

"Notified that a 5th Edition would appear this fall, I took time to examine it closely. Many of the introductions remain the same; but new editors and commentators have significantly altered others. Despite the myth of progress that reigns in all the disciplines of modern academia, "new" is often far from "improved." Apparently, Professor Bevington has either ignored the changes or allowed the young scholar-colts to have a romp. In some of the new introductory essays, especially under the guise of new brief histories of stage performance, questionable judgment, to put it mildly, has crept in. For example, the introduction to Othello ends with the following observation:

'In another recent development, Emilia has stood out in several productions as the raissoneur and heroic figure in the play, speaking as she does on behalf of maltreated women, urging Desdemona to stand up for her rights. One recent Chicago production went so far as to rewrite the ending: Othello and Iago both survive unpunished for what they have done, while Desdemona and Emilia lie dead as their innocent victims. This deliberate and provocative overstatement might seem extreme to some viewers, but unquestionably did signal the direction of recent performance history of the profoundly disturbing play.'

"It may be time to stop buying tickets to that great play.

"The current obsession in academia is "queer theory," and the homoerotic is everywhere, not just in Shakespeare studies. But this particular perversity fills the introductions to the new Bevington, especially the introductions to the comedies. Compare the following passages, the first from the introduction to As You Like It in the 4th Edition, essentially a carry-over from earlier editions:

'Rosalind's disguise name, Ganymede, taken from Jove's amorous cupbearer, has homoerotic connotations that are easily misinterpreted today. Shakespeare delicately acknowledges the suggestion, to be sure, both in Phoebe's pursuit of a young lady (but really a boy actor) in male attire, and in Orlando's courtship of "Ganymede" as though addressed to Rosalind. Yet this innocent titillation, found also in Shakespeare's source, is not meant to hint at homosexual attraction as we understand it. On the contrary, the point is that Orlando can speak frankly and personally to "Ganymede" as to a perfect friend, one to whom he can relate in platonically spiritual terms without the distracting note of sexual interest.'

"These are eminently sane and sensible remarks. Now from the Introduction to As You Like It in the 5th Edition:

'Rosalind's disguise name, Ganymede, has connotations that suggest ways in which human sexuality can be partly understood as socially constructed. If Rosalind in disguise as Ganymede wins the affection and eventually the love of Orlando, while her father and the others are equally taken in by the disguise, are maleness and femaleness chiefly matters of sartorial convention and superficial appearance? When Phoebe falls in love with Ganymede, is not her infatuation a way of showing that the roles of the sexes can be put on and off? Theatrically, the device of having a young male actor play Rosalind who then disguises him/herself as a young man adds to the witty confusion of sexual identities by introducing homoerotic possibilities. Not only can the roles of the sexes be put on and off, sexual desire itself is unstable...'

"This is ideology masquerading as interpretation.

"To be sure, the range of possible interpretations of Shakespeare's work is wide, for he encompasses all of humanity and tells profound and mysterious truths about human life. Such inexhaustible expansiveness invites discussion and dispute and differences. At the end of the Introduction to Richard II in this volume, for example, there is a brief but superb account of various interpretations of that rich role by leading actors. Professor Charles Forker of Indiana University provides that account; another old-school scholar, he knows more about that play than any other living soul. Too many of the revised introductions, however, are more interested in advancing the latest academic-political orthodoxy than in discovering and illuminating the natural and conventional moral order so abundantly on display in Shakespeare's works. Nothing is more orthodox--still--among contemporary literary critics than the alleged truth that there is no truth, that all interpretations are valid except the author's own.

"Thus Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream can be presented as "the denizen of a drug culture, with the love potion as the weed he gleefully distributes. The experience of the forest becomes a drug-induced 'high,' for audiences as for the actors. The fairies, sometimes played by adult and hairy males, can exhibit a streak of cruelty." And, indeed, in a recent production at the Shakespeare Theater in Washington, D.C., the fairies were hairy males who carried something like miners' lights. So much for lightness and charm and magic. This same Dream introduction gives the game away in words that are echoed in many of the other essays: "These modern interpretations are arguably neither more nor less 'true' to Shakespeare's text than earlier or more 'traditional' versions. What they do demonstrate is the play's remarkable permeability and openness to differing views."

"The new Bevington retails for $90; in good conscience, I cannot ask students to fork over such a sum of cash for a book that is now rife with nonsense. So next fall I'll assign The Riverside Shakespeare, which fortunately is still in its 2nd edition. I fervently hope it is not soon updated.

"Of course, the Bevington volume has come to reflect the universities it serves, where young students pay small fortunes to be taught that there is no enduring meaning or beauty to be found in the poetry of Shakespeare, no tradition worth preserving, no "truth" other than personal whim and innovative foolery. If the price of the new Bevington is petty theft, the tuitions charged by these institutions have become, at least for the study of the humanities, highway robbery.

"I know a father who gave his son the equivalent of a year's tuition and told the lad to go to Europe, to travel, to observe, to learn for as long as the money would hold out. The young man came back after two-and-a-half years, mature and educated, and instantly found a good job. The time has come for imaginative, alternative learning. I talked recently with a very intelligent young woman who loves literature; she is completing her sophomore year at Yale, where she had hoped to pursue an English Literature major. She informed me with sorrow that she was abandoning that plan. Her reason was quite simple: she had already sat through too many classes where lunacy prevailed. She mentioned the possibility of looking at traditional Catholic convents. Could this be the first refreshing drop of a wave of the future? It would not be the first time that civilization was preserved in the convents and the monasteries. Nymph, in thy orisons, be all of Academia's sins remembered."

(Allen, David White, "An Unweeded Garden," The Claremont Institute, http://claremont.org/publications/crb/id.959/article_detail.asp [originally published March 22, 2004])

I guess it's safe to say that, based on his review, Professor Allen'd give this edition 1 star...right?

I purchased this book as a birthday present for a graduating high school student who is a big fan of Shakespeare.
This volume has a lot to offer to both students and casual readers. In addition to very readable text of all the plays and sonnets, the fifth edition provides historical and literary context, including drawings and photos, as well as insightful essays on each of the plays. The essays include background, plot summaries and discussion of major themes and would be very useful to anyone seeing a play, especially for the first time. The helpful glossary is extensive, so the reader doesn't have to look up unfamiliar words or feel intimidated by the language. Professor Bevington's fifth edition of the Complete Works is a gem, authoritative and attractive. The birthday girl thinks so, too-- she gives it an A+.

This is truly a great book. Not only does it contain all of Shakespeare's works but it also has an enormous amount of information. There's a little bit on his life and a bit more about the theater during his time. There are also some great drawings in the beginning of the book.

And so Asterix meets the Romans. This is the perfect place to start with the series, as it is the first book. Little idiosyncracies are evident. This was before the final forms of the characters were imagined, so you get some variance of what they look like. It's hard to put into words, but they're definitely different.

I don't think it's possible to overestimate how interesting and important this comic strip is. Not only is it extremely entertaining, it's interesting and well drawn. Also, if you care to read a little below the surface, many other things: scathing critique of expansionism, romans, and likely catholics. Also the chief of the Gauls is Vitalstatistix, a nod, I think, to Gamers everywhere. Plus... Here's more hidden meaning.. Put Gaul and Rome together, and what have you got? Game. Of course, the romans lose a certain amount of face... heh. Anyway, I'll add more when I think of it.

Every Asterix rules, doesn't matter which one, it rules!
These things are hilarious, has anyone ever read the French version?

Wonderful. what more can I say. You got to have it.

Thanks to the magic potion of the resident druid, Getafix, Asterix and Obelix triumphantly defend the borders of their village against Caesar's legions, to the legions' great dismay ("I hate those Gauls"). My personal favorite is "Asterix and Cleopatra" where they travel to Egypt to help Getafix's buddy Edifis win an architectural contest between Ceasar and Cleopatra. Oh, and the Sphinx's nose? Obelix did that.

In this graphic novel series there is great storytelling, superb drawing, awful puns, wonderful sound effects (yes, really), and sneakily, insidiously, while you're laughing, you're learning.

Asterix lives in the Gaulish part of the Roman Empire. Doesn't he? Not quite, his village resists the Romans thanks to a magic potion. The Romans want some of this potion for themselves...

"Asterix the Gaul" was the first Asterix comic, published in 1961. Rene Goscinny made the words and Albert Udzero did the pictures. It's a pretty good way to start the series though the sequel "Asterix and the Golden Sickle" (1962) sets up the vibe the other comics enjoy.

My twelve year old daughter and I listened to this book together, and in a rare instance of complete agreement, we both pronounced it EXCELLENT. We repeatedly found ourselves engaged painlessly in converation about what should have been difficult themes, such as all the different "wars" in Holling's life, the Shakespearean notion that conflict and humor can exist in the same time and place, lost opportunities, etc. Whether this book is a "winner" in literary circles is an issue I will leave to the experts. What I can say without reservation is that the book is truly a "winner" in terms of young person enjoyment and in terms of potential for readily sparking important conversation.

This is the first book I've read by Schmidt and I stayed up late just to finish it. There are many things I loved about this book. For one, Holling seems just like any ordinary 7th grade kid but then through his periods with Mrs Baker, he develops into a remarkable young man. Family life during the 1960s to early 1970s was also vastly different. Children were not as spoiled and usually listened to their parents even though they may have felt some resentment. I also liked the way Schmidt allowed the humour of so many situations in the book to surface so much so that I believe that most kids, boys especially would enjoy this book. I am now going to try and find a copy of Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy!

Wonderful, refreshing, silly, plausible...I loved this book and highly recommend it for children and adults. It's a quick read with clean verbage. How unusual!

Wow! If I could give this book 6 stars-I would. I have read lots of middle school books, and yes a few have been excellent. This one was nearly impossible for me to put down. The book was so funny in parts, that I had a difficult time trying to stop laughing. Other parts were exciting, touching, a bit sad, and very thought provoking. Yes, this book is easy to read, but not at all shallow by any stretch of the imagination. It really has a lot to say, but does it in a subtle non-preachy way.

I think anyone grades 5 or up would love this book. The book is told through the eyes of a 7th grade boy, and it is comes across so real it is impossible not to have a connection with this character. You don't have to be a middle school teacher or an avid reader to love this book. It is one of those very few books that knocks down all walls and invites all readers to enter.

On the suggestion of a friend who has excellent taste in books, I bought this book for my eleven year old son, who's appetite for books exceeds what I can keep up with! It was so gripping that he sat up until two in the morning to finish the book. (I can sympathize; I've done that!) His review (five stars) for the library book club was so enthusiastic that the next night I sat up until two in the morning to read it! This is probably the best recent children's book I've found! I loved it! And it gently introduces topics such as racism, the Vietnam war, bullying, determination and self-sacrifice that parents can discuss with their children. Kids love the book because it's witty and has a great story. Then again, I loved it for that too! So four thumbs up, two from me and two from my son!