Interred with their Bones - Review

This is a new novel I picked up recently. I know the Shakespeare challenge has not started yet, but I just wanted to link to my review as I really really enjoyed this novel.

Interred with their Bones

Shakespeare Challenge Participants & new books

Here is the list of people (so far) who are planning to do this challenge.

3M
Ex-Libris
Shannan's Books
Callista
Susan
Naida
Historia

The 1599 book that someone mentioned is called "A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, by James Shapiro, although my copy of the book has this cover.

And I just received from Harper Collins today, Bill Bryson's new book called Shakespeare - The World as Stage. It's not due to be released until next week (October 23rd) so I might read it early, just to help generate good sales.

Another good suggestion was left in the comments. One new book to try is "The Shakespeare Diaries: A Fictional Autobiography, by J. P Wearing." This is actually a mixture of fact and fiction with fascinating insights and conjectures. This also seems to be an English book, not North American. In Canada, (Toronto & Montreal) you might want to look for it at Nick Hoares.

Shakespeare Challenge

This challenge is about William Shakespeare. Your challenge (if you choose to accept it) is to read 4 (four) books about Shakespeare. Not just the plays but anything about him.

You can read fiction, non-fiction, anything that supports his being the author, anything that does not support him being the author. If you want to read the plays and/or the sonnets, that's fine too.

This challenge will run for 6 months, from January 1st to June 30th, 2008. Crossovers are acceptable.


If anyone wants to join this blog, please email Historia with your email address, and I will send you an invite.

Edmund Ironside, Shakespeare's Face and other musings

Went shopping today and picked up 2 very interesting books about Shakespeare. And I have found a new website. Elizabethan Authors.

I have finally been able to purchase a copy of the book Shakespeare's Face, by Stephanie Nolen. This book is about the discovery and research on the Sanders Portrait.

Has anyone ever heard of a play called Edmund Ironside? This book Shakespeare's Edmund Ironside The Lost Play was published around 1986 by Eric Sams.

E.B. Everitt and Eric Sams have argued that this play is perhaps Shakespeare's first drama. According to Sams, Edmund Ironside "contains some 260 words or usages which on the evidence of the Oxford English Dictionary were first used by Shakespeare himself.... Further, it exhibits 635 instances of Shakespeare's rare words including some 300 of the rarest." However, this argument has failed to convince the majority of Shakespearian scholars. [Wikipedia]


And back in April, some nice person left a comment that suggested that I read the book The Mysterious [William] Shakespeare by Charlton Ogburn - all 890 pages of it. First I have to find it. Here's an interview with Mr Ogburn before he died.

Just a reminder that you can see the 6 supposedly authentic Shakespeare signatures here.

So Who was Shakespeare?