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Throughout my time on the forum I've had various people ask me for an introduction to reading Shakespeare, and have often been remiss in getting back to them (special apology, JJ). I bought this book and find it everything the reviewer below says. I discovered, after all, that I could not recommend one play as an introduction; this book might help which to choose. Also, fyi, I do not recommend the prolific Harold Bloom.
best, Perdita
'Essential Shakespeare Handbook': A Bard Compendium - MICHAEL AGGER, NYTimes
Despite a graphic design that calls to mind a middle-school World Cultures textbook, the ''Essential Shakespeare Handbook'' (DK, $25) deserves a place next to your edition of Shakespeare's plays. Leslie Dunton-Downer, a former lecturer at Harvard, and Alan Riding, the European cultural correspondent for The Times, have written a guide to the poems and plays that is scholarly without being recondite, succinct without being superficial. Its ideal use would be as a warm-up before attending a performance. The authors carefully outline plots and break out important lines and speeches, and explain period imagery and language. (Indeed, the tyro might soon be able to pull off a few Shakespearean ''pre-laughs'' -- in which eager, or pretentious, audience members chuckle in anticipation of the pun they know is coming.) Yet the book also rewards extended reading. There are excellent sidebars on topics like heckling (Elizabethans tossed cabbages, at French kings and actors alike), and random fun facts (the cannon shot at the end of ''Henry VIII'' in 1613 burned down the Globe). Ultimately, the book's graphic scheme celebrates the free-for-all of the Shakespearean universe: the performances -- whether by John Gielgud, Paul Robeson or Keanu Reeves -- and the interpretations, from Orson Welles's voodoo ''Macbeth'' in Harlem to Akira Kurosawa's, set in medieval Japan (''Throne of Blood''). Should one attempt a complete front-to-back reading, the result would be a thorough grounding in Shakespeare's work and an enlarged astonishment at the range of his imagination.
best, Perdita
'Essential Shakespeare Handbook': A Bard Compendium - MICHAEL AGGER, NYTimes
Despite a graphic design that calls to mind a middle-school World Cultures textbook, the ''Essential Shakespeare Handbook'' (DK, $25) deserves a place next to your edition of Shakespeare's plays. Leslie Dunton-Downer, a former lecturer at Harvard, and Alan Riding, the European cultural correspondent for The Times, have written a guide to the poems and plays that is scholarly without being recondite, succinct without being superficial. Its ideal use would be as a warm-up before attending a performance. The authors carefully outline plots and break out important lines and speeches, and explain period imagery and language. (Indeed, the tyro might soon be able to pull off a few Shakespearean ''pre-laughs'' -- in which eager, or pretentious, audience members chuckle in anticipation of the pun they know is coming.) Yet the book also rewards extended reading. There are excellent sidebars on topics like heckling (Elizabethans tossed cabbages, at French kings and actors alike), and random fun facts (the cannon shot at the end of ''Henry VIII'' in 1613 burned down the Globe). Ultimately, the book's graphic scheme celebrates the free-for-all of the Shakespearean universe: the performances -- whether by John Gielgud, Paul Robeson or Keanu Reeves -- and the interpretations, from Orson Welles's voodoo ''Macbeth'' in Harlem to Akira Kurosawa's, set in medieval Japan (''Throne of Blood''). Should one attempt a complete front-to-back reading, the result would be a thorough grounding in Shakespeare's work and an enlarged astonishment at the range of his imagination.
