Shakespeare: The World as Stage

An interesting book about Shakespeare's life.
There is much speculation about his life as the earliest books were written years after his death. Many important documents have been lost.

OK, so this book should be subtitled, what we don't know about Shakespeare....which is a lot. I much preferred the book "Will in the World", because, yes, there's a lot about Shakespeare which is unknown, but the other book put the little we do know in context with the history and culture of the time and his "place" which make it a more compelling read for fans of Shakespeare. Still, it was an easy read and I did learn a bit more about the man (and it helped me clarify some of the misconceptions I thought I knew).

Fascinating. So little is known about William Shakespeare, or can be confirmed. What is known is based of off scant public record from the time. The rest is filled in with theory and conjecture based off of customs and standards in Elizabethan and Jacobean England. Bill Bryson is a gifted non fiction writer.

For someone who is so well known, there is really not much known about Shakespeare. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who didn't know of Shakespeare, which is pretty impressive for a guy who lived in the 1500s.

Bryson is such a good writer when it comes to fleshing out facts into something that is entertaining and memorable. Even he concedes that this is a very short book because if we're going on fact, there isn't much to go on. Shakespeare led a life off the papers, showing up only sometimes in court documents. We know he married young, had children and went to London for the theatre and wrote fantastically brilliant plays. Little else is known but much else is speculated.

Bryson tries to weed fact from fiction in this book and, when laid out as such, it's amazing to me how much is just guessed at about Shakespeare's life.

This is an interesting little book if you like the bard but you won't really learn a lot. But if it's facts you're after, they are here.

Pretty interesting and I'm grateful that Bryson saved me the time of reading the more speculative books about Shakespeare. Though I suppose I might find my way to those also eventually.