This book is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. I read Margaret Atwood’s book in the series, Hag-Seed, a year or so ago but wasn’t crazy about her play within a play retelling of the Tempest. I’m reading Edward St. Aubyn’s contribution to the series now, Dunbar, and not quite sure yet how I feel about his version of Lear. This re-imagined Othello set on the playground of my youth, however, is fantastic. I was immediately drawn to the echoes of that time: monkey bars, playing jacks, jump rope rhymes and […]
A powerful and devastating Shakespeare adaptation
I’ve not read all the Hogarth Shakespeare project books yet, but I do like literary adaptations of classic works. The Austen Project books have not all been amazing, but most of the interpretations have been original and engaging, and they’ve shown me how a classic work rooted in its time finds its legs in a different century. Tracy Chevalier, whose historical fiction is among the few that I will read as a matter of necessity (with the exception of At the Edge of the Orchard), […]
Lady, what are you hollering?
Well, I started the year off with a whimper. This book was glowingly recommended to me by a good friend who has led me in the past to some good stuff, so I jumped on it. I was disappointed, but the let-down was actually a little freeing, because I had just started another book she recommended, and my disappointment in Taking What I Like allowed me to give myself permission to put the other one down.* This is a book of short stories tied together […]