Get Most Popular Full Audiobooks in Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

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Title: Brother, I'm Dying

Author: Edwidge Danticat

Narrator: Robin Miles

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-17-07

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 183 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

National Book Critics Circle Award, Autobiography, 2008

Award-winning, best-selling author Edwidge Danticat taps her exceptional storytelling gifts for this memoir of the two men who raised her. When the author was only four years old, her parents emigrated from Haiti to New York in search of a better life, leaving their daughter in the care of her uncle Joseph. A peaceful pastor in Port-au-Prince, Joseph raised Edwidge with the love and devotion of a father, despite facing many hardships in politically turbulent Haiti.

Critic Reviews:

"Poignant and never sentimental, this elegant memoir recalls how a family adapted and reorganized itself over and over, enduring and succeeding to remain kindred in spite of living apart." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

A Superb Reflection

This author tells a universal story from a Haitian-American point of view - love in the context of life and death. The books reads as if she is telling the story in your living space. Yet, her account of aspects the Haitian-American experience renders thought provoking exchange on what does it mean to be a hyphenated American.

I have read all of Danticat's works with great satisfaction. This tops the list to date!

A poignant look at a family and their homeland

The wonderful writer, Edwina Dandicat, recounts her life and the life of her family, particularly the Haitian uncle with whom she spent her early childhood. I listened to this just as the recent earthquake and its devastation was being broadcast on all the media and it gave me a human context to the recent history, the land, and its people. However, beyond that, it is a powerful memoir of a family, their love, their courage, and the ties that bind. I enjoyed the reading very much. It enhanced the story.

Interesting

Not a great memoir, but a good one. Haiti has always had an air of mystery to it, and this story helped me understand it a bit. The narrator is one of the best I've heard.

no words

Any additional comments?

No words can express the power of this story, especially for people from the West Indies

I Am Changed because of this book

Where does Brother, I'm Dying rank among all the audiobooks youve listened to so far?

"Brother, I'm Dying" ranks #1 among all audiobooks I have ever listened to. This book was written to be heard aloud. The language, the back-and-forth of dialects and acccents, is integral to the story, as are other things such as the expressions of emotions. I even needed to hear the punctuation, the pause of a comma, the inflection of a question mark. A whole-hearted, thorough self-read would not have explained the story that Edwidge Danticat wanted to tell. The narration was incredible - I have not heard better. The writing? I often would rewind 30 sec just to hear how a passage was worded. The story itself? As the author states, it needed to be told. It took my breath away. I gave up guessing what would come next. It was completely outside of my life's experience or anyone I know or have even heard of. I want everyone, especially Americans, to hear this story. Our current political and moral debates about immigration? Read this one. Our generalizations and simplifications about Haiti's poverty, religious practicies and superstitions? Read this one. Family love, connections, and sacrifices? Read this one. Behind-the-scenes U.S.

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Title: Getting Stoned with the Savages

Subtitle: A Trip through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu

Author: J. Maarten Troost

Narrator: Simon Vance

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-18-07

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 497 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

After two grueling years on the island of Tarawa, Troost was in no hurry to return to the South Pacific until he began to feel remarkably out of place in modern America. He knew it was time to set off again for parts unknown. Here he tells the story of his time on Vanuatu, a cluster of islands where he struggles against typhoons, earthquakes, and giant centipedes but finds himself swept up in the laid-back, clothing-optional lifestyle of the islanders. When his wife Sylvia gets pregnant, they decamp for slightly more civilized Fiji, a fallen paradise rife with prostitutes and government coups, where their son takes quite naturally to island living.

Members Reviews:

My new favorite author!

I LOVED this book! It is hilarious, from beginning to end. Maarten Troost does a phenomenal job of putting you front and center into the experience of the story and leaves you wanting more. This story has a lot of adventures that cover several different aspects of travel, from actual travel itself on crappy ships and scary airplanes, to the culture of cannibals, tourists and ex-pats. I just wish it was longer and that he would hurry up and write another book!!!

Listen again & again

This book is a really terrific travel companion. Laugh-out-loud, embarrass-yourself-on-a-plane funny. Author has a fantastic gift for description, and the narrator does a great job of interpreting the author's voice. A MUST HAVE!

a pleasure to hear

This book is interesting and hilarious. Troost has a great way of bringing across the details of somewhere far away, and presenting the shocking and uncomfortable realities as part of a great adventure. The narrator is right on for the text--understated, self-effacing, ironic. The only drawback is listening to the whole book too fast--its not one of those grave but worthy books that you have to prod yourself to listen to. This one will lift your spirits.

Entertaining and Educational

Spending a lot of time in Fiji myself, I can vouch for the 100% accuracy of the stories told in this book. Entertaining for sure.

Getting Stones with the Savages

What a delightful book! I had greatly enjoyed "Sex Lives of Cannibals" and hoped that this sequel would live up to my expectations. It did! Hilarious, insightful and wonderful fun! The narration is spot on, too.

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Title: Clausewitz's 'On War'

Subtitle: A Biography: Books That Changed the World

Author: Hew Strachan

Narrator: Simon Vance

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 07-10-07

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 52 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Hew Strachan, one of the world's foremost military historians, answers these problems in this fascinating book. He explains how and why On War was written, elucidates what Clausewitz meant, and offers insight into the impact it made on conflict and its continued significance in our world today.

Members Reviews:

Deceptive

I wanted to learn from the classic text. This is no more than a history of writing "On War". It should have been titled "On 'On War'" I have no more idea after listening to this as to what Clausewitz's classic thoughts were on war than when I began. Unless you are into a history of when the book was written and potential influences, I give this a big pass.

On War

I bought this book to hear Clausewtiz's "On War". The author's introduction, history and input on what Clausewitz wrote was great, but I waited in vain to hear what Clausewitz actually wrote. Much of what the author wrote about background issues was very important, but with the background it should have been my job to interpret and evaluate Clausewtiz's words, not just the authors. I was disappointed and hopefully I can find "On War" in it's entiriety so I can make my own decision.

Not what I expected

I bought this thinking it was the actual On War by Clausewitz and I like Simon Vance's narration.

This is NOT Von Clausewitz's work....

...but rather, a biological review of that work and a general overview of the period and the man. I felt deceived by the realization of this, since the author's choice of title, the cover, and the description provided by Audible gives no real indication of this. Rightly, this book should have been called "ON VON CLAUSEWITZ: An In-depth Investigation of His Classic On War"

If you are hoping to hear an abridged version of the classic treatise, this is not it. It is not a bad book, but if you have not read some translation of Von Clausewitz's On War previously, then this book is wholly unrelatable and confusing, since it's more of a study guide or review of it rather than a discussion of its ideas. Many years ago, I read some of "On War", and was still only loosely aware of much of what us referenced here.

A must read

If you could sum up Clausewitz's 'On War' in three words, what would they be?

Hew Strachan is amazing. Read everything he writes. This is a must read for every member of the military or state department.

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Title: By-Line Ernest Hemingway

Subtitle: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades

Author: Ernest Hemingway

Narrator: Campbell Scott

Format: Abridged

Length: 15 hrs and 8 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-22-07

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 62 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Across three continents and four decades, here is Hemingway: the adventurer, the reporter, the man! More intimately than in all his fiction, Hemingway the reporter reveals Hemingway the man, driving an ambulance through a bullet barrage or leading guerrilla forces into Paris, always in the thick of the action. Here are his most sensational dispatches: the grisly truth about Mussolini, the horrors of total war, the rootless expatriates of the Lost Generation, the blood and beauty of bullfighting and big-game hunting...the behind-the-scenes stories that became For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, and The Sun Also Rises.

© ©1967 By-Line Ernest Hemingway, Inc.; renewal copyright ©1995 Patrick and John H. Hemingway ©1933, 1934, 1935, 1936, 1939, 1941, 1949 Ernest Hemingway; renewal copyright ©1961, 1962, 1963, 1964, 1967 Mary Hemingway and By-Line Ernest Hemingway, Inc. ©1944 Crowell-Collier Publishing Company, Mary Hemingway and By-Line Ernest Hemingway, Inc. ©1938 Ken, Inc. and Ernest Hemingway; renewal copyright ©1966 by Mary Hemingway and By-Line Ernest Hemingway, Inc. ©1954 the Estate of Ernest Hemingway and By-Line Ernest Hemingway, Inc. ©1956 Mary Hemingway and By-Line Ernest Hemingway, Inc. ©1937, 1938 New York Times and North American Newspaper Alliance, Inc.; renewal copyright © 1965, 1966 Mary Hemingway, By-Line Ernest Hemingway, Inc. and the New York Times Company ©1951 Fawcett Publications, Inc., Ernest Hemingway and By-Line Ernest Hemingway, Inc. (P)2007 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.

Members Reviews:

A really interesting listen on the life of Ernest

I will get to all of Hemingway someday and I think the fact that hes been dead over 50 years (62) and I am still learning about him make him an incredible literary and historical figure. This book got good reviews, was on Audible and of course is about Papa, so I was in.

There are way too many articles for me to talk about each one. So instead Ill give thoughts on each time period that is covered here (its over 4 decades and 5 parts).

Part 1:

This is a young Hemingway taking place 1920-1924. While there were many articles I enjoyed, some others were rather dull and tedious. I love a light-hearted Hemingway doing things like getting a shave from a barber college and getting a tooth pulled by a student (these were both funny). As time passes we already get to see glimpses, though, of his realistic views of the world, the state of other countries, his hatred for Mussolini (if only he really had been a bluff as Hemingway stated) and of course his fascination with bull-fighting. The weird part with the bull-fighting is that he admits its a tragedy, the bull always dies of course and sometimes even the matador but he still finds it incredibly exciting and loves to watch.

Part 2:

Here we see Hemingways long-standing love for Cuba and of course for fishing and hunting. We also see where he gets the inspiration for The Old Man and the Sea , I had always thought this was something Hemingway did but it turns out it was a story about a fisherman off Cuba who struggled with a huge fish for days, only to have it eaten away by sharks. His love of Key West (and boxing) show up here, along with some unexpected humor about birds.

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Title: Essential Anais Nin

Author: Anais Nin

Narrator: Anais Nin

Format: Abridged

Length: 43 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-22-07

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 38 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

From her famous diaries, which she began in 1914 at the age of 11, Anais Nin reads passages that reflect the recurring themes of her work. In a slow, clear, heavily accented but hypnotic voice, Nin draws the listener into her spell-binding stories of a highly personal world as she paints a vivid picture of a woman as artist and self. This is an extraordinary, historic, archival, and memorable recording that will speak in a fresh voice to new generations.

©1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1974, 1976 Anais Nin; (P)1972, 1993, 1998, 2007 HarperCollins Publishers

Critic Reviews:

"One of the most remarkable diaries in the history of letters." (Los Angeles Times)

"Sensitive and frank...a unique blend of the poetic and the precise. She charts the human chemistry of her relationships, noting changes, catalysts, fissions...Her diary is a dialogue between flesh and spirit." (Newsweek)

Members Reviews:

A Gem

As lovely as her words are, her delivery is just as interesting and engrossing. Alternating between a humerous almost-disaster and her own highly stylized feminist manifesto, this is a very satisfying, if short, primer for those unfamiliar with Nin's work and a treat for the already converted. The audio quality is as good as one would expect from source material nearly 40 years old. Highly recommended!

Un error

No me gusto. Lo consegui porque me lo recomendo una amiga, pero ni su estilo ni sus historias para mi valieron la pena ni mi tiempo

heavy accent hard to understand

I was excited to see this recording listed, but it's difficult to understand with Anais Nin's heavy accent, which means I've not been able to get through it.

Anals Nin

I had never read anything by Anais Nin; I believe I have read all I am going to.

Overpriced as usual

$12 (and of course membership costs) for a 40 minute audiobook?

What a greedy company amazon is...I wonder what Anais Nin would've thought of her work being sold like this...

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Title: Possible Side Effects

Author: Augusten Burroughs

Narrator: Augusten Burroughs

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 1 min

Language: English

Release date: 05-08-06

Publisher: Macmillan Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 312 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

From the million-copy best-selling author of Running with Scissors comes Augusten Burrough's most provocative collection yet.

Critic Reviews:

"No one is funnier or more perceptive." (Publishers Weekly) "Irreverence done to an amusing turn." (Booklist)

Members Reviews:

Clever title, amusing publishers summary

But wow, what a let down. The publishers summary was more cleverly written than the book itself. I really should have read the reviews and not just checked the rating before forking out the audi-credit for this one.

I had a friend download this for something funny to listen to one night during a long car trip. After 2 short stories and several half-stories that we just couldn't make it through, we decided instead to drive the rest of the radio-waveless wilderness in complete silence. It was that bad. Eventually we found a garbled classic-country music station and both felt better about the whole experience.

To start off, the author states that Some of the events happened as stated, others were expanded and changed. Some of the individuals portrayed are composites of more than one person and many names and identifying characteristics have been changed as well. I wasn't sure if this was just dry humor but with those restrictions up front, I thought, This has to be an outrageous book! This author is published and successful and because he is making something up out of nothing or almost nothing, I expected a lot more than I got. The stories I listened to reminded me of a conversation with a pathological liar talking about what 'interesting' (i.e. boring) and nearly unbelievable chain of events happened to him last weekend. I can enjoy a book about the nothings of life, but this was ridiculous.

I have a couple years worth of titles from Audible.com and so far this is the only one that if I could, I would ask for a refund. This is also the first one I've ever written a review for, but maybe it will help someone.

I did not make it through the whole book! This is my opinion after listening to a little less than half the book. There may be some gem in there that I missed. If you read it and love it, please write a review.

downloaded on a whim

I didn't know what to expect with this book and what I got was the rambling of a gay alcoholic hypochondriac. Fortunately alot of it was very funny and interesting. I found the beginning a bit slow but it got better a few chapters in stayed that way for the remainder.

Everything it was advertised to be

The cover claims not to listen while you operate machinery, etcetera, etcetera, and the book actually lives up to its dust jacket. It was as entertaining as it claimed to be, though it wasn't packed with hilarity it was entertaining and moving in some part. I had no idea when I bought it that it was a collection of short stories and I usually don't get into books like that, but once I got into listening to this book, I thought it was definitely worth the price.

More of the same, but that's not so bad.

Similar to Augusten's Magical Thinking, this is a collection of short stories from his life. Some are pointless, some are mildly interesting, and others are really good. His narration and the quality of the writing is excellent, as usual.

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Title: De Kooning's Bicycle

Subtitle: Artists and Writers in the Hamptons

Author: Robert Long

Narrator: Grover Gardner

Format: Unabridged

Length: 5 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-07-06

Publisher: Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 32 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Through searching, lyrical vignettes, critic and poet Robert Long mixes storytelling with history to recreate these lives and events that shaped American art and literature.

Critic Reviews:

"Mesmerizing and moving." (Booklist) "Vividly told....Captures the spirit of modernism as filtered through New York's rural past." (Publishers Weekly)

Members Reviews:

ARTISTS & WRITERS

At best, De Koonings Bicycle opens a door to two famous American artists, a Pulitzer Prize winning writer and some lesser known painters and writers that live in the Hamptons in the 1950s and 60s; at worst, a listener is puzzled by snippets of information that reveal little about the subject and less about the authors perspective.

A suggestive thread weaves through Longs vignettes in De Koonings Bicycle; i.e. artistic creativity seems linked to self-destructive behavior. This trite and banal inference diminishes the books appeal. Life is difficult for every human being, not just creative artists and writers. The monumental difference is that creativity in any field of endeavor gives one a chance to live forever.

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Title: All Rivers Run to the Sea

Subtitle: Memoirs

Author: Elie Wiesel

Narrator: Elie Wiesel

Format: Abridged

Length: 1 hr and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-27-06

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 41 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

From his early years with his loving Jewish family to the horrors of Auschwitz to his life as a Nobel Prize-winning writer, Elie Wiesel tells his story. Passionate and poignant, All Rivers Run to the Sea is an unforgettable book of love and rage, doubt and faith, despair and trust, and ultimately, of wisdom.

(P)2006 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House, Inc.

Members Reviews:

Loved it.

Moving. Beautiful. Heartbreaking and inspiring. What a treat to hear it read by Mr. Wiesel himself.

All Rivers Run to the Sea

Searing memories of a boy who was a Jew and survived a concentration camp during WWII.

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Title: Shakespeare

Subtitle: The Biography

Author: Peter Ackroyd

Narrator: Simon Vance

Format: Unabridged

Length: 19 hrs and 12 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-27-05

Publisher: Random House Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 185 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

Thousands of books have been written about the playwright, but none has borne Ackroyd's unique and accessible stamp. His method is to position the playwright in the context of his world, exploring everything from Stratford's humble town to its fields of wildflowers; discerning influences on the plays from unexpected quarters; and entering London with the playwright as modern theatre, as we know it, is just beginning to emerge.

Writing as though we are observing Shakespeare and his circle of friends, patrons, managers, and fellow actors and writers, Ackroyd is able to see Shakespeare's genius from within, so we feel that Ackroyd the writer merges with Shakespeare the writer, the poet, the man; and thus with great sympathy and clarity we experience the way in which Shakespeare worked.

Shakespeare: The Biography is quite unlike other more analytic biographies that have been written. Rather, Peter Ackroyd has used his skill, his extraordinary knowledge, and his historical intuition to craft this major full-scale book on one of the most towering figures of the English language.

Critic Reviews:

"Ackroyd's biography cumulatively gives one a feeling that one has lived for a brief time in Shakespeare's world. Ackroyd constructs an intricate mosaic of Elizabethan context, which brings us closer to the shadowy figure." (Publishers Weekly)

"Ackroyd brings to his biographical reading the imaginative insights of a gifted poet and novelist, along with the passions of a scholar....Vivid and capacious, a life study worthy of its subject." (Booklist)

Members Reviews:

Shakespeare by Peter Ackroyd

I've loved all of Ackroyd's biographies (Dickens, TS Eliot, Blake). One thing Ackroyd does better than anyone else is explain the texts of a writer in contemporary terms, so that here he explains Shakespeare's imagery (flowers, trees, landscapes, even books and events) in terms of what the man probably experienced. It made me want to reread Shakespeare from start to finish--surely how a biographer wants a reader to react.

Much ado about something

This is a wonderful book. I never read nor heard nor watched Shakespeare's plays, but now I will and will have benefitted from the understanding that Mr Ackroid provids. I listened to the book because I knew I had missed an experience.

The reader, Simon Vance, was excellent and must have tried to connect Shakespeare's friend John Aubry with Patrick O'Brian's Captain of the "Surprise".

Vivid Portrait of an Elusive Man

A very nicely put together portrait of Shakespeare and his time, the late 1500s, early 1600s in London. Ackroyd plays out the consequences of most of the mainstream conjectures on Shakespeare's life (no one really knows much about him, of course; he left barely a personal trace at all in the records even after centuries of digging). I would've liked a bit more general historical background, especially on the everyday cultural life of London, but Ackroyd had only so many pages to work with, and it's pretty long and full of detail as is! There's perhaps a bit too much conjecture and conclusion drawn on thin evidence on Shakespeare's alleged crypto-Catholicism.

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Title: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare

Subtitle: 1599

Author: James Shapiro

Narrator: James Shapiro

Format: Abridged

Length: 6 hrs and 28 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-12-05

Publisher: HarperAudio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 98 votes

Genres: Bios & Memoirs, Artists, Writers, & Musicians

Publisher's Summary:

James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare's staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599: sending off an army to crush an Irish rebellion; weathering an Armada threat from Spain; gambling on a fledgling East India Company; and waiting to see who will succeed their aging and childless Queen.

This book brings the news and intrigue of the times together with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

This audio includes a selection of scenes from Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet featuring performances by Vanessa Redgrave, Paul Scofield, Ian Holm, and many more.

Editorial Reviews:

James Shapiro's blunt American tones sound raw compared to the elegant enunciations of most Shakespeare recordings, but he conveys better than anyone the vigor, bustle, and commercial necessity of so much of Shakespeare's life and work. Focusing on a single productive year, a dramatic one in English history, Shapiro has the advantage of a cohesive narrative, something missing in most Shakespeare biographies. This tight abridgment mixes critical analysis, political and stage history, and Shapiro's own wonderful narrations from Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet, accompanied by a selection of scenes from their stage productions. Of these, Shapiro's narrations, if not the most dulcet, remain the most persuasive and satisfying.

Critic Reviews:

"Shapiro's shrewd discussion of what is arguably Shakespeare's greatest play, particularly its multiple versions, rounds out this accessible yet erudite work." (Publishers Weekly)

"Quite brilliant....It gives a whole large picture of his life, times, and achievement. Wonderful." (Andrew Motion)

Members Reviews:

If you love Shakespeare

...you will love this book. Shapiro looks at Shakespeare through a new lens and focuses his and our attention on his most creatively productive year. He helps us understand what shaped the man who wrote Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It and Hamlet in one amazing burst of energy.

This is a fresh and refreshing look at both the four plays and the man and his times. I reccommend this listen for anyone who loves the Bard and/or anyone who loves these four plays. The 45 minutes of excerpts from these plays by the great actors is a nice bonus at the end.

Note!--Abridged version

What would have made A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare better?

It's all my fault for not noticing--but this is a much abridged version on audio. The reading--even though performed well (and presumably cut) by the author himself--leaves out most of the more fascinating parts of the superb book. So, I'd say this is one to do that old-fashioned thing with--read it!

Terrific

A terrific look at a pivotal year in Shakespeare's life: 1599. The year he wrote four key plays: Henry V, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, and Hamlet. Shapiro does a wonderful job of placing Shakespeare in his historical context, with the construction of the Globe Theatre, the rebellion of Essex after the Ireland campaign, and the aging Queen Elizabeth.