Best Shakespeare Literary Criticism
Featuring an informative introduction on Shakespearean wit, and notes on which terms were coined or only used once by the author in his work, this delightful book will sharpen the tongue of Shakespeare fans and insult aficionados without much further ado. If you spend enough time on the Internet, someone's going to purposely insult you, probably in boring old four-letter fashion. Or you can break out the spiral bound Shakespeare Insult Generator and mix and match the bard's words to your nefarious purposes.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Oh my goodness, this is the funniest thing ever!"
"This small notebook/book given as a gift to a Shakespeare word lover ... a lot of laughs and fun."
"It's a great way to insult someone whilst confusing them at the same time."
"I bought this as a gift for my sister."
"As a high school English teacher, I had fun introducing Shakespeare's insults to my seniors, before they read Macbeth.They enjoyed flipping through the book and coming up with new names to call each other!"
"It is smaller than I thought it would be - more of a stocking stuffer gift."
"Each word comes with a definition of what that word means, and you can get some colorful combinations!"
"Fun gag gift."
Macbeth SparkNotes No Fear Shakespeare (03) by Shakespeare, William [Paperback (2003)].
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is the only Shakespeare edition with line numbers every 10 lines and ALSO each line that has a footnote has a line number so it's easy to reference the gloss and find your place again right away!"
"Reading the play before studying it in a Shakespeare class for retirees."
"This really helped my sn enjoy Shakespeare."
"Although I was generally familiar with the story of Macbeth, it definitely made reading the play more enjoyable and understandable."
"Love Arkangel productions of Shakespeare plays."
"I very much liked the play, but saw no signs of annotation."
"In Act I, scene ii, many times when Brutus is speaking, the audio is so low that we can hardly make out what he is saying. The same is true with the very beginning of Act II scene i when Brutus is having his monologue on whether to join the conspiracy or not."
No Fear Shakespeare gives you the complete text of Julius Caesar on the left-hand page, side-by-side with an easy-to-understand translation on the right. With a few useful sound effects to set the stage--a fanfare of trumpets, the clash of swords or thunder--and a few sections summarized to ease the transition from stage to radio, this CBC production is quite accessible.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is the only Shakespeare edition with line numbers every 10 lines and ALSO each line that has a footnote has a line number so it's easy to reference the gloss and find your place again right away!"
"Reading the play before studying it in a Shakespeare class for retirees."
"This really helped my sn enjoy Shakespeare."
"Although I was generally familiar with the story of Macbeth, it definitely made reading the play more enjoyable and understandable."
"Love Arkangel productions of Shakespeare plays."
"I very much liked the play, but saw no signs of annotation."
"In Act I, scene ii, many times when Brutus is speaking, the audio is so low that we can hardly make out what he is saying. The same is true with the very beginning of Act II scene i when Brutus is having his monologue on whether to join the conspiracy or not."
Best English Literature
The authoritative edition of Much Ado About Nothing from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This is the only Shakespeare edition with line numbers every 10 lines and ALSO each line that has a footnote has a line number so it's easy to reference the gloss and find your place again right away!"
"They make all the difference to me, a new student to Shakespeare, at the ripe age of 59 years old....now I can understand and appreciate these amazing works of literature."
"Although I was generally familiar with the story of Macbeth, it definitely made reading the play more enjoyable and understandable."
"Love Arkangel productions of Shakespeare plays."
"I got this for our 13 yr old daughter because I knew that she would like the story better if she could get around the language."
"I very much liked the play, but saw no signs of annotation."
"In Act I, scene ii, many times when Brutus is speaking, the audio is so low that we can hardly make out what he is saying. The same is true with the very beginning of Act II scene i when Brutus is having his monologue on whether to join the conspiracy or not."
Best Shakespeare Works & Criticism
The authoritative edition of Macbeth from The Folger Shakespeare Library, the trusted and widely used Shakespeare series for students and general readers, includes: -Freshly edited text based on the best early printed version of the play. -Newly revised explanatory notes conveniently placed on pages facing the text of the play. -Scene-by-scene plot summaries. -A key to the play’s famous lines and phrases. -An introduction to reading Shakespeare’s language. -An essay by a leading Shakespeare scholar providing a modern perspective on the play. -Fresh images from the Folger Shakespeare Library’s vast holdings of rare books. -An up-to-date annotated guide to further reading. The Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, DC, is home to the world’s largest collection of Shakespeare’s printed works, and a magnet for Shakespeare scholars from around the globe. Although some think that sometime between 1610 and 1613 Shakespeare retired from the theater and returned home to Stratford, where he died in 1616, others believe that he may have continued to work in London until close to his death.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"This book was not the exact edition of the book that I needed for class but the only differences were the page numbers and the cover, which is not a big deal."
"A good choice for The Tempest."
"They make all the difference to me, a new student to Shakespeare, at the ripe age of 59 years old....now I can understand and appreciate these amazing works of literature."
"I enjoyed Shakespeare in college (50 years ago) and now I get to attend a class with adults who are reading just for the joy, fun, of learning discussing."
"Although I was generally familiar with the story of Macbeth, it definitely made reading the play more enjoyable and understandable."
"Love Arkangel productions of Shakespeare plays."
"I got this for our 13 yr old daughter because I knew that she would like the story better if she could get around the language."
Best Historical Event Literature Criticism
By Steppe, Desert, and Ocean is nothing less than the story of how humans first started building the globalized world we know today.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Several times during the narrative the author confuses the cardinal directions, for example, saying that the Caspian Sea is west of the Don River."
"The steppe has been a cultural highway, and among its passengers have been domestication of the horse, the idea of the chariot, artistic trends, religions, crops, the plague, pilgrims, diplomats and pillaging armies. However, some of the text concerns events in the more developed regions such as the long confrontations between the Romans/ Byzantines and the various empires based in Iran; the book is quite good on these, There's also a lot of Chinese history. Bothe these can be a bit tedious but reading about them in parallel so to speak helps one realize the continuity and connectedness of it all, rather than the usual consideration in isolation of each other."
"In broad historic terms, Sir Barry shakes the kaleidoscope through which world (or at least Eurasian) history is viewed, from a series of discrete eras to a very long term view, and from a series of individual cultures to the way in which those cultures were tied together by the steppes. For an American or European reader, the traditional view of Eurasian history is that of one center of civilization giving way to another (the Fertile Crescent, the Mediterranean, Northern Europe), a sort of updated Whig version of history that culminates with "the west". It's tempting to say that Sir Barry gives us a new way of looking at world history, but it's not accurate: this isn't world history: it excludes the whole western hemisphere, most of Africa, and much of non-Chinese Asia."
"This book is especially interesting because it deals with the Silk Road and all the cultures it touched."
Best Shakespeare Dramas & Plays
Arm yourself with this volume from the Knickerbocker Classic series, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare , including 16 comedies, 10 histories, 12 tragedies and all the poems and sonnets of the world's most influential writer. His extant works include some collaboration, consisting of about 38 plays, 154 sonnets, two long narrative poems, and a few other verses, the authorship of some of which is uncertain.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"One of the greatest wordsmiths in existence, and a terrific source of imagination and plot."
"3 Stars for the poor typesetting and a very odd looking table of contents and very difficult navigation on Kindle."
"This was a pretty weary copy of the works."
"not pulp cut,high quality paperback ill be back."
"For the love of Mike - it is WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE for crying out sakes., He is wonderful."
"To read a particular play that's a comedy or history (or any of the sonnets)--in other words, 75% of the book--you have to click onto the last "chapter" listed--Titus Andronicus--and page through to find the work you're looking for."
"This is a collection of illegible photocopies."