Rating: 
Summary: SHAKESPEARE IS THE MAN!
Review: The bard will be your best friend after you read this aptly titled and titillating book. Ok - yeah, it's one of those reference books for the works of "he of literary genius" but WITH A TWIST!! Aside from the commnetary on over twenty plays, famous quotes, famous performances, celebrity commentary, and myriad pictures/illustrations/maps/photos, what else is there you might ask? This would be the best question because it's all the hearty extras that make this book memorable: Shakespeare's famous insults, celebrity interviews, sexual slang, quibbles or wacky word meanings gone awry, chronology, the argument over the credibility of his authorship, his signature, birthright,and education, popularity of his sonnets, was Shakespeare gay, his cryptograms, his music....END
Rating: 
Summary: Good Introduction to Shakespeare
Review: The main audience for this book is the newcomer to Shakespeare, and I believe that someone unfamiliar with Shakespeare really would find this book a useful companion to his first forays into Shax-land and/or an appetite stimulant to make him want to go there in the first place. What is questionable is its usefulness to people who are already fans. The longtime Shakespeare buff will hardly be surprised at revelations of Shakespeare's bawdiness, for example, or be unaware of the phenomenon of Victorian Bardolatry or the more obvious high points of, say, Henry V. And many will be too busy quarrelling with some of Epstein's interpretations and choices for inclusion to enjoy their reading--but this may say more about the fans than about the usefulness of Ms. Epstein's book. Topics such as Elizabethan slang or Shakespeare's life are covered in more detail elsewhere (actually, everything about Shakespeare is covered in exhaustive detail elsewhere), but The Friendly Shakespeare probably is the best introduction to Shakespeare (other than seeing a really great stage production, of course.) I heartily reccommend the filmography, if nothing else; it's bound to give you something to scour the video stores for.
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