For the TBR pile...We Are Not Such Things

I'm not a big fan of most true crime, but this book by Nadine Justine Van Der Leun caught my eye in my Net Galley newsletters. I remember reading about this south African murder case and wondering, "How did this happen?" I've read the author's magazine pieces and she's a fine writer, so I look forward to reading this book.

Anonymous--a star-studded riff on the Shakespeare authorship question

It's always fun to read the articles about who "really" wrote Shakespeare's plays. In one of the only fan letters I ever wrote in my life, I asked Isaac Asimov (whose two-part guide to Shakespare is terrific) if he had an opinion on the issue. He did not. (Yes, he answered my fan letter with a typed index card reply. Which I still have somewhere. Yes. Isaac Asimov!!!!) But I digress.

I'm a fan of British costume dramas. They're often a little on the slow side but they almost always make up for it with fantastic acting. Anonymous is the perfect example. It's an Elizabethan romp starring mother/daughter actresses Joely Richardson and Vanessa Redgrave as Elizaabeth One at various stages in her life.The premise of the movie is that Shakespeare's work was really written by an aristocrat and that Shakespeare himself was a nasty little man who acted as the aristocrat's "front" and killed Christopher Marlowe because he was about to out him.  (Speaking of fronts, if you love good acting, check out Trumbo.  The movie about the Hollywood Ten's most famous member is a feast of fine acting, with Louis C.K. and John Goodman outstanding in supporting roles and Bryan Cranston and Helen Mirren at the top of their game.)

Saturday Shakespeare Meme

I would believe you Morpheus!

If you've never seen Laurence Fishburne in the 1995 film version of Othello (with Kenneth Branagh as Iago), it's worth looking for. At the time, Fisburne was the first black actor to play the Moor in a major American movie; up to then, the role had always been played by actors in black face, including both Anthony Hopkins and Laurence Olivier.

Shakespeare Earrings

The last time I browsed Cafe Press it was all about the clothing--t-shirts and hats and tote bags and such. Also mugs. I didn't realize they'd gotten into Etsy territory with hand-made jewelry items until I saw these earrings for sale. You can buy them here, but be warned, they come with a warning that the earrings are not for sale to, or use by, anyone under 12.  I'm not sure why that is. I can see they'd be a choking hazard for very young children but surely kids grow out of that phase by the time they start going to school?

Feminist Friday and Shakespeare

Over at the Conversation, a website that celebrates "Academic rigor and journalistic flair," there's an essay on how Shakespeare helped writer Germaine Greer shape her feminist masterpiece, The Female Eunuch. It's a long-ish piece and if you're someone who tags blog posts with TLDR, then you'll want to skip down past the photo of Greer speaking at Sydney University in 2005 for the good stuff. My favorite takeaway from the article was this quote: "Greer cites Shakespeare’s poem The Phoenix and the Turtle, as an example of the fullest expression of the ideal of love “as a stabilizing, creative, harmonizing force in the universe'."

I don't even remember that poem--my knowledge of Shakespeare's poetry is mostly limited to a few of his well-known sonnets. So I looked it up. Wikipedia, bless their hearts, has an entry on the allegorical poem.  they call it one of Shakespeare's "most obscure works" (making me feel better for not having remembered it), and one that is open to multiple interpretations. The one thing I do remember is that the "turtle" of the title is the "turtledove," not the reptile everyone used to have as a pet before fears of salmonella made ownership of turtles a health risk.

The "Phoenix" portrait of Queen Elizabeth I

Some scholars have identified "the Phoenix" as Queen Elizabeth 1 and the turtle as John Salisbury, who was a married courtier from a powerful Welsh family.

The language of the poem is gorgeous:

Here the anthem doth commence:
Love and constancy is dead;
Phoenix and the turtle fled
In a mutual flame from hence

but you'll need footnotes all along the way. The Conversation essay makes a persuasive case for a Shakespearean influence on Greer's work, and it's just one more example of how Shakespeare's work continues to resonate almost half a millennium later.

Shakespeare and Guns

Today is National Gun Violence Awareness Day. Yesterday, there was a shooting at UCLA. Not long ago, there was a shooting at the college where my brother got his law degree. On Thanksgiving, there was a shooting at the college where a friend's son goes to school. We all remember the Virginia Tech shootings, and I have ties to there as well--my father, my brother, my aunt, my uncle, and a cousin all spent time there.So today we're supposed to wear orange to show our solidarity and support for the victims of gun violence and their families. It's a start, I suppose. I remember when the red ribbons first started showing up at celebrity events to promote awareness of AIDS.  And the ribbons spread. And with the awareness came the benefits and the research.

I really hope that the orange t-shirts do the same. Guns have been around a long time--longer, probably than you think. We know Shakespeare mentioned them in his plays, but so did Geoffrey Chaucer two hundred years earlier. Guns and Ammo magazine online has an interesting article that argues William Shakespeare was a "gun writer." The article is well worth reading and the citations are right on the money.

Behind the Scenes of Shakespeare's Stories

I always read the Afterwords in books. I like knowing what bit of stray inspiration sparked a novel, or what random collision of events spawned a tale. (I remember reading Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box and thinking he'd read the same eBay listing I had, a listing where a woman was offering her father-in-law's suit for sale because her kid was afraid of his ghost. I've never seen an interview where he talks about it, but I'd bet that's where he got the idea.)

In school we always get the bare bones explanation for where Shakespeare got his plots but they never explained that King Lear is actually related to Cinderella, as Shakespeare's Storybook does. I read that in the book blurb and now I HAVE to get this book.

Shakespeare-inspired cocktails? Why not?

Over at Shakespeare & Beyond today, there's a little background and a link to a podcast interview with Caroline Bicks and Michelle Ephraim who have put together Shakespeare, Not Stirred: Cocktails for Your Everyday Dreams, a whimsically illustrated collection of drink recipes "inspired" by Shakespeare. (The drinks have names like "Caliban's Wrong Island iced Tea.") You'll find a couple of the drink recipes there as well. (If you enjoy this sort of literary/liquor match up, you should check out Tim Federle's books, Tequila Mockingbird, Gone With the Gin, and Hickory Daiquiri Dock.)

Free Frantasy...Bride of the Midnight King

Free for the first five days in June, my vampire version of Cinderella, the first in a three-book series. Check it out here.

Shakespare's Money

I am interested in money. My father had a coin collection that wasn't really worth much but I loved looking through the old coins, many of them European.

I have a fantasy series in which I've worked out various systems of money and the names and denominations of the coins. Working out your own monetary system really gives you insight into how things work. Why is one thing worth a dollar while another thing is worth five dollars, or fifty dollars?

One of the oldest "stories"' there is concerns the thirty pieces of silver Judas was paid to betray Jesus. I've always wanted to write a story about those coins.

This book caught my eye and it is just so annoying that the Kindle price is ore than you'd usually pay for a trade paperback. (There's a REASON why there are no customer reviews yet.) There are only five left in stock, and I suppose if I were the TRUE Shakespeare geek I claim to be, I'd snap one of them up. Maybe I'll put it on my Christmas wish list.

Shakespeare + President = Meme

Here's the only Shakespeare presidential meme I could find that's nonpartisan. I suppose as the general election approaches we'll see more, butfor right now, there's not much.

Summer of Shakespeare #3 Begins!

Shakespeare and politics...when the bard got political, people died. He would have appreciated our current election cycle, I think.

And so, the third annual Summer of Shakespeare begins!

Sweetbitter by Stephanie Danler --a review

Like The Devil Wears Prada and Debt and other books about coming of age in New York, this debut novel introduces us to Tess, who is a fish out of water in her sundress and cardigan, trying to bluff her way through an interview when she’s way over her head. We like her, and we enjoy being educated along with her, introduced to the nuances of taste—you will develop a palate—and the intricacies of food service where meals are works of art and presentations like little pieces of theater. We also love the vision she has of her New York self—a sophisticated, better-dressed, better paid version of herself who lives a life filled with art openings and concerts and love and excitement. We KNOW that vision because we’ve all had a version of it. 

Tess is an “Everywoman” who is relatable, not just to Millennials, but also to anyone who ever followed a dream from a dusty town where the residents were obsessed with football and church to New York or Los Angeles, or any other glittering metropolis where the possibilities seem limitless and even the reality is better than the reality left behind. When she first arrives in town, it seems like she’s always being wrong-footed and judged, and her thoughts about the people she meets are bemused and sensible and endearing. She is an OUTSIDER who wants to be an INSIDER in the worst way and if there are few readers alive who can’t remember that feeling, even if they won’t admit it. When she literally “earns her stripes” (the servers all wear striped shirts while the back waiters wear white button-downs), we’re pleased for her.

A Fairytale retelling

The Twelve Dancing Princesses is one of my favorite fairytales and you don't really see it retold. I love that this version, A Branch of Silver, a Branch of Gold, went the old fashioned route with the cover. I had books that looked like this when I was a child; they'd been my mother's and they were frayed on the bindings, the fabric worn away at the corners and showing the boards beneath.the author, Anne Elisabeth Stengl, has rewritten other fairytales. She has a story in Five Enchanted Roses (a collection of Beauty and the Beast stories) and another in Five Golden Slippers (five Cinderella stories.)

She has also created her own fanciful world, Goldstone Woods," and there are a number of books in that series with "please read me" titles like Moonblood and Dragonwitch. I can't wait to explore that landscape, which she describes as "an ever-growing world of knights and dragons, mystical forests and hidden demesnes, unspeakable evil and boundless grace."You can read more about the series on her website.

Cover Reveal...Beauty Sleep

Yet another entry into my "Modern Magic" series of fairytale retellings. I saw this pre-made cover by Sarah Beard on the Book Cover Designer and snatched it up over the weekend. It is, as you might be able to tell from the cover, a retelling of the classic story "Sleeping Beauty." This one is longer than the other entries in the series, which are mostly novelettes. I really love this cover and have not seen the model on a bazillion other covers.  I also love the color palette.

Aixa and the Shark

Part two of my three-part La Bruja Roja series is free for the next five days. Check it out here.  It's urban fantasy about a witch who lives in a border town that's not just on the border between Texas and Mexico, it's on the border between life and death. The final story, Aixa and the Spider, will be out next month. I'm fond of the Aixa stories.  Maybe you'll like them too.

Tanglewreck by Jeanette Winterson

This smart book about a young protagonist taking on dark forces owes a lot to the Harry Potter series.  She’s an orphan whose father and mother perished under peculiar circumstances and she now lives with a woman who may or may not be her aunt, but who is certainly rather abusive.  Mrs. Rokaby is bad enough but her evil rabbit Bigamist is a real villain! 

The characters are rooted in the real world, which makes the time tornados and time traps really work.  They’re more magical fantastical than science fiction, and we are very interested in how things are going to play out.  (That opening is really tasty and very visual.)

In some ways, we can see the derivation of a lot of the ideas here.  In particular, the story reminds us of John Bellairs’ trilogy of books that begins with The House with the Clock in its Walls.  The young protagonist of that book (a chubby ten year old) has to track down the clock by solving a mystery, and saves the world thereby.  This book is just as complex and just as satisfying, and young Silver (named after her father’s favorite pirate, Long John Silver) is a kid we can really sympathize with and really like.  She is just little (sort of like a hobbit) but she has to do a brave thing because it’s the thing to do.