April 12, 2006

Time for a new posting...

I was letting those Asia's Hope videos sit there for a while so that people could see them easily, but I think it is time for something new. There have been a few things that I have thought about posting, but I think that I'll do some new books that I have finished. So for those of you who are out there (maybe a few), enjoy...

How to Read Shakespeare by Nicholas Royle - this was a gift from my mother at Christmas, and I actually finished it a while back, but thought I'd include it here... an intriguing book in it's approach... the author took one word from each of 7 different plays and used those words to describe (in each chapter) William's approach to writing. The author was brilliant in some of his explanations, however, I think that he may be a little personally interested in the use of sex in Shakespeare...

The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie - a good read. This is coming out on DVD at the end of May with David Suchet playing Poirot again. I am sure that it will be a spot on presentation as always... my only disappointment with this one was that as I began to read it, there were some things familiar about it... and within the first few chapters, I realized that this was a 'novelized' version of one of her short stories "The Plymouth Express". Exact same outcome, exact same types of characters... Annoying if you are familiar with both writings.

Dictionary of Shakespeare by Louise McConnell - this is something that I picked up on the discount rack after Christmas at Barnes and Noble. I have read it slowly, but then again, reading a dictionary is not always that interesting. Nonetheless, I really liked it. The cover says "Clear definitions of the characters, plays, poems, history and stagecraft." That is very accurate. It was really more like reading a desk encyclopedia of Shakespeare than reading a dictionary, but it was good. I don't advise reading more than about 4 pages a night, unless you are a real fan.

The Secret Society of Demolition Writers edited by Marc Parent - the title would take to long to explain here, but it is a collection of semi-anonymous short stories. 'Semi-anonymous' because even though you do not know who wrote each of the stories per se, the names of the contributing authors are on the cover. I read it mostly because I knew that Michael Connelly had submitted one. It did do something to ignite my often smoldering interest in writing.

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