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Off the shelf

Book excerpts, reviews, author interviews, and reading recommendations
Imagining Shakespeare’s actor Alexander Cooke
Shakespeare and Beyond

Imagining Shakespeare’s actor Alexander Cooke

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Author
Austin Tichenor

Austin Tichenor travels back to Elizabethan England with Nicole Galland’s novel Boy about Shakespeare’s acting company member Alexander Cooke in a surprisingly contemporary exploration of gender roles onstage and off.

Juliet and Romeo as a Western
Shakespeare and Beyond

Juliet and Romeo as a Western

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Author Anthony Del Col shares how the newest Kill Shakespeare adventure found its inspiration in Westerns like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance.

Teaching the Dream, sweet and bitter
Shakespeare and Beyond

Teaching the Dream, sweet and bitter

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How can A Midsummer Night’s Dream speak to students today? Scholar Gail Kern Paster writes that the 400-year-old play connects to a wide range of contemporary issues that 21st-century audiences care about.

The Women Who Served the Queens of Henry VIII
Shakespeare and Beyond

The Women Who Served the Queens of Henry VIII

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Who were the ladies-in-waiting to each of Henry VIII’s six wives and what were their lives like? An excerpt from Nicola Clark’s The Waiting Game looks at these overlooked but influential figures.

Humans and monsters
Shakespeare and Beyond

Humans and monsters

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In Humans: A Monstrous History, Surekha Davies shows how our multi-millennial relationship with monsters has shaped the origins of the modern world and ideas about humanness and otherness.

Books for Shakespeare fans
Shakespeare and Beyond

Books for Shakespeare fans

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Author
Shakespeare & Beyond

2024 has been a great year for new books about—and inspired by—Shakespeare. Explore our list for gift giving or adding to your own TBR list.

The Lead-Up to Shakespeare’s Richard II
Shakespeare and Beyond

The Lead-Up to Shakespeare’s Richard II

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Author
Shakespeare & Beyond

In an excerpt from The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV, historian Helen Castor travels back in time to the weeks just before Shakespeare’s play begins.

“That holy feeling”: Al Pacino on looking for Shakespeare
Shakespeare and Beyond

“That holy feeling”: Al Pacino on looking for Shakespeare

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Author
Austin Tichenor

Austin Tichenor takes a look at Al Pacino’s new memoir, Sonny Boy. Pacino describes how central Shakespeare was to his development as a young actor.

The Reading List: Family Stories
Shakespeare and Beyond

The Reading List: Family Stories

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Author
emma poltrack

The end of the year brings feasts, celebrations, and family. Our reading list of Folger Book Club picks offers a wide range of ways to reflect on the ties that bind us.

Shakespeare's Most Adolescent Play
Shakespeare and Beyond

Shakespeare's Most Adolescent Play

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It may not surprise you to hear that Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare’s teenaged play but that might have surprised earlier readers who considered the play adolescent for other reasons.

Saving Prince Henry
Shakespeare and Beyond

Saving Prince Henry

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Though Henry V reigned over England for only nine years and four months, he looms large over English history. In a new biography, historian and journalist Dan Jones examines Henry’s life anew.

“Steeped in blood”: The doomed youth of Shakespeare and Stephen King
Shakespeare and Beyond

“Steeped in blood”: The doomed youth of Shakespeare and Stephen King

Posted
Author
Austin Tichenor

With Halloween approaching, Austin Tichenor takes a look at Stephen King and a theme he shares with Shakespeare: the often tragic fate of younger characters.

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