Elizabeth Foley (1)

Perhaps you are past your college years but still like to learn, and would prefer a book to tote around rather than sitting in front of your computer for a “MOOC” (massive open online course). Maybe your kids are studying Shakespeare in school and you want to participate. Or maybe you just love Shakespeare, as I do. For any of these reasons, this book has a lot to recommend it.

The book is short but still includes summaries of all the key plays and sonnets. The authors also provide a lot show more of background historical information (for example, a guide to the family trees in the history plays, or how illegitimacy and insanity were viewed in Elizabethan times). Some of the most famous speeches are reproduced in the book (although in truth, there are so many, they had to be selective), as well as lists of some words and phrases that Shakespeare introduced to the English language.

There are nice “bonus” compilations within as well, such as descriptions of some of Shakepeare’s best minor characters and most dastardly villains, and a list of some of his best insults. (He coined so many: there are a number of websites that highlight them for you, such as this one, where you can find “Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson obscene greasy tallow-catch!” from Henry IV Part 1. Sounds like the perfect way to express road rage!)

Occasionally, the authors include side-by-side modern translations of famous speeches, but there probably could be more. (You can find a larger selection on a website called "No Fear Shakespeare," here.)

[And about those websites - yes, there are a gazillion of them relating to Shakespeare, and they are very fun. But this book manages to include much of the same information all in one place.]

There is an annotated list of great Shakespearean actors, and it would have been nice as well to have a list of best Shakespeare “retellings” - especially those in movie form - (e.g., "Scotland, PA," or "Forbidden Planet") and take-offs (such as "The Lunatic, the Lover, and the Poet," or "The Third Witch," although the authors do reference Tom Stoppard’s play "Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead"). Some of the modern movies could provide a good way to generate interest in Shakespeare among younger people. “10 Things I Hate About You,” the popular movie with Julia Stiles and Heath Ledger, may induce delighted viewers to read Shakespeare's "The Taming of the Shrew."

Similarly, when newcomers to Shakespeare discover that “West Side Story” is a recapitulation of Romeo and Juliet, might that not spark their interest to see how they differ? (The answer is: not all that much! Compare, for example, the song “Tonight” from the movie to passages like Act III, Scenes 1 and 2 in Romeo and Juliet. The rival gangs (Capulets and Montagues on the one hand, Sharks and Jets on the other) are getting ready for a showdown with each other when it gets dark. Meanwhile, Juliet, like Maria, bemoans the endless day, and can't wait for night to come when she can see Romeo. Shakespeare's words are beautiful, but Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics do a pretty good job in expressing the same sentiments.)

Many people have no idea how many books, movies, plays, operas and television plots come directly from Shakespeare, and it would have been useful, in my opinion, to point that out. Shakespeare is far from “irrelevant” to today’s world!

But just as there are many different schools of interpretation of Shakespeare (the authors provide a list explaining eleven of them), it’s clear there is no guaranteed way to please everyone. This book, which tries to provide a soupçon of much of Shakespeare’s work, makes a great start.

At the end of the book, there is a compendium of quotes arranged by subject matter, and a fun quiz to test your Shakespeare knowledge. show less

I love to read about amazing women who changed the status quo of their time. Women who didn't take no for an answer. Women who didn't buy into the philosophy that they were only made for domesticated chores and childbirth. While strides have been made toward equality, we still have a way to go.

Elizabeth Foley and Beth Coates have written the book, What Would Cleopatra Do? to focus on some of history's most influential women. Women that can teach us a thing or two about how to handle show more adversity, how to deal with loss, feeling like an impostor, and much much more.

The book is comprised of 50 women, but we all know there could be libraries filled with all the contributions women have made to society. I enjoyed reading about women I was already familiar with, such as Emily Dickinson, Mary Wollstonecraft, and Dorthy Parker, but I was overjoyed to meet some new women whose stories I had yet to hear, such as Akiko Yosano, Wang Zhenyi, and Grace Hopper. I'm not sure about the selection process the authors used to decide on which women to put in this novel. They could write a sequel and still have room for more.

I listened to this as an audiobook and loved it. It is narrated by Madeleine Maby, who did a wonderful job. Each woman's profile was about five minutes long. Just enough time to give you a brief rundown on their lives. The book includes illustrations, but since I listened to the audio, I missed out on them. I would have loved if this book went a little deeper into their lives, but I'll have to do that on my own time.

If you need some motivations, you'll find it here. What Would Cleopatra Do? is filled with extraordinary women who defied their times. Scientists, actresses, writers, civil rights leaders, and athletes, they didn't have an easy path, but they certainly cleared away some debris so that later generations would have an easier path. This is a great book to gift to the women in your life. It will encourage, uplift, and inspire them.

*I received a digital copy of this book thanks to Simon and Schuster Audio. This is no way influenced my opinion of the book.
Read more at https://www.toreadornottoread.net/2018/12/audiobook-review-what-would-cleopatra-... show less

For an introduction to Shakespeare’s works, you could do worse than this non-exhaustive overview by Foley and Coates. The chapters cover Shakespeare’s life and times, Shakespeare’s language and style, the comedies, the histories, the tragedies, and the poems. Each of the three chapters on the plays features three or so plays as representative of that genre. Added content includes a family tree of the characters in the histories, one-sentence summaries of each of Shakespeare’s plays, show more a chronology of the plays, a brief thematic index of the plays, brief biographies of famous Shakespearean actors, and other trivia about the bard and his works. It’s a useful refresher for readers who haven’t spent time with Shakespeare since their school days. show less

Shakespeare oyunları her çağdan insana hitap etmeyi nasıl başarıyor? Oyunları gerçekten Shakespeare mi yazdı? Oyunların ilk kez okuyucuyla buluştuğu Birinci Folyo nasıl derlendi? Oyunlardan birini ilk kez sahnelendiğinde seyredebilseydik nasıl bir performansla karşılaşacaktık? Sonelerdeki “Karanlık Leydi” kim olabilir? Bu kitapta yanıtlarını bulacağınız sorulardan sadece birkaçı…

Shakespeare’in özel hayatı, çağdaşları ve etkileşimleri; dili ve show more şiirsel yeteneği; eserlerinin tarihsel çerçevesi ve anahtar temaları; az bilinen çalışmaları ve karakterleri, çok bilinen tiratları ve yapıtlarından ünlü alıntılar; kendi türettiği deyişler ve sözcükler gibi birçok başlık altında sürükleyici bir okuma serüveni sizi bekliyor. show less