October ShakespeareCAT: Macbeth

October ShakespeareCAT: Macbeth


Théodore Chassériau, "Banquo's Ghost"

This month’s ShakespeareCAT will focus on one of the Bard’s most famous tragedies, Macbeth. If you’ve never read it before, maybe now is the time! I always enjoy the Folger Shakespeare editions, which have helpful notes and summaries of each scene.

Or perhaps you’d rather read a retelling, in which case one of these might appeal:

- Hannah Capin, Foul Is Fair - “A bloody, thrilling revenge fantasy for the girls who have had enough.”
- Susan Fraser King, Lady Macbeth - “Transports readers to the heart of eleventh-century Scotland, painting a bold, vivid portrait of a woman much maligned by history.”
- Robin Talley, As I Descended - A queer YA retelling that is a “story of revenge and redemption.”
- Rebecca Reisert, The Third Witch - “In which a young woman's search for vengeance plunges her into a legendary tale of deceit, murder, and retribution.”
- Gareth Hinds, Macbeth: Shakespeare Classics Graphic Novels - A graphic novel edition, though apparently it condenses/changes the plot somewhat.
- Mairghread Scott, Kelly Matthews, and Nicole Matthews, Toil and Trouble - From the witches’ point of view.
- Jo Nesbø, Macbeth (Hogarth Shakespeare) - A retelling “set in a run-down industrial town in the 1970s.”

There are also many books that take their titles from the text of Macbeth, perhaps the most famous being William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury. Two more that come to mind are Agatha Christie’s By the Pricking of My Thumbs and Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (part of the same couplet, even!).

Or, if you’d rather focus on the play’s themes, you have a world of options: witchcraft, murder, politics, ambition, ghosts, and prophecies, to name just a few! If you’re planning on some spooky Halloween reading, many of these themes will dovetail nicely. Please share below what you’re planning to read for this CAT, and don’t forget to update the wiki!

I'm planning to read Light Thickens, a mystery involving a stage production of Macbeth.

I am reading The Weird Sisters by Eleanor Brown

I have read Macbeth at least 10 times, once each year I taught Lit. However, it has been 20 years, so I think I will read it from my omnibus....one last time!

I last read/listened to Macbeth in 2018. I may re-read it or I may choose something else. The mystery Carrie mentioned (>2 cbl_tn:) sounds interesting as does the Lady Macbeth option in the opening thread. I guess I'll see what I can find.

I will read Dewey Decimated which features a murder, two ghosts, ambition, and local politics!

I would like to read the play itself.

Macbeth is my favourite Shakespeare play and I read it (again) recently. For this challenge I read The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin a police procedural that involves political corruption in Scotland.

I just finished Richard Osman's The Bullet That Missed and am counting it here because it shares Macbeth's themes of murder and political corruption.

I read Macbeth by Jo Nesbo and it was a police thriller that was very close to the original and parts of it were not believable but it was engaging and I enjoyed by first Nesbo book.

November's thread is up; https://www.librarything.com/topic/345133

I read Death of a Dentist by M.C. Beaton.

Scotland, murder, and Macbeth - Hamish Macbeth, that is.

Hamish has been driven to see the dentist with unbearable toothache but he finds the dentist dead in his chair with some amateur dentistry accomplished. Was the murderer a dissatisfied customer or a disappointed lover? Hamish himself is in danger when he investigates. Fun, but a bit darker than most Hamish Macbeth novels.

I just read The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik and thought it was a very satisfying ending to the Scholomance trilogy. It shares Macbeth's themes of witchcraft (well, wizardry/magic use) and trying unsuccessfully to avoid a prophecy.

I read Shakespeare's Macbeth. Truly a powerful drama.

Finished Macbeth for the 10-11th time! Still good. Favorite lines: Out, out, brief candle. Life is but a walking shadow , a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage.....

>15 Tess_W: Yes, reminds me of when I was a high school principal, and one of my staff members had the students in her class re-enact that scene from the Scottish play.

I didn't get to something this month, but I'll try to go back and catch something before the end of the year. I had reread Macbeth fairly recently, but I never could get "enthused" about a thematic one. I think I'll probably just reread the classic when I get around to it. Now that I have all the presentations out of the way, I'll hopefully have the time to read it!

Sorry I'm a bit late with my update. I love Macbeth but I've read or seen the play too many times already. So I went with Lady Macbeth by Susan Fraser King.

I enjoyed this historical fiction novel about the 11th-century Queen Gruadh of Scotland, who inspired the Lady Macbeth character. The actual queen's life is supposedly quite different from that in Shakespeare's story and the author portrays her a much more admirable character.