Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

My Chemical Renaissance

Hamlet by William Shakespeare

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I am an English teacher and, as such, I regularly teach Shakespeare to high schoolers. This is nearly always met with varying degrees of trepidation; even the ones who like literature and who have a good grasp of the English language find his works somewhat daunting and often boring by default. And I get it, I do, but it’s such a shame. Once you get the hang of it and manage to pierce through the – admittedly often dense – language, Shakespeare was an absolute […]

Pain could be measured, whereas love often couldn’t even be located.

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This book is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. I previously reviewed Chevalier’s New Boy from the series. It was a FANTASTIC take on Othello. A year or so ago, I read Atwood’s spin on the Tempest ,  Hag-Seed, but didn’t really care for it.  Dunbar is St. Aubyn’s retelling of King Lear and I’m not sure exactly how I feel about it. My general reaction to most of it was… “What just happened?!” St. Aubyn focuses pretty much exclusively on the dysfunctional family theme here. Henry Dunbar is an 80-year-old  billionaire business mogul who hasn’t exactly […]

There was no choice, really. Is there ever between the darkness and the light? You walk toward the smile rather than the frown.

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This book is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare series. I read Margaret Atwood’s book in the series, Hag-Seed, a year or so ago but wasn’t crazy about her play within a play retelling of the Tempest. I’m reading Edward St. Aubyn’s contribution to the series now, Dunbar, and not quite sure yet how I feel about his version of Lear. This re-imagined Othello set on the playground of my youth, however, is fantastic.  I was immediately drawn to the echoes of that time: monkey bars, playing jacks, jump rope rhymes and […]

A modern Shakespeare

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What a fabulous read!!! I am a big fan of Shakespeare and am fast becoming a big fan of Margaret Atwood. This book is a modern take of The Tempest. What is fascinating about it, compared to other modern adaptations is the way is winds the play within the story, with the story itself. The story follows Felix, an Artistic Director. It begins with him preparing to put on the play, The Tempest. You learn that both his wife and more recently daughter, have passed […]

Fave play is fave

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“None but libertines delight in him.” Claudio and Hero love each other and want to get married. Beatrice and Benedick….well that’s what the play is about. Look this play makes no fucking sense what-so-ever. I mean, why is Hero wooed by someone else, in a mask? Why the fuck does Dogberry stumble around? And Claudio is dickweasel numero uno for believing Don John whatshisface…who meddles to actually give the play a plot. But then again, this is much ado about nothing so it does make […]

Another Atwood!

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 I think one of the Fug Girls (gofugyourself.com) recommended this book in a discussion of some sort.  As a seasoned Atwood reader, I jumped on it.  I got the audiobook version of this, which I 100000% recommend you get if you’re going to read this book.  It’s a story, but also a retelling of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  The audiobook actually performs the play.  I can’t imagine how much less enjoyable it’d be if I had to perform everything in my head.  It would probably still […]



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