Refreshingly honest, Bryson admits that he has nothing new to say about Shakespeare from the very outset, and in fact spends most of the book demolishing some of the generally accepted facts about Shakespeare, pointing out the lack of evidence. It's useful for a casual reader and the casual interest in Shakespeare, but obviously you'd want to go elsewhere if you have an academic interest in it. It serves as an excellent rundown of what we do know about the Bard, though.

He writes clearly and often with humour: a favourite titbit among reviewers is justifiably his pointed comment that Silliman, Looney and Battey are among the surnames rejoiced in by people who theorise that Shakespeare was not really the author of the plays attributed to him. If you have someone in your life who clings to the conspiracy theories about that, and it annoys you, you might consider giving them this book for Bryson's last chapter, in which he makes such theories seem quite silly.

There is nothing startling and new here, but for the clarity of Bryson's research and his writing, it's worth it as a casual read.

This was an interesting look at a figure I've heard of so much and whose plays I've performed but never really tried to find that much about. I was surprised initially to find how little real information there is about him but the book explains that the little we know is still far more then is known about a lot of other people of his time. It was an interesting and informative read and I'd recommend it to anyone who has an interest in his plays. Now I must go read the rest of his work.

I've always been an admirer of The Bard's works. When I was in school, probably about 14, Macbeth was my first Shagsbard experience. The assignment was to write a missing scene from the play, which I did on blue typing paper for some inexplicable reason. I don't know how that assignment influenced my own writing urges, I only know that it did as well as providing me a springboard to continuing affection for Shakspere's writing.

What I've never been is interested is the dude. The only things I knew for sure about him were bits and bobs like his being born in Stratford-Upon-Avon, his wife Anne Hathaway to whom he bequeathed his second best bed, the name of his son, Hamnet, bearing resemblance to that of Hamlet, that his mother's name was Elizabeth Arden, and the fact that there are a lot people trying to prove that he was other than the man we think he was, even though we haven't got a clue about who he was.

What made me finally pick up a biography was my gluttonous consumption of BBC2's recent showing of Julius Caesar and The Hollow Crown, which were just phenomenal. I picked up Peter Ackroyd's biography first and then realised that Bryson's was way less hefty and would provide a quicker route to reaching my Goodreads target. Best tactical decision everrrrr. I didn't really expect it to be that good either because I tried reading a book by Bryson once and didn't really enjoy the tone (grumpy cow).

This book though, awesome. I was a third through the paperback when I realised that 1) I was enjoying it immensely and 2) the library had an edition which illustrated many of the portraits, maps and etc. that Bryson was referencing. So, firstly I would say that if you're about to read this and perusing reviews, go for the illustrated edition. It's an utter delight with some beautiful images, plus a CD of sonnets read by John Gielgud, wut-wuuuuut?!

And secondly, if you're thinking about diving into the realm of Fhakefpeare's identity, this is a great place to start because Bryson talks a lot about the fact that we really haven't much of a clue about who the hell this guy was. He mentions the various names to which his works have been attributed, while having a bit of fun at the expense of these anti-Stratfordians (especially the unfortunately named Looney, Sillimen and Batty - I laughed so hard I almost needed the toilet).

What I love about this book is that Bryson comes across as an admirer, but not too dazzled to believe any old guff. He also sees no reason why Will.I.Am is so unacceptable as a country-boy with a decent grammar school education and quite rightly seems amused by the need to elevate Will to someone of greater learning or breeding, forgetting that while the author might give voice to princes and kings, he also taps into the kind of knowledge about which men of higher breeding might not have had any awareness.

There's also a decent amount of investigation into the era of our playwright, the kind of world he was inhabiting and the kind of people with whom he was sharing it. It was interesting to stop and think how different a history we could be reading, how his world could have changed at the drop of a firecracker, how our author might not have made it past his first birthday or how if Marlowe had not died, maybe today Shoots Spear would be like what Harry Potter is to some Lord of the Rings fans.

This biography definitely left me wanting to know more, but at the same time appreciating the fact that our lack of knowledge about the man somehow make his works all that more special. Shakes Pare could have been anyone. Some rich posh dude with epic tricks up his sleeve to retain his anonymity (as well as the power to keep shut the mouths of people around him... even after he died 0.o) or just some guy with a decent enough background to write well, but an epic imagination with which he gave his words flight and heart, so much so that they still move us without our having to know, who was this man William Shakespeare?

I listened to this as an audio book on a long drive. Very entertaining! Read by Bryson himself. This is funny and informative.

Shakespeare – The World as a Stage by Bill Bryson. 2007. Bought at the Globe Gift Shop in London, April 2008. Read in August, 2008. It's always fun to read Bill Bryson. He has a sly, sometimes acid wit, and he writes about rather profound things (such as language, the history of the universe, everyday life) in a down home, sit-around-the-fireplace kind of tone, much like Garrison Keillor. Very Midwest American. Bryson is from Iowa (has lived in England for years, still does) and Keillor is from Minnesota.So what does all this have to do with Shakespeare? Well, this: Bryson has written a biography of him. As usual he has taken a vast subject and given us an unpretentious, amusing and affectionate nutshell of it. He weaves the nuggets of fact we have on Shakespeare's life into the background tapestry of life in England, especially London, at the time. He presents the plays and writes about Shakespeare's language. Being a bit of a language expert himself Bryson makes this especially interesting. I always like to read about words Shakespeare invented (or as Bryson carefully points out, used in print for the first time that we know of), for example: antipathy, frugal, dwindle, assassination, lonely, zany... The list of course is almost endless. Did you know that Hamlet itself gave us about six hundred new words? A surprising number of Shakespeare's new words, about eight hundred according to Bryson, are still used today. Not to mention his phrases: one fell swoop, vanish into thin air, be in a pickle, flesh and blood, foul play – again one could go on and on.Using the garnered knowledge of such experts as Stephen Greenblatt and Frank Kermode, Bryson also deals with some of the myths and lies about Shakespeare that have persisted down the ages. For example the fact that he bequeathed ten pounds to the poor has been interpreted to show that Shakespeare was stingy but Bryson points out that at that time this was very generous. A person of Shakespeare's wealth could be expected to bequeath about two pounds. Bryson comes to no conclusion about what has been regarded as a very cold mention of his wife Anne Hathaway in his will, but he also points out that this is actually not evidence that they weren't on good terms (just wait till we get to Germaine Greer's Shakespeare's Wife a few books from now!).The book ends with a chapter about whether or not Shakespeare wrote Shakespeare's plays (a subject once again currently all the rage) and he very sensibly concludes that while there is a lot of evidence that he did, there is absolutely no evidence of any kind that anyone else did. He ends his book: “Only one man had the circumstances and gifts to give us such incomparable works, and William Shakespeare of Stratford was unquestionably that man – whoever he was.” This is an excellent book for those who don't know so much about Shakespeare but would like to, and it's also very enjoyable for those who know quite a lot about him. In other words, read it! First posten on rubyjandshakespearecalling@blogspot.com

Didn't enjoy it as much as his other works but his take on Shakespeare, his works and life was very interesting nonetheless. I wish you would do more about other prominent historical figures.

A very entertaining and informative book. I must admit that I have never quite managed to make the leap of faith about Bill Bryson. I did enjoy his early travel books (in particular The Lost Continent and Neither Here Nor There), though perhaps I read too many within too short a period because I very quickly came to find him merely irritating, and rather unwholesomely smug. It is also true that, in some of my more sclerotic moments, I might have been heard to remark that he has a face I could never tire of kicking. I apologise - we all have our lapses but that was uncalled for (even if, perhaps, true).Anyway, all of my reservations about him have been completely swept away by this book. Here Bryson sticks to what he does so well - portraying facts in a lucid, engaging, immediately accessible and readily memorable manner. His analysis of Shakespeare's plays and verse shows a deep affection and respect for the beauty of the words, and he sets about recapitulating Shakespeare's life in a concise but compelling manner.I particularly enjoyed his final chapter which attempted to debunk some of the more outlandish theories about possible alternative authors of the plays. So much energy has been expended in this field (more than 5,000 books to date!) which seems ridiculous when it is unlikely that any definitive conclusion could ever be established. Just enjoy the works for what they are. After all, "the play's the thing…"

My first Bill Bryson book, and I really enjoyed it. I especially appreciated the "Claimants" section at the end, I felt he dealt with those theories very well.

For someone who is so well known, there is really not much known about Shakespeare. You'd be hard pressed to find a person who didn't know of Shakespeare, which is pretty impressive for a guy who lived in the 1500s.Bryson is such a good writer when it comes to fleshing out facts into something that is entertaining and memorable. Even he concedes that this is a very short book because if we're going on fact, there isn't much to go on. Shakespeare led a life off the papers, showing up only sometimes in court documents. We know he married young, had children and went to London for the theatre and wrote fantastically brilliant plays. Little else is known but much else is speculated.Bryson tries to weed fact from fiction in this book and, when laid out as such, it's amazing to me how much is just guessed at about Shakespeare's life.This is an interesting little book if you like the bard but you won't really learn a lot. But if it's facts you're after, they are here.

Bill Bryson's one of those writers I'm a bit snobby about, probably because he's so popular but also because he's very easy to read and there's something very 'safe' about him somehow. Just look at the photo of him in this book: he's so damned cuddly ! Anyway, he has an engaging, witty style that effortlessly draws you in and keeps you reading, dammit. This account of what we know of Shakespeare is no different.Bryson has taken a deliberately no-nonsense approach to this account of Shakespeare's life, drawing on what we know of him from records and contemporary accounts. As he says more than once, this isn't very much, but is a darned sight more than most of his contemporaries, mainly due to obsessive research on the part of some oddballs which Bryson portrays in a typically comic light. He's very clear about what we do know and what we can infer with a reasonable degree of certainty. What conjecture there is seems reasonable and balanced. For example we have no documentary evidence of Shakespeare having had a formal education, but given that he was the son of a mayor it seems reasonable to suppose that he did. My favourite chapter is the last one however: 'Claimants', where Bryson discusses the vexatious 'who wrote Shakespeare's plays ?!' question. Here he shows there is acid in his pen, as he mercilessly mocks those who, 400 years after Shakespeare's death, seem to believe that they have 'evidence' for who 'really' wrote the plays, even though there was no question of Shakespeare's authorship when he was alive or for almost 200 years afterwards. Over fifty alternatives have been proposed for having written the plays and there isn't a shred of evidence for any one of them, but there's plenty of evidence in the plays for them having been written by someone matching Shakespeare's background. A classic case for Occam's Razor I think.This is a typically wry tome which should be read by anyone with an interest in England's great bard for its reason, insight and humour.Oh, Bill's not so bad really...