It’s been a great year for new books about—and inspired by—Shakespeare. Might one of these delight a Shakespeare fan on your holiday gift list or perhaps you’ll want to add it to your own TBR list?
The history behind Shakespeare’s plays
Henry V: The Astonishing Triumph of England’s Greatest Warrior King by Dan Jones
While he ruled for less than a decade, Henry V is a case study in the art of leadership – in no small part, thanks to Shakespeare. Separating the man from the myth, Jones, a best-selling historian and journalist, sheds new light on one of English history’s most pivotal figures.
More English history: a prequal and a sequel
The Eagle and the Hart: The Tragedy of Richard II and Henry IV by Helen Castor
Read an excerpt | Listen to our interview with the author
Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage That Shook Europe by John Guy and Julia Fox
Read an excerpt | Listen to our interview with the author
Novels Inspired by Shakespeare
Marriage and Masti by Nisha Sharma
The final installment of the “If Shakespeare Were an Auntie” trilogy takes its inspiration from Twelfth Night, shipwrecks and all. In this witty friends-to-lovers rom-com, set in the series’ tight-knit South Asian community, Veera and Deepak’s accidental wedding could solve their career woes if love doesn’t ruin everything.
Learn about Dating Dr. Dil by Nisha Sharma
Book One in the “If Shakespeare Were an Auntie” series and a Folger Book Club selection
Actors on Shakespeare
A Piece of Work: Playing Shakespeare and Other Stories by Simon Russell Beale
One of our great stage actors reflects on his life and shares the thought process behind bringing so many memorable characters to life, beginning with Cassius, and continuing through the great comic and tragic heroes, Benedick, Richard III, Macbeth, Leontes, and Lear. Bonus: Beale reads the audiobook version.
More stories from Shakespeare actors
Sonny Boy by Al Pacino
Read our blog post
Shakespeare: The Man Who Pays the Rent by Judi Dench and Brendan O’Hea
Read an excerpt | Listen to our interview with the authors
Women on Shakespeare
Queen Macbeth by Val McDermid
Britain’s “Queen of Crime” and five-time Edgar Award finalist reclaims the story of the woman who Shakespeare made his most infamous villain. She returns to 10th-century Scotland where Queen Gruoch, the wife of the historic King Macbeth, attended by the weird sisters, survives her husband’s defeat.
More perspectives: a history and a memoir
Shakespeare’s Sisters: How Women Wrote the Renaissance by Ramie Targoff
Listen to our interview with the author
Green World: A Tragicomic Memoir of Love & Shakespeare by Michelle Ephraim
Listen to our interview with the author
Shakespeare and his world
Straight Acting: The Hidden Queer Lives of William Shakespeare by Will Tosh
Moving beyond the question, “Was Shakespeare gay?”, Tosh explores how sex, intimacy, and identity were more complex—and more queer—in Elizabethan England than that question suggests. In this biography, he portrays Shakespeare as a queer artist who drew on his society’s nuanced understanding of gender and sexuality to create his extraordinary works.
Read an excerpt | Listen to our interview with the author
More books about early modern England
Cunning Folk: Life in the Era of Practical Magic by Tabitha Stanmore
Read an excerpt | Listen to our interview with the author
Reading the River in Shakespeare’s Britain, edited by Bill Angus and Lisa Hopkins
Read an excerpt
Theatrical Shakespeare
She Speaks! What Shakespeare’s Women Might Have Said by Harriet Walter
An acclaimed Shakespearean actor who has played most of Shakespeare’s women, Walter reimagines what these women might have said, including what Gertrude longed to say about her husband; Lady Macbeth on why she deserved to be Queen; and the Nurse reflecting on Juliet’s death. An inventive, contemporary interpretation of the plays.
More on Shakespeare and the stage
The Playbook: A Story of Theater, Democracy, and the Making of a Culture War by James Shapiro
Read an excerpt | Listen to our interview with the author
Shakespeare in the Theatre: Tina Packer by Katharine Goodland
Read an excerpt
Shakespeare and our world
The Oxford Handbook of Shakespeare and Race, edited by Patricia Akhimie
A collection of essays by some of today’s leading scholars, edited by the Director of the Folger Institute, offers fresh readings of the plays and poems. This comprehensive contemporary resource explores wide-ranging topics at the intersections of Shakespeare, premodern critical race studies, and other fields.
More on Shakespeare’s influence
Second Chances: Shakespeare and Freud by Stephen Greenblatt and Adam Phillips
Read an excerpt | Listen to our interview with the authors
Shakespeare Beyond the Green World: Drama and Ecopolitics in Jacobean Britain by Todd Andrew Borlik
Listen to our interview with the author
Especially for teachers
The Folger Guides to Teaching Shakespeare, edited by Peggy O’Brien
The new Folger Guide to Teaching Shakespeare series offers educators fresh insights and detailed lesson plans for some of Shakespeare’s most frequently taught plays—beginning with Hamlet, Macbeth, and Romeo and Juliet—using the proven Folger Method of teaching and informed by the experiences of classroom teachers.
Read an excerpt by Ellen MacKay and an excerpt by Jocelyn A. Chadwick | Listen to our interview with the editor and teachers
Many of these titles are available in the Folger Shop on Capitol Hill and online
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