by Robert Boog ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 8, 2020
A lively, heterodox take on the Bard of Avon.
Boog enthusiastically takes on mainstream William Shakespeare scholars in this iconoclastic work of literary criticism.
The 2011 film Anonymous gave flesh to the argument that a nobleman named Edward de Vere wrote most or all of the plays ascribed to Shakespeare. The thesis wasn’t unknown in scholarly circles; indeed, most academics considered it thoroughly debunked. And yet the question at its heart—did someone else write Shakespeare?—remains tantalizing, and Boog tackles it with admirable verve in this book of criticism. For him, the record is clear: de Vere wrote the plays, and Shakespeare was just a poor bumpkin. Boog has an intriguing thesis as to why de Vere used a pseudonym, and a pile of scientific, historical, and textual material that purportedly proves his case. He lays it all out with remarkable energy, and it’s a thrill to watch him circle letters in Ben Jonson’s sonnets, delve into the minutiae of Copernican astronomy, and review obscure pieces of Renaissance history. Much of the putative evidence feels circumstantial, but it’s hard not to enjoy the ride as Boog presents it, even if he sometimes treats his opponents unfairly by oversimplifying their arguments. For instance, he writes: “Only Shakespeare, they insist, could have written the works attributed to William Shakespeare. Why? Basically, because other writers have said so.” This is uncharitable, at best, as numerous scholars have done exhaustive historical and archival research on the matter. Boog’s book, on the other hand, lacks a bibliography, and the fact he occasionally misspells scholars’ names doesn’t bolster his credibility. Furthermore, the fact that many “other writers,” over the course of centuries, say that Shakespeare wrote his works shouldn’t be so easily dismissed. That being said, there is provocative, if anecdotal, information in these pages, and Boog’s review of it is often quite fun. Indeed, it’s hard not to be pulled in by the breathless “mystery.”
A lively, heterodox take on the Bard of Avon.Pub Date: March 8, 2020
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 121
Publisher: Self
Review Posted Online: Sept. 10, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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by David Grann ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 18, 2017
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.
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Greed, depravity, and serial murder in 1920s Oklahoma.
During that time, enrolled members of the Osage Indian nation were among the wealthiest people per capita in the world. The rich oil fields beneath their reservation brought millions of dollars into the tribe annually, distributed to tribal members holding "headrights" that could not be bought or sold but only inherited. This vast wealth attracted the attention of unscrupulous whites who found ways to divert it to themselves by marrying Osage women or by having Osage declared legally incompetent so the whites could fleece them through the administration of their estates. For some, however, these deceptive tactics were not enough, and a plague of violent death—by shooting, poison, orchestrated automobile accident, and bombing—began to decimate the Osage in what they came to call the "Reign of Terror." Corrupt and incompetent law enforcement and judicial systems ensured that the perpetrators were never found or punished until the young J. Edgar Hoover saw cracking these cases as a means of burnishing the reputation of the newly professionalized FBI. Bestselling New Yorker staff writer Grann (The Devil and Sherlock Holmes: Tales of Murder, Madness, and Obsession, 2010, etc.) follows Special Agent Tom White and his assistants as they track the killers of one extended Osage family through a closed local culture of greed, bigotry, and lies in pursuit of protection for the survivors and justice for the dead. But he doesn't stop there; relying almost entirely on primary and unpublished sources, the author goes on to expose a web of conspiracy and corruption that extended far wider than even the FBI ever suspected. This page-turner surges forward with the pacing of a true-crime thriller, elevated by Grann's crisp and evocative prose and enhanced by dozens of period photographs.
Dogged original research and superb narrative skills come together in this gripping account of pitiless evil.Pub Date: April 18, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-385-53424-6
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Doubleday
Review Posted Online: Feb. 1, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2017
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by Ta-Nehisi Coates ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 8, 2015
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”
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The powerful story of a father’s past and a son’s future.
Atlantic senior writer Coates (The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood, 2008) offers this eloquent memoir as a letter to his teenage son, bearing witness to his own experiences and conveying passionate hopes for his son’s life. “I am wounded,” he writes. “I am marked by old codes, which shielded me in one world and then chained me in the next.” Coates grew up in the tough neighborhood of West Baltimore, beaten into obedience by his father. “I was a capable boy, intelligent and well-liked,” he remembers, “but powerfully afraid.” His life changed dramatically at Howard University, where his father taught and from which several siblings graduated. Howard, he writes, “had always been one of the most critical gathering posts for black people.” He calls it The Mecca, and its faculty and his fellow students expanded his horizons, helping him to understand “that the black world was its own thing, more than a photo-negative of the people who believe they are white.” Coates refers repeatedly to whites’ insistence on their exclusive racial identity; he realizes now “that nothing so essentialist as race” divides people, but rather “the actual injury done by people intent on naming us, intent on believing that what they have named matters more than anything we could ever actually do.” After he married, the author’s world widened again in New York, and later in Paris, where he finally felt extricated from white America’s exploitative, consumerist dreams. He came to understand that “race” does not fully explain “the breach between the world and me,” yet race exerts a crucial force, and young blacks like his son are vulnerable and endangered by “majoritarian bandits.” Coates desperately wants his son to be able to live “apart from fear—even apart from me.”
This moving, potent testament might have been titled “Black Lives Matter.” Or: “An American Tragedy.”Pub Date: July 8, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-8129-9354-7
Page Count: 176
Publisher: Spiegel & Grau
Review Posted Online: May 5, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2015
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