Monday, April 6, 2020

April 2020


 ‘A plague on both your houses.’ One of the strongest quotes in Shakespeare. Who would have ever believed that ‘both your houses’ was too small? A plague on the world is what we have. I hope you are well and able to deal with this Corona crisis. I am in isolation, no doubt like many of you, but well and healthy and cared for. I wish and hope the same for you.

As always, I start with a promo for the book Shakespeare calling – the book. I do so hope you will help me. Thank you.
The book is available for those of you in Great Britain and parts of Europe on this site:

Or in Sweden
or Adlibris. Or contact the publisher info@vulkan.se

Shakespeare sightings:
  • In the novel The Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo, the magically gifted protagonist Alex (her real name is Galaxy) also likes Shakespeare. She refers to Ophelia and her flowers, she dresses as Mab for a Halloween party, she prefers her Shakespeare class to Modern British Novels and uses her Shakespeare notebook to write magical formulas, and she has a roommate named Miranda, like in The Tempest.
  • In Anne Tyler’s Clock Dance the main character Willa’s mother is in an amateur acting group who always play Shakespeare in the summer. In the same conversation Willa’s fiancé Derek calls her mother Lady Macbeth for serving rabbit stew on Easter.
  • Sharon Bolton uses Shakespeare quotes to start each part in her creepy detective novel The Craftsman and one of her characters is in an amateur production of Macbeth.
  • In Release by Patrick Ness, young Adam loves young Enzo and reflects that at least ‘they were older than those two idiots in Romeo and Juliet.
  • On Facebook: ‘For the first time in 200 years, Shakespeare is not being performed anywhere in the world.’ Because of Corona. But by now there are a lot of Shakespeare performances being sent via Internet.
  • It has been mentioned in several places, including Swedish TV’s Kulturnytt, that Shakespeare wrote Lear and Macbeth while quarantined because of the plague. Kulturnytt also pointed out that Juliet didn’t get Romeo’s message because the friar delivering it was quarantined due to the plague, and went on to remind us to wash our hands.

Films with a Shakespeare connection seen this month:

Further since last time:
  • Finished reading aloud with Hal: Julius Caesar.
  • Wrote the text ‘Caesar, Brutus and Greenblatt in Julius Caesar

Posted this month
  • This report
  • The above-mentioned text


Shakespeare Calling – the book is promoted by

Read more about my alter ego’s books, in one of which Shakespeare appears live and in person, on:


No comments:

Post a Comment