Top Ten Tuesday: Summertime TBR 2026

This week, our prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is Books on my summer 2026 reading list.  Here are ten books I really would like to read this summer!

I'm including publication years and genre tags for them as found on Goodreads, since I haven't actually read any of these yet.

The Dogs of War by Emily Hayse -- 2025, new adult, fantasy, coming-of-age

The Fighting Ground by Avi -- 1984, middle-grade, historical fiction, American Revolution

Lady Agatha Speaks Her Mind by Elisabeth Aimee Brown -- 2026, young adult, fairy tale retelling, fantasy

The Lady and the Loyalist by Stephanie McRae -- 2024, Christian, historical fiction, American Revolution

The Leavenworth Case by Anna Katherine Green -- 1877, classic, mystery, detective fiction

Major Fireworks by B. R. Goodwin -- 2024, Christian, clean romance, humorous

The Secret of Sarah Revere by Ann Rinaldi -- 1995, young adult, historical fiction, American Revolution

Secrets of the Revolution by Megan Soja -- 2025, Christian, historical fiction, American Revolution

Serve Love Mend by Jenni Sauer -- 2026, YA, Shakespeare retelling, fantasy

Washington's Spies by Alexander Rose -- 2006, non-fiction, American Revolution

Do you have books you want to get read this summer?  Have you read any of these?

"Hey, Jude Carpenter" by Storm Shultz

This is such a sweet middle-grade retelling of Romeo and Juliet! It's set in a small town that has two Baptist churches. There was a split in the congregation ten years earlier, with Jude's family on one side and Mona's on the other.

Jude Carpenter's family run a dairy farm, and it's in financial trouble.  Not to mention, his older brother just broke up with his girlfriend.  Things are getting pretty stressful.  But there's a bright spot in his life: his new friend, Mona.  But his mom doesn't like Mona's family, so she tells Jude to un-friend Mona.

Mona Montgomery loves to read, sing Beatles songs, and help people.  She was best friends with an older cousin until that cousin goes to college, and now Mona is pretty lonely.  She has fun hanging out with Jude, though, and dearly wants to help his family keep their farm.

This is such a great look at the power of God to heal divisions and lift up heavy hearts.  Martin Luther once said that every Christian is meant to show the face of Jesus to those around them, and that is just what Jude and Mona do -- their friendship and kindness has a powerful influence on their families, even though they're "only" middle-schoolers!

There's a tiny bit of romance in this, with Jude and Mona talking about maybe wanting to date when they are older, and they do hold hands and exchange a cute and awkward little first kiss.  Their relationship was entirely age-appropriate and godly.  But if your kids aren't quite interested in the opposite sex yet, they might not love that part of the book.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: G.  It's good and lovely and sweet and wholesome.

"Summon the Light" by Tor Thibeaux

My dad died three weeks ago yesterday.  While traveling to Iowa for his funeral, I read Summon the Light by Tor Thibeaux, a retelling of Shakespeare's The Tempest that's part of the Classic Retold series.  This is a slender novella, barely a hundred pages, but it was exactly the representation of hope and healing I needed at the time.

Nick works as a smuggler after barely surviving the epic fight between mighty forces of evil and good.  The fight killed most of his friends and left the spirit Ariel in a magical coma.  Nick goes through his days feeling numb and detached until he begins to hear a beautiful song that urges him to return to the island he once called home.  Once there, he strives to rebuild the island's ruined chapel.  With each stone he replaces, the song grows stronger, and so does his hope.  

The book's message is one of not giving up even when you are devastated, of doing the next task that comes to hand even if it seems meaningless.  That confidence that even mundane things are still important in the face of great tragedy is something I absolutely needed reinforced during that road trip to Iowa.  I'm so thankful I grabbed this particular book off my TBR shelves, seemingly at random, when I was packing things to read on the trip -- I think the Lord must have guided my hand at that moment.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG for fantasy violence.  No objectionable content.

This is my 25th book read from my TBR shelves for the 2024 Mount TBR reading challenge.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream: Modern English Edition" (Manga Classics) by William Shakespeare (original story), Crystal S. Chan (story adaptation), Michael Barltrop (modern English adaptation), and Po Tse (art)

You know what?  I am just going to have to accept the fact that I really don't enjoy the story of A Midsummer Night's Dream.  I get very frustrated with every single character at various points, except Helena.  I actively dislike most of them, actually.  And I don't like Helena enough to want to suffer through the rest of the story just for her.  Unless it's the 1935 movie version, which I enjoy enough for the cast to watch it once in a great while.

However, the artwork is really fun and cute in this Manga Classics edition, so I didn't suffer too much reading it.  I did put it down for like two months because I was so annoyed by everyone, though.  But I finished it at last, whew.  I thought they did a good job translating Shakespeare into modern English, and they even replaced most of his bawdier jokes with more kid-friendly ones.  There's one moment where a character alludes to someone being upset whenever women refuse to open their thighs, but that's the only skanky spot, and it's pretty mild.

Not going to be a manga I reread, but it is very pretty, so there's that.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate it: PG-10 for the above bawdy reference and for two or three old-fashioned cuss words.

This is my 27th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2023.

Top Ten Tuesday: Hello There

This week's Top Ten Tuesday prompt from That Artsy Reader Girl is "New-to-Me Authors I Discovered in 2022."  Sometimes I get stuck in a rut and read mostly books by authors I'm already familiar with, but I actually tried quite a few new-to-me authors last year!  Here are ten that I would like to read more books by, plus the books I read of theirs in 2022.  I've linked to my reviews of those books, plus provided what genre they are.

John Dudley Ball -- I read In the Heat of the Night (mystery)

Colleen Coble -- I read Silent Night/Holy Night and All is Calm/All is Bright (mystery)

Susan Coolidge -- I read What Katy Did, What Katy Did at School, and What Katy Did Next (slice of life)

Anthony Hope -- I read The Prisoner of Zenda and Rupert of Hentzau (swashbuckler)

Britt Howard -- I read Song of the Valley (clean romance)

Morgan Hubbard -- I read This Cursed Line (fantasy)

Rafael Sabatini -- I read The Black Swan (swashbuckler)

Luke Short -- I read Vengeance Valley (western)

Carly Stevens -- I read Laertes (dark academia)

Candice Pedraza Yamnitz -- I read Unbetrothed (fantasy)

Have you tried any of these authors?  Are any of them on your TBR shelves?  Who did you discover last year!  Do share!

"Hamlet" (Manga Classics) by William Shakespeare (original story), Crystal S. Chan (story adaptation), and Julien Choy (art)

There are two options to read this play in the Manga Classics series.  One is to read it in the original language, and the other is to read it in a more modern adaptation.  I chose the original language edition, so that's what I'm reviewing here.

This book is breathtaking.  The art is just gorgeous -- crisp and moody, atmospheric and alluring.  And the story is "staged" very nicely, suiting the actions to the words in ways that made the story come to life.  

Like the other Manga Classics I've read this summer, I handed this off to my kids when I was done with it.  All three of them have read the Usborne graphic novel of Hamlet, so they knew the basics of the story already, and who the characters were.  My 14-yr-old son and 12-yr-old daughter both read this whole manga, and they did ask me a lot of questions about archaic words, but they did not have trouble understanding the story.  My 12-yr-old daughter read part of it and decided it was too creepy and weird, so she stopped reading.  I agree with her that the Ghost is quite creepy -- he's supposed to be, but I understand why she would object.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for containing the original curse words, accusations of marital infidelity, and violence.  It's not filled with gore, but the deaths at the end do involve some blood spatter.  Which is black and white, and cartoony, but still might not be acceptable for some readers.

This is the 40th book I've read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.

"Laertes" by Carly Stevens

This book.  Oh, this book!  Where do I even start?

Laertes retells Hamlet from the point of view of an often-overlooked character from the play, Ophelia's brother and Polonius's son, Laertes.  He's only onstage for the beginning and the end of the play, and many people kind of forget about him, except as that guy who has the sword fight with Hamlet at the end.  But I have long felt that Laertes is a key character in the play, especially the way he serves as a foil for Hamlet.  He and Hamlet both lose their fathers to murder, but while Hamlet shies away from revenge and its implications for as long as he can, Laertes embraces it pretty much instantly.  They're like a photo and its negative, one cerebral and fond of reasoning and thinking, and the other a hot-blooded man of action.

And yet, most productions of Hamlet that I've seen have treated Laertes as almost an afterthought, seeming to handing the role to some random dude who looks okay with a sword and can remember his lines.  Only twice have I seen Laertes played to my satisfaction, once by Liev Schreiber in the 2000 film and once by Benjamin Reed onstage in 2018.  And I have seen twenty different productions of the play, which makes that a pretty poor record for presenting this pivotal character in a way that really makes full use of his potential.

All of which means that I got really, really excited when I learned that someone was writing a Hamlet retelling that focused on Laertes.  In fact, I signed up to be a beta reader for this book earlier this year because I wanted to help and encourage Carly Stevens bring it to life in any way I could.  And, I admit, I wanted to beta-read it to see if it was going to live up to my expectations.

It did.

And the finished book is even better.

I was super excited when my copy arrived on release day, since pre-ordered books have a habit of not showing up at my house as soon as I would like them to.  But this one did!  And I immediately began reading it... but slowly.  I savored this book like a square of fine dark chocolate or a really excellent coffee -- enjoying it a nibble or a sip at a time, with plenty of opportunity to enjoy the rich flavor and nuances.

Laertes is set in the 1920s, with a "Dark Academia" aesthetic.  Laertes Belleforest is a Danish expat student in Paris, rooming with two friends in a little apartment above an apothecary shop and enjoying the intellectual and artistic stimulation of the City of Lights.  But when King Hamlet dies suddenly back home in Denmark, Laertes must return home in the middle of the semester to attend the funeral because he and his family are members of the Danish court.  By the time he gets there, the king's brother Claudius has married the widowed Queen Gertrude and gotten himself chosen king, rather than Prince Hamlet. 

Laertes and his sister Ophelia grew up with Hamlet.  While Laertes and Hamlet are more frenemies than friends, they still have the kind of instinctive fondness for each other that people have for someone they've known all their lives.  It's a fondness based on familiarity rather than actual friendship, but that's enough to get Laertes concerned about Hamlet when the young prince starts behaving as if he's mad.  Especially since said prince has been courting Laertes's sister Ophelia for a while now.

If you know Hamlet, you know how this will go.  Madness and murder entangle everyone before the story ends, and almost none of the principal characters survive to the end.  One of the things I liked best about this retelling is that it gave Laertes friends.  He's very alone in Hamlet, and while Hamlet gets to die in the arms of his friend Horatio at the end of the play, Laertes dies alone and friendless.  But in this retelling, Laertes has two dear friends, Henri and Julien, to support and comfort him, and one of them is even there to hold him in his final moments, letting Laertes mirror Hamlet more exactly in death here than he does in the play.

As always, it's the characters that make me love a story, and Laertes himself is such a real-feeling bundle of contradictions, worries, fears, and desires that I can't help wanting to hug him and make everything okay.  And Hamlet here is a complicated, aloof, needy, bold, self-assured, uncertain chap, not quite as likable as I would have written him, but certainly a valid representation of Shakespeare's character.  Ophelia is a wonderful mix of intelligence, fragility, and hope, and I might have loved her more here than I generally do in the play, to be honest.  The original characters of Henri, Julien, and Josephine were all nicely fleshed out, though Josephine less so than the boys.  I might feel that way because I don't like Josephine very well, though, mostly because she makes some very destructive decisions.

Particularly Good Bits:

It was a greeting card type of care--warm from afar, sending me best wishes (p. 11).

She reminded me of Hamlet then, a mind so active that boredom settled like a butterfly any time there was little stimulation (p. 64). 

Her sugared words caught me, but only because I was ready to be caught (p. 120).

The poison of deep grief is as potent as anything bottled (p. 176).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for intermittent dropping of F bombs just for shock effect by one character, and for an on-page love scene that isn't super detailed, but still gave me the urge to skim ahead until it was over.  It's pretty easy to see coming and just skip on through.

"Ophelia" by Lisa Klein

I read this book about ten years ago, and I really enjoyed it then, so I was excited when it got made into a movie a few years later.  I very much like the movie as well, so I'm glad I had a chance to reread the book.  It's just as good as I remembered!  Such an intriguing take on Hamlet, not only because it's told through Ophelia's eyes instead, but because Lisa Klein weaves aspects of a couple other Shakespeare plays into it too.

In Ophelia, we get to see the title character growing up alongside her brother and interacting with Prince Hamlet more and more as they grow older.  Klein gives them a sweet and tender love story, then shows us how Hamlet's desire for vengeance grows into a kind of madness that eventually wrecks everyone around him, including his secret wife, Ophelia.

Yes, we get a secret marriage between Hamlet and Ophelia in this book, which I find completely fitting.  Everything Klein writes works well with Shakespeare's play as we know it, but with the camera pointed a different direction, rather like the play Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard.  But in a much less wacky and silly way.  Even the way that Klein twists the ending of her book works with the original play while pulling in elements of other tragedies.

If you like viewing classic stories from a different angle, if you're a Hamlet or Shakespeare fan, or if you just like stories of strong, yet sweet and loving women, I definitely recommend this book.

(From my Instagram account)

Particularly Good Bits:

I could not make sense of this Janus-faced husband who spoke false and true at once (p. 152).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-16 for a non-steamy and obliquely described love scene, an attempted sexual assault, crude humor, suggestive dialog, and discussions of things like menarche and childbirth.

Top Ten Tuesday: Is There Any More?

Well, this is a day late because I was in surgery to repair my broken right arm yesterday.  But That Artsy Reader Girl's topic of "What books do you want epilogues for?" is so cool, I didn't want to skip it, so... here we are.

Some books end super satisfyingly, letting me visualize how life will go for the characters after that.  And some... don't give me as much closure as I want.  So, here are ten books I really want to read at least a quick epilogue for, just to be sure everything turns out okay a few days or weeks down the road.

I'm typing with only my left hand right now, so I am not providing descriptions or pictures or anything more than titles this time.  But all titles are linked to my reviews, if you want to know more about them.

1. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
2. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
3. Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by William Shakespeare
4. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Schafer and Annie Barrows
5. Shane by Jack Schaefer
6. The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
7. Jane of Lantern Hill by L. M. Montgomery
8. North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell
9. Girl in Disguise by Greer MacAllister
10. Christy by Catherine Marshall

Shhh, yes, I know that some of these books have actual sequels by the original authors, or sequels written by others, but that's not the point.  I still want an epilogue.

"Hamlet" by Alexandre Dumas

No, the title of this post is not a typo.  Alexandre Dumas, the guy who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers and so on, also translated Shakespeare's Hamlet into French.  And then I read a translation into English by Frank Morlock of his translation into French.  Which sounds like a waste of time, since I can just read Hamlet in English any time I want to, and have often done so.  BUT.

But Alexandre Dumas didn't so much translate Hamlet as retell it.  He trimmed it considerably (there's no Fortinbras, for instance), he pepped up the dialog even more, and... ::drumroll please:: he changed the ending.

:-o

Not tons!  It still ends with a swordfight between Hamlet and Laertes, and dead people strewn all over the stage.  But one character who dies in Shakespeare's Hamlet lives in this one, and the Ghost makes an extra appearance in this one, and it's just really fantastically fun to read!

I knew going in that the ending was going to be different because there's an opera version of Hamlet with music by Ambroise Thomas and libretto by Michel Carre and Jules Barbier that is based on Dumas' translation rather than Shakespeare's original.  I've seen the 2004 production starring Simon Keenlyside, which is fantastic, though the changed ending just shocked my socks off the first time I saw it.  When I discovered this translation in print, I knew I had to read it!  And I'm so glad I did.

Note from the cover that the volume it's in is called Shakespeare in France and includes a translation of George Sand's French translation of As You Like It also, both translated by Frank Morlock.  I only read the Hamlet.  So I'm only reviewing that.  But if you want to find this yourself, look for it as Shakespeare in France and you'll have an easier time finding it.

(Mine from my Instagram)

Particularly Good Bits:

Polonius:  ...his shipwrecked heart struggles and forgets itself (p. 51)

Hamlet:  The stage is a mirror where man, such as he is, good and bad, must see himself (p. 59).

King:  You are speaking like an enigma and I don't understand you at all.

Hamlet:  Me neither (p. 70).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 even though it cuts down a lot on the obsession with Gertrude being in Claudius's bed now.  Still a lot of innuendo and violence.

This has been my 29th book read and reviewed for my third Classics Club list and my 41st for #TheUnreadShelfProject2021.

Manga Shakespeare "Hamlet" adapted by Richard Appignanesi, illustrated by Emma Vieceli

Occasionally, I find a graphic novel version of Hamlet that I haven't read before.  Or, as in this case, my husband finds one for me :-)  I've read at least three others -- maybe I ought to do a post here comparing them sometime.

This one is set in the future.  The prologue says, "The year is 2107.  Global climate change has devastated the Earth.  This is now a cyberworld in constant dread of war.  Prince Hamlet of Denmark has come home to face an uncertain future..."  By setting it in a futuristic cyberworld, they were able to emphasize the "truth vs. illusion" aspects of this story really well, I thought.  What's real, and what is someone just trying to convince you of via lies and trickery?

I found some of the trappings a little weird -- people have ports like headphone jacks in their bodies that they can plug what are basically USB drives into to exchange information, rather than reading letters, and so on.  Also, Hamlet had two ports like that in one of his arms, but they never got used or explained.  Hmm.

They used the original text, in abbreviated form, and chopped up/rearranged only a few lines, rather than paraphrasing.

The artwork was good, if you like manga.  I don't love the manga style, but I don't hate it either.  It was all black-and-white except for a semi-colored Dramatis Personae at the front of the book.  They didn't play up the sexier aspects of the story much, so I'm going to let my 12-yr-old read this now that I've finished it.

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for scary images (ghosts and skulls, y'all) and violence.

This is my 20th book read for #theunreadshelfproject2020 -- I'm halfway to my goal of 40 books read from my TBR shelves this year!

The Taylor Swift Book Tag

I am not actually a fan of Taylor Swift.  I'm not exactly anti-Taylor either, I just... enjoy a few of her songs if they pop up on the radio, but have never listened to a full album or really bothered to learn the lyrics to any of her stuff.

Be that as it may, I saw this super-cute tag on Coffee, Classics, and Craziness a while back and felt like answering it myself, so here goes!  Book titles linked to my reviews where applicable.

1. “We Are Never Ever Getting Back Together”: a book/series you thought you’d love but ended up disliking

I quit reading Kathy Reichs' books because they got too repetitive.  But I own all twelve seasons of Bones, the TV show based on them.  Go figure.  (TBH, it's all David Boreanaz' fault.)

2. “Red”: a book with a red cover

I have a wonderful old copy of Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe that is bright red and I love it.

(All book photos in this post are mine from Instagram)

3. “The Best Day”: a book that makes you feel nostalgic

I can't read The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King without remembering both the Wisconsin library where I first found it and also a bunch of Veggie Tales silly songs that my first toddler loved -- I would let him watch ten minutes of silly songs on YouTube every day, and I'd read while he watched.  It was often my only chance to read at that time, and so... I clung to it, rereading favorite books in tiny chunks with Bob and Larry in the background.

4. “Love Story”: a book with forbidden love

Speak Easy, Speak Love has several love stories, and most of them are not forbidden.  But the love between John, who is Italian, and Maggie, who is black, is absolutely not acceptable in the 1920s.  And they're two of my favorite characters, and watching them struggle against their own fears and the prejudices of their society is just... so good.  Love that book.  (How could I not?  It's a Much Ado About Nothing retelling!)

5. “I Knew You Were Trouble”: a bad character you can’t help but love

A lot of people seem very appalled that I love Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre, but how can I NOT love that damaged, flawed, sad, lonely man?  And he's not totally bad -- he does reform and repent and change and grow.

6. “Innocent”: a book/series someone ruined for you

I'm not sure I've got anything for this.  I don't know that anyone else has ever ruined a book for me.  What kind of a person would do that?

Oh, some person in my life has literally wrecked my physical copies of books, that's true.  But that didn't ruin the story for me, just that particular copy.

7. “Everything Has Changed”: a character who goes through extensive character development

Um, all good characters?  Okay, to pick one I haven't talked about yet, Edmund Dantes in The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas.  He goes from a simple, uneducated sailor to a man of great learning and exquisite taste; from being consumed with the desire for revenge to an understanding of how ruinous vengeance can be.

8. “You Belong With Me”: your most-anticipated book release

Of Literature and Lattes, Katherine Reay's upcoming follow-up to The Printed Letter Bookshop.

9. “Forever and Always”: your favorite book couple

Valency Stirling and Barney Snaith from The Blue Castle by Lucy Maud Montgomery.  Both of them are intelligent, quirky, introverted, quiet, secretive, wonderful people, and I love them fiercely.

10. “Come Back . . . Be Here”: the book you would be least likely to lend out

My autographed copy of Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury.  Ain't happening.

11. “Teardrops On My Guitar”: a book that made you cry

Many books make me cry.  Most recently, I was finishing reading Caddie Woodlawn aloud to my kids, and I cried over the part where their dog comes back.

12. “Shake It Off”: a book you love that other people hate

Hmm.  Maybe The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald?  I know a lot of people aren't into that one.

13. “Stay Stay Stay”: a book you wished could go on forever

Well, I was so reluctant to leave the world of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society the first time I read it, I just flipped back to the beginning and started it all over again.

14. “All Too Well”: a series you wished could go on forever

The Sherlock Holmes canon.  It could be four times as long and I'd be ecstatic. That's why I read so many pastiches.  I NEED more!

15. “Ronan”: a book with a tragic character death/death of an innocent

Anne's House of Dreams by L. M. Montgomery.  If you've read it, you know what I'm talking about.  if you haven't... I'm not spoiling it for you here.

16. “Out of the Woods”: a book that had you worried about the characters up to the very end

Even though I've read it a dozen or more times, I still worry about Ponyboy and everyone else in The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton the whole book through.

17. “Getaway Car”: a book with a tempestuous romance

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen certainly qualifies for that, I think.  

18. “Clean”: a book that taught you something profound

A Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh taught me many things about woman's innate need to create, the importance of alone time, and so on.

19. “Long Live”: a book that transports you every time

The Hound of the Baskervilles by A. Conan Doyle never fails to whisk me away to windswept moors.

That's all, folks!  If you had fun with this, feel free to snag it for your own use.  Not tagging anyone today.

"Speak Easy, Speak Love" by McKelle George (again)

This is the perfect summer read.  Breezy and witty, filled with summer's sunshine and shadows, and crammed with characters I adore.  Lots of substance, but also lots of fun.

I mean, that's my personal definition of a perfect summer read, anyway.

I reviewed this pretty fully last year when I first read it, so if you want to know more about the plot, you can read about that in my other review.  This post is going to be more about gushing about all the things I love.

First of all, it's a retelling of Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing, which is my other favorite of his plays.  So I obviously dig seeing all the ways George draws on that.  The characters share names and personality traits with the ones in the play, except for John, who is one of my favorites here, while I cannot stand Don John in the play.  George changes a lot of things, but in ways that suit the story and serve the characters.  This isn't a straight-up retelling, but more like a jazz riff, so it totally works.

Then there's the setting.  I'm not sure why I dig the Roaring Twenties so much, but I do.  Maybe it's all the juicy, meaty stories it provides, with Prohibition and Women's Suffrage and Jazz and people trying to forget The Great War... I don't know.  But I really love reading books set in that era.  Big part of why I enjoy F. Scott Fitzgerald so much. 

This book often makes me think of The Great Gatsby because it has some outward similarities:  young writer observing people, lots of parties at a big house with illegal liquor flowing freely, and so much glitz and glamour masking unhappiness.  But the people in this are so utterly different than the ones in Gatsby.  They all have moral centers, for one thing.  While they do all have dreams they're chasing, they're also all willing to give up a dream if need be, not fruitlessly cling to it.  And nobody engages in any adultery.

Anyway!  The whole story centers around a failing, genteel speakeasy called Hey Nonny Nonny.  It's run by Hero Stahr, her depressed father, her jazz-singer friend Maggie, and virtual orphan Pedro "Prince" Morello.  Hero's cousin Beatrice gets kicked out of school and arrives on their doorstep at the same time as Hero's friend Benedick and his rich pal Claude run away from prep school and arrive there too.  Together with Pedro's half-brother John, they set about trying to save Hey Nonny Nonny from slowly tottering into extinction, but also work toward their own futures.

Did I mention that all of these characters, except Hero's dad, are in their late teens, just finishing high school?  They seem more like college students, to be honest, but I cut the story a little slack here because these are teens from a hundred years ago, when people matured faster and were expected to behave as adults much sooner than they are now.

So.  I love this book.  If you're looking for something fun but also meaty to read this summer, find it!

(From my Bookstagramming)

Particularly Good Bits:

Words.
What a tricky, tangled science (p. 92).

Family was family, but you didn't always do more than politely stand each other when it came to things like fun and conversation (p. 216).

Benedick sat up, bone tired but mind still crisp as a cold apple (p. 303).

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It:  PG-13 for some violence, lots of alcohol consumption by adults and minors, some innuendo (kissing and some mildly suggestive dialog), and bad language.

"Words of Wisdom: Quotes from Shakespeare" Coloring Poster Book

One of  my blogging goals for 2019 is to start reviewing adult coloring books again.  So today I'm reviewing the Words of Wisdom: Quotes from Shakespeare book of posters to color.  These are big sheets -- 9 1/2" x 12" and can be framed -- I love the bigger format!  I got this book from Usborne/Kane Miller here, and I'm not sure if it's available elsewhere or not.

The pages are thick like cardstock, so they're perfect for gel pens, which is what I've been using with it.  But if you're into pastels or watercolors, it would work really well with those too, I think.

They've got a nice selection of plays, not just the super-famous ones, and quotations on lots of different topics.  I'm highlighting two lines that involve love today, just cuz it IS We Love Shakespeare Week, after all.  

One of my favorite things about this book is that, on the back of each poster, it tells you a little about the play that line is from!  This is what's on the back of the "Love comforteth like sunshine after rain" poster above:

The posters are in a wide variety of styles.  There's only one with a line from Hamlet, and I haven't colored it yet, but it reminds me a little of Monty Python:

I'm saving this one to color in October because it's so Halloween-y:

This post is one of my contributions to We Love Shakespeare Week, which I'm hosting on my other blog, Hamlette's Soliloquy.  Come join the fun!

The We Love Shakespeare Tag

It's We Love Shakespeare Week over on my other blog, Hamlette's Soliloquy!  I'm doing my bit to celebrate by filling out the official tag, and I'll be reviewing a version of Hamlet later this week, reviewing a Shakespeare coloring book... and I've posted two games over on my other blog too.  You can read everyone else's tags and other posts right here.  Come join the fun!  There's a giveaway too, which is open world-wide.

1. When and how did you first encounter Shakespeare's plays?

When I was in my mid-teens, our homeschool group went to a local community college to watch a travelling theatre troupe present something about Shakespeare.  This would have been around 1996 or so.  They did a few scenes and speeches and talked about common phrases we use today that come from Shakespeare.

And I discovered that afternoon that there were LOTS of titles of Star Trek: The Original Series episodes that come from Shakespeare.  "The Conscience of the King" and "Dagger of the Mind" and "By Any Other Name" and The Undiscovered Country (okay, that's a Trek film instead).  I was fascinated.  I decided to read ALL of Shakespeare's plays to find ALL of the titles and other allusions from Shakespeare that were used in the series.

I got a giant, red faux-leather-bound volume of the complete works of Shakespeare out of the library and simply began with the first play in it, which was Two Gentlemen of Verona.  Not a stellar place to start, but I stuck it out and determinedly read my way through a dozen or so of his plays, renewing the book as often as I possibly could.

So, yup, I owe my fascination with Shakespeare to Star Trek.  

2. What are your favorite Shakespeare plays? (Go ahead and list as many as you like!)

1.  Hamlet, Prince of Denmark
2.  Much Ado About Nothing
3.  The Taming of the Shrew
4.  The Merchant of Venice

3. Who are some of your favorite characters in his plays? (Again, list however many suits you.)

Hamlet, Horatio, Laertes, Ophelia, Beatrice, Benedick, Hero, Don Pedro, Portia...

4. Have you seen any of his plays performed, whether live or on film?

Oodles.  

I've seen 15 different filmed versions of Hamlet (complete list here) because I'm a wee bit obsessed with it.  And I've seen movie versions of Much Ado About Nothing, Henry V, Richard III, Love's Labours Lost, The Taming of the Shrew, Titus Andronicus, and two versions of Romeo and Juliet.  I've also seen retellings of The Taming of the Shrew (10 Things I Hate About You and Kiss Me, Kate), Romeo and Juliet (West Side Story), and Othello (the opera Otello).  

Because I studied Shakespeare, literature, and drama in college, I got to go to a lot of live performances of his plays for classes, including The Tempest, Twelfth Night, and Antony and Cleopatra.  Plus, my college's theatre department put on A Midsummer Night's Dream while I was there, which was so much fun.  And since college, I've seen Hamlet performed live twice (in 2009 and in 2018), and Much Ado About Nothing.

5. Have you read any of his plays?

Yes.  I've read 17 of them.  And I've read my favorites multiple times, especially Hamlet, heh.  Definitely more for me to read and enjoy in the years ahead!

6. Share a dream cast for one of your favorite Shakespeare plays.

We need Alicia Vikander and Michael Fassbender in a new version of Taming of the Shrew, and we need them NOW.

7. What draws you to Shakespeare's plays? (Language, themes, characters, the fact that they're famous, whatever!)

The characters and the dialog, as always.  I enjoy reading his plays for their clever wordplay and wonderful dialog, but the ones I read over and over, I read because I love the characters.

8. Do you have any cool Shakespeare-themed merchandise, like t-shirts or mugs or bookmarks, etc? Share pictures if you can!

Um.  Yeah.  Um, so... the truth is... I have a ton of Shakespeare stuff.  Most of it is Hamlet-related.  I have four different Hamlet-related shirts, a Hamlet Christmas ornament, a whole bookshelf of books about Shakespeare in general and Hamlet in particular, a couple of Shakespeare coloring books... and I have this gorgeous and hilarious mug that my sweet friend Olivia gave me for Christmas a couple months ago.

9. How do you go about understanding his language? (Do you prefer copies with translation notes, look things up online, or just read so much stuff written in Elizabethan English that you totally know what everyone's saying?)

I definitely like copies with little footnotes so I can check on the meanings of words and phrases if I'm unsure of what they mean.  I'd rather not have to go look things up on the internet or in a dictionary, so if there aren't footnotes, I'll just plunge on without checking on stuff and understand the general gist of it anyway.  I've never really found Shakespeare hard to understand overall, even as a teen, but I definitely understand him better when I see his stuff performed than when I just read the text.  I'm a very visual learner.

10. What are some of your favorite lines from Shakespeare? (Maybe limit yourself to like ten, okay?)

I have so many favorites -- what was I thinking when I wrote this question???  Okay, I'm going to take my cue from DKoren's answers to this tag and list off lines I say in real life (or think in my head a lot).  I'm doing these from memory, not looking them up, so forgive me if I miss a word here and there, or if I punctuate them oddly.

"Oh, horrible, horrible -- most horrible!"  (Hamlet)

"The air bites shrewdly; it is very cold.  It is a nipping and an eager air."  (Hamlet)

"Against my will, I am sent to bid you come in to dinner."  (Much Ado About Nothing)

"How all occasions do inform against me!"  (Hamlet)

"Sigh no more, my lady.  Sigh no more."  (Much Ado About Nothing)

"Now could I drink hot blood."  (Hamlet)

"Once more unto the breach, my friends!  Once more."  (Henry V)

"The game's afoot."  (Henry V) (Hahaha, you thought that was from Sherlock Holmes!  Well, it is, but he's quoting Shakespeare there.  Holmes quotes Shakespeare quite a lot, really.  I catch him tossing bits of Hamlet around all the time.)

"A horse!  A horse!  My kingdom for a horse!"  (Richard III)

"Adieu!  Adieu!  Remember me!"  (Hamlet)