Tag Archives: Samuel Johnson

“A Very Mean Rank”: William Shakespeare, Brian Grazer, and Biographies that are Too Good to be True

As background to my year of reading Shakespeare (one play a month), I am reading Peter Ackroyd’s biography of Shakespeare. As in all of Akroyd’s historical writing, it is accessible, thoughtful, and remarkably quick-moving for a long book. He writes … Continue reading

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George Watson’s Provocative Comments on C.S. Lewis as Literary Critic

One of the advantages of finding new libraries is that the librarian’s skill of book-buying is more art than science. The librarians I know, despite their adept use of analytics, have as much curator or architect in them as they … Continue reading

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