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    Shakespeare: The World as a Stage
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    Shakespeare: The World as a Stage
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    Shakespeare: The World as a Stage
    Audiobook5 hours

    Shakespeare: The World as a Stage

    Written by Bill Bryson

    Narrated by Bill Bryson

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    This short biography of William Shakespeare by world famous writer Bill Bryson brims with the author’s inimitable wit and intelligence.

    Includes an exclusive Q&A session with the author.

    Shakespeare’s life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard – from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died.

    Following his international bestsellers ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything’ and ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’, Bill Bryson has written a short biography of William Shakespeare for the Eminent Lives series – which seeks to pair great subjects with writers known for their strong sensibilities and sharp, lively points of view.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins Publishers
    Release dateSep 3, 2007
    ISBN9780007268917
    Author

    Bill Bryson

    Bill Bryson's many books include, most recently ‘The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid’ as well as ‘A Short History of Nearly Everything‘, ‘I'm a Stranger Here Myself’, ‘A walk in the Woods’, ‘Neither Here Nor There’, ‘Made in America’, and ‘Notes from a Small Island’. He edited ‘The Best American Travel Writing 2000’. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, USA, he now lives in Norfolk with his wife and four children.

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    Reviews for Shakespeare

    4/5

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    • 4/5
      This book is refreshingly direct. Bryson makes it clear right away that we know virtually nothing about Shakespeare, the man. He pads out 150 or so pages with the sort of thing that he does so well - curious contemporary facts and statistics, and interesting anecdotes. The little hard evidence about the Bard of Avon is described fully, birth record, will and the like, and the book ends with a dozen pages about 'Claimants'. These are not really claimants of the authorship but rather candidates put forward posthumously by crazy, obsessed or simply misguided folk as alternatives for the title of Britain's Greatest Playwright. I particularly enjoyed this last chapter. Bryson gives them all pretty short shrift using the, for me, irrefutable argument that while there is very little known about Shakespeare there is absolutely no documentary evidence to connect these candidates with the works of William Shakespeare.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      My version was a short audiobook that I found to be very enjoyable and informative. It's a good concise biography, which is what it sets out to be, so it won't overwhelm the reader with an academic lecture. As well, Bryson adds segments describing life in Elizabethan England in a common sense way, without rising to melodrama about how disagreeable Shakespeare's England was.We've all heard the alternate author theories, but Bryson dismisses these firmly and is able to back up his argument well. This was done in part by describing some of the "eccentrics" who made the claim, but he also provided credible reasoning that Shakespeare was indeed the author. The audiobook ended with a good interview with Bryson by his editor. I enjoyed this so much that I ordered a print copy because there are several lines, words, names etc. that I want to remember for reference. The worst of audiobooks is that you can't stick post-it notes in them, but the best of this one was that it was an excellent narration by Bill Bryson.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Very good.
    • 5/5
      GREAT BOOK, VERY SUSPENSFUL!
    • 5/5
      I was fascinated by this window into the lives of women in London's East End in the 1950s. It made me realize, once again, how much the lives of women have changed in the last 60 years.
    • 4/5
      Call the Midwife first came to my attention when I heard PBS was going to air the BBC series. I wasn’t sure if I’d be interested in a show about midwives in the 1950’s and close friends kept raving about it. I didn’t get around to watching the adaptation until New Year’s Eve and was quite surprised at how much I fell in love with the show. Shortly afterwards I borrowed the book from my local library branch.Jennifer Worth is an engaging storyteller. She decided to write about her experiences in response to an article in the Royal College of Midwives Journal by Terri Coates regarding the underrepresentation of midwives in literature. Coates urged, “a midwife somewhere to do for midwifery what James Herriot did for vets.” Worth took up the challenge and eventually sent her first volume to Coates to read. She writes, “Whoever heard of a midwife as a literary heroine? Yet midwifery is the very stuff of drama. Every child is conceived either in love or lust, is born in pain, followed by joy or sometimes remorse. A midwife is in the thick of it, she sees it all. Why then does she remain a shadowy figure, hidden behind the delivery room door?”Some do question how much of Worth’s memoir can be accepted as truth. There are several reasons for this. It’s important to note that Worth did change names and perhaps she did it to protect her patients and her friends (although she keeps her real name and uses her maiden name: Jenny Lee). Nonnatus House is where she works as a district nurse and midwife is a pseudonym for the Sisters of St John the Divine in Whitechapel (Worth’s setting is in Poplar in the East End of London). Questions also arise regarding the identity of a midwife and if she actually existed. Worth describes Camilla “Chummy” Cholomondley-Browne as “Six foot two inches tall, with shoulders like a front-row forward and size eleven feet, her parents had spent a fortune trying to make her more feminine, but to no effect.” She said her first impression of her was a “bloke in drag.” Worth’s daughters, however; insist they once saw a photograph of the midwives taken during their mother’s tenure and a woman seen in the photograph fits Chummy’s description, but no Sister of St John’s can recall a midwife with her description or name. Furthermore, no one knows who has this photograph because it has disappeared. Then there’s the story of Sister Evangelina who Worth describes as a nurse who parachuted into German territory during the First World War. Critics are quick to point out the story regarding Sister Evangelina is invented. I wouldn’t necessarily discount what Worth writes as untrue. By World War II parachute schools were being established and I believe France was the first to create a woman’s airborne unit. Perhaps Worth heard about this and by the time she wrote her memoir it was part of her memory as having happened.For the women who have had children, I salute you. Reading Call the Midwife certainly put things into perspective and her descriptions of living situations in 1950’s East End London sure make you appreciate our present day living. Worth describes in rich detail, midwives getting a call in the middle night and having to use a bicycle to attend patients. Imagine having to travel up 12 miles per a day carrying a bulky (and no doubt heavy) medical box and traveling everywhere via your bike. It’s interesting to see how much the medical field has changed these past 60 years. Worth mentions how much changed with the introduction of the pill, “Women could, for the first time in history, be like men, and enjoy sex for its own sake. In the late 1950s we had eighty to a hundred deliveries a month on our books. In 1963 the number had dropped to four or five a month. Now that is some social change!” I reread this section a few times and had to contemplate for a moment. I wonder what the Sisters thought of the pill? How was it viewed among the poor in the East End? As a woman living in the 21st century we take a lot for granted. As Worth explains, “In the nineteenth century (and earlier, of course) no poor woman could afford to pay the fee required by a doctor for the delivery of her baby. So she was forced to rely on the services of an untrained, self-taught midwife, or “handywoman” as they were often called. Some may have been quite effective practitioners, but others boasted a frightening mortality rate. In the mid-nineteenth century, maternal mortality amongst the poorest classes stood at around 35-40 per cent, and infant mortality was around 60 per cent. Anything like eclampsia, haemorrhage, or mal-presentation, would mean the inevitable death of the mother. Sometimes these these handywomen would abandon a patient to agony and death if any abnormality developed during labour. There is no doubt that their working practices were insanitary, to say the least, and thereby spread infection, disease and often death.” It definitely makes one appreciate the steps taken to pass England’s Midwives Act, which of course lead to the Royal College of Midwives being created.No medical knowledge is needed to fully appreciate Worth’s book. She’s very thorough and explains everything; clearly she made it her mission to pay attention to detail. Also she uses the Cockney dialect throughout the book to showcase how the people in the East End talked, but it’s easy to read. There’s a guide to the Cockney dialect and even goes into detail regarding the difficulty to put a dialect into print. Furthermore, there is a detailed glossary, which further explains the medical terminology used.If you’re a fan of medical shows or are just interested in medical history, I highly recommend Call the Midwife. For everyone else, I do believe you’d enjoy reading this lovely memoir. If you’re wondering how much is changed between the book and the series, I have to say not much. A lot of the patients she mentions feature prominently in the series, however; the book provides much more in-depth information. You’ll be left wanting more and luckily there are three volumes to her memoir.
    • 4/5
      This first volume in the memoir that the BBC TV series of this name is based on is a fascinating, well-told read, though the incidents relayed will be very familiar to anyone who has watched the show. The memoir is perhaps a bit more detailed, though the show certainly gets most of the particulars of life, midwifery, and 1950s medicine in. The series and the book organize material differently, and therein probably lies the biggest difference between this source material and the television produced from it: the TV series is a story with a social conscience revolving around characters while the memoir is anecdotal social history less concerned with "what will happen next." In particular, it focuses less on the personal lives of the midwives. I suspect reading the book(s) first and then watching the show would be the more rewarding activity rather than watching and then reading (the show feels a bit like it fleshes out and invitalizes what is already on the page), but the book still has much to offer if one's already watched. Worth tells the stories compellingly, explains things well, and is particularly good at demonstrating how naive or misguided her younger self was without sounding dismissive or self-deprecatory. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Can't believe what hard lives many of these people lived. Such an interesting book, chronicling the life of one Midwife in the 1950's in the East End of London. Dockworkers and their families living in tenements, woman having baby after baby. Another book that makes one glad they live in this period of time. These woman had it so hard, trying to feed their families with no indoor plumbing or water and very little money. One old lady who lived in an abandoned building actually had toenails that were 12 inches long and an inch thick, supposedly they are still part of a museum exhibit. Anyway really glad to have read this, to truly appreciate the sisters and midwives who gave these poor people medical attention, they were truly angels of mercy.
    • 3/5
      I really enjoyed this book. The stories Worth recounts are unbelievable at times! It's hard to imagine people living the way they did not that long ago. (the 1950's) I would recommend this book if you are at all interested in midwifery or just life in the 50's in London. I couldn't put it down.

      The only reason I didn't give it 4 stars is because there's a graphic sex scene that takes place in a "Cafe" in the chapter titled, "Mary." The book would have been just as heart-wrenching without going into as much detail in that particular scene.
    • 5/5
      Call the Midwife is the outstanding, wonderful, sensitive, sad and funny memoir of Jennifer Worth's years working as a nurse midwife in London's dock area in the 50's. Jennifer lived in an Anglican convent at the time; meeting many of the nicest people. Much more than just stories of childbirths, Worth provides historical, medical and social backgrounds of the times giving the reader a much better understanding of her experiences. She describes the spirit-killing, horrendous conditions of the workhouse, the dismal life of prostitutes, and the prevalence of domestic abuse. But she accentuates the positive, sweet goodness of the poor and middle-class residents of the area. This book is a gift to be treasured, read, re-read and shared.
    • 5/5
      Some of us are lucky to have defining periods in our lives, a time that forever remains the center and from which we measure the rest of our lives as “before” and “after”. For Jennifer Worth, that time seems to be the 1950s when she worked as a midwife in London's East End while living in a nun's convent. This was a transitional period for the community as well. Many of the tenements had been condemned and residents were biding their time until their relocation. Worth recalls the difficulties of adjustment, the primitive working conditions by today's standards, the lessons she absorbed through observation of the nuns and their methods, the occasional interpersonal conflicts that result from living and working in close quarters, and the joy she experienced as she formed deep and lasting friendships.Readers familiar with the television series based on the books will notice a few small differences between the book and the show. The book itself has an episodic feel, with each chapter describing specific incidents from Worth's experiences. The books and the television series remind me of a much-loved favorite, All Creatures Great and Small. They have similar nostalgic elements that recall a community and a way of life that now exist only in memories. Worth has captured her memories with words that have the power to transport readers to that place and time.
    • 5/5
      This woman has seen a lot. Being a midwife really gets you in amongst the real lives of people, and it shows with this book. The author went from nursing into midwifery training under the care of Nuns, and even though she wasn't religious, lived in the convent while practicing. 1950s East End London was a poor and rough place but her nurses uniform afforded her respect. Just how poor and crowded the area was shocked me. Most families lived packed into small 2 room places, and it was the norm to have at least 5 or 6 kids. Most families kept clean and tidy homes, but descriptions of some who lived in squalor- piles of human waste indoors, flies, half naked dirty children- astounded me. People couldn't afford to get a doctor for the delivery of a baby, and as mothers grandmothers, aunts and any older woman about could tell you, you didn't really need one. Such was the level of knowledge amongst them all, things were managed at home with the local midwife and GP if needed. Chapter by chapter Worth reveals the personal stories of the people she encountered in the course of her early career. So often, the stories are sad. Families were destroyed upon the early death of the husband/father, and few options were left for a mother trying to support a large brood of kids, and little or no income and no social security. Alcoholism, prostitution, condemned housing tenements. And then stories of loving and supportive families, sober hard-working, proud men who loved and helped their wives in the home- which was so unheard of then. The mixed bag that is humanity. A fantastic social history.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book. Ms. Worth's writing is very effective in relating post-WWII society of East London and bringing the reader directly into the story. I was unaware of the abject poverty in post-WWII England in the 1950's (no doubt to be found as well in the U.S. at that time) and would have liked to think that social policies were more progressive in fairly recent history. This book has made me aware of my naivete. These women were so truly and thoroughly dedicated to their service. I'm glad someone has told their story.
    • 5/5
      What an outstanding memoir. I was expecting a catalog of anecdotes revolving around babies and midwifery, a topic which at first sight doesn't really interest me but I'm quite fond of reading about women's history in general so I thought I'd give it a go. What I did not expect was Jennifer Worth's astonishing talent for writing. People who've led interesting lives are few. People who've led interesting lives and are born writers are a rarity. Worth is one of them. This is not only filled to the brim with very rich stories of births, it's also an amazing account of midwifery history. Worth is not only an excellent midwife but she reflects on her practice and often compares what life was in the 50s to what it's like now. This in turn makes for a deeply rewarding book. I learned a lot and I'm so happy I read this, it's a deeply touching, never sentimental memoir that has the knowledge of a history book and the readability of a novel. What a treasure.
    • 4/5
      A bit lightweight but well plotted and quite addictive.
    • 5/5
      Wow just wow, and excellent book! Well written, captivating, I laughed and I cried. Highly recommend
    • 4/5
      I would give the writing style of this book a 3 star, but I found the stories very interesting and unusual. There is a lot of "hard times" in it, but much goodness and joy as well. There is heroism as well as evil in what appears to have been everyday life among the poor. It struck me that this was at a time when I was about 4 years old. It was hard to see this as the same period of time that I was living in. I learned a lot from this book.
    • 5/5
      Brilliant, fascinating and hugely readable.Non fiction is often a slower read than fiction. This book was surely an exception - every time I picked it up I found I had whizzed through another 20 to 30 pages without even realising. It completely engrossed me with its stories of 1950s midwifery and the life of that time in the East End of London.Ms Worth was a young midwife, training under the nuns of Nonnatus House (pseudonym) and travelling around her area of London on a bicycle. Undeterred by rain, ice and even smog, she went to the assistance of the young mothers in one of the poorest suburbs. It was this insight into their living conditions and social interactions that made this book so fascinating.There are so many wonderful characters in the book - some stay with us throughout, such as the nuns and the other midwives, others are met in passing as we learn their harrowing or heartwarming stories. I don't think I shall ever forget Conchita and her 24 children. Without a word of English, she and her husband Len, who could not speak Spanish, raised a happy brood and were still very much in love. Her tiny premature baby (no 25), no bigger than the palm of her hand was nursed at home when she refused to let him go to hospital. And then there was Mary, a poor abused girl from Ireland who had hoped London would offer her a better life. Like many others, she found herself trapped in prostitution and then pregnant. Ms Worth met her wandering the streets of London and helped her where she could, but her story was not a happy one.This book is full of such stories, both happy and sad and expertly told.In the days before the pill families were much larger than today, yet the accomodation was smaller and poorer. The people seemed to have a gritty determination that is found more rarely now and managed to pull through all sorts of struggles.I'm sure I shall read this again at some point, but meanwhile there are three other similar books by Jennifer Worth which I can't wait to read.
    • 3/5
      Well done audiobook with stories set in the 50s around life as a midwife in the East End of London amongst the poorest of the poor. Life was incredibly hard the assistance given by the midwives was invaluable in preserving lives and giving women safer pregnancies. A long gone time. Some of the stories were very touching.
      3.5 stars.
    • 4/5
      Would absolutely recommend this book - as long as you aren't squeamish about OB/GYN procedures and birth! Keeping in mind this is non-fiction, and the author is not a "writer" but rather an older woman sharing the amazing stories of her life - this is very enjoyable. My only issues were that the story jumps around a bit and doesn't really flow - but again, she isn't a "writer" by trade and so all is forgiven. Very interesting read - I loved the people she knew and helped, and I loved the way she compared life then, with life now to remind us how very much living standards and technology have changed since the 1950's.
    • 3/5
      While reading it, I felt it as a sort of a testament of youth. Worth describes her admiration of the professional worth of the nuns in midwifery. She starts her training with them in 1953, when she is 22. As assistent to a trained widwife, she assists at the births at home. She describes the community of the London Docklands. With the men working in the docks and the women at home raising large families in very bad housing conditions. In the way they coped, you can call it every day heroism. It is a personal story, and as such not the work of an historian. But you can get a good idea about the living conditions in this area in this period so short after the war.
    • 4/5
      Trained nurse and midwife Jenny works with the poorest of the poor in London’s East End. This story outlines some of her adventures and her memorable patients. I became interested in this book after watching the t.v. show. I wish this book contained more information about the nurses and nun’s Jenny worked with. However, I still thought it was a highly enjoyable novel.
    • 5/5
      Call the Midwife is the story of a young nurse who learns midwifery from nuns in the slums of 1950s London. She lives at a convent dedicated to nursing the community and delivering babies of the area neighborhoods. She tells of her relationship with the nuns and how their faith affects her own life and beliefs. She describes some of the other nurses with whom she lives and comes to know as friends. And she portrays the people who live in this poverty-stricken area of London, how they live, love, suffer, and prosper. She gives many accounts of the deliveries that she is involved in and sometimes goes into quite a bit of detail! But it just shows the high expectations of the people regarding midwives at that time, and of the high esteem in which they were held. I thought this book was extraordinary and also liked that the author told some of the history of the area, of how the people lived and why, even getting into the issues of prostitution and workhouses. An amazing read!
    • 3/5
      This book was a very light read. I thought it had a weak plot, weak characters and was boring and mediocre overall. There were a few times the writing piqued my interest, but for the most part, this book made me seriously think about laying it down and finding something else to read.If you are looking for something that is a quick, easy read without much substance, you might like this one. Otherwise, pick out something else.
    • 5/5
      This book charts some of the career of Jennifer Worth, a midwife in the 1950's. She worked in the East End of London, in the slums at a time when all the tenements were being (or were supposed to be) shut down by the government as being to dangerous to live in. As I had a homebirth earlier this year it was interesting the changes that had taken place over the years. All the stories were interesting, they all weren't about midwifery but some general nursing stories as well. A fab book.
    • 5/5
      From the cover of my edition I thought this would be kind of a fluffy British comedy with a little childbirth thrown in. How pleased I am that I was wrong. Jennifer Worth writes a good history of East Enders in the 1950's that includes discussion of poverty in its various forms from the loving families and supportive community of Poplar to the squalor and hopelessness of the condemned bombed out buildings inhabited by prostitutes, pimps and a few left behind family people in Stepney. She demonstrates the activities of a midwife of that time by describing the care of various characters, has a good side story about life in a workhouse, fleshes out the character of a grouchy old midwife-nun and describes horrible odors in a way that makes this reader grimace. As important as Worth's historical accuracy is her emotional accuracy as she confronts people living in poverty and grows from her natural middle class revulsion to an attitude of acceptance. Less successful, to me, was the accommodation she made with religion, but I guess that was a normal outgrowth of the respect for the hard working nuns who trained her. For linguists there's an addendum that describes the difficulties of writing the Cockney dialect. PBS has a good mini-series about the book that does fluff it up and tone down some of Worth's grittiness, and in the interest of not needing subtitles, leaves out the dialect Worth so lovingly describes.
    • 4/5
      This was slow going for me. I have never watched the show so I wasn't expecting anything out of the book. I found it interesting to read about how birth was in the 1950's in England. The stories of all the different women that she meets was entertaining.One woman had given birth 25 times. It is hard to believe that. Women and infidelity and then worrying about the baby not looking like the father/husband.
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed listening to the audio version of the book. That being said, it is harder to review a book when you listened and didn’t take notes. What I liked; I liked the description of England and midwifery in the fifties. I liked the medical sociology of the book. Being a nurse myself, I find it interesting that at one time women were the primary caregivers of health care until it became lucrative, then hospitals and doctors got involved. It does sound like midwifery was much more acceptable in England than in the US. This is a memoir, the author was a young woman of 22 when she chose to become a midwife and to complete her training with the Nannatus House nuns. The nuns were a fun addition to a book that if it was just about delivering babies in undesirable situations would have become quickly redundant. I liked that she put the story in the context of social and medical change that was occurring in the fifties.
    • 4/5
      One of my new faves in suspense fiction! Gross got his start with James Patterson, but he really comes into his own with The Blue Zone. This book was outlandish and believable at the same time. I will most assuredly read more of him!
    • 4/5
      Kate Raab is 23 years old and life is perfect. She has a close relationship with her parents and siblings, a loving boyfriend, Greg, and a promising career as a biologist. Then things start to go wrong: her father is arrested for racketeering; he has to testify against a Columbian drug cartel; her family has to abandon their wealthy lifestyle and enter the FBI’s Witness Protection Program. Allowed no contact, Kate learns to live without them: at least she has Greg to love and support her. But, just when things seem to be back on an even keel, her life turns upside down. Her best friend is shot and fighting for her life; her father has gone missing from the Program; her family’s case worker is found brutally murdered. Is the FBI lying to her? Is someone trying to kill her? Then she stumbles upon a family secret that has her wondering if everything she has trusted in her whole life has been a lie. She needs to find her father, but she no longer knows in whom she can trust. Andrew Gross’s debut into solo writing is a fast-moving nail-biter. His heroine is believable, and he makes it easy for us to identify with her thoughts, feelings and emotions. Having set the scene, he keeps the plot twists coming at full speed. Once you start reading, this one is impossible to put down. Let’s see more from Andrew Gross!