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    Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel
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    Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel
    Ebook347 pages6 hours

    Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel

    By Sarah Smith

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    From an author the San Francisco Chronicle hails as "daring and splendid" comes an exhilarating novel of passion and ideas that cuts to the heart of one of literature's most fascinating and enduring mysteries: the enigma of Shakespeare.

    Meet Joe Roper, tough-minded young graduate student, who has been lucky enough to land a job cataloging the famed Kellogg Collection of Elizabethan texts and curiosities. Joe's been passionate about Shakespeare since he read a duct-taped paperback at age nine and found the witches, warriors, murders, and ghosts as much fun as Stephen King, but his working-class roots make him a fish out of water in the academic world. He is seemingly as far from adventure as it's possible to be -- until the delicious Posy Gould enters, stage right. A glamorous rising star at Harvard, she insists that a letter Joe has found, signed by one
    W. Shakespeare of Stratford, is a career-making discovery for them both -- because the letter says Shakespeare didn't write the plays.

    To Joe's mind, the letter is a forgery. When Posy insists they test it, the two literary sleuths head for England to prove their clashing theories. But they find themselves in a world where the London Eye looks out over Shakespeare's city, Hollywood producers rub elbows with Elizabethan spies, and mystery shadows the heart of Westminster Abbey and the lanes of rural England. And Joe and Posy find that, when you start chasing Shakespeares, what you find is not only who he was, but who you are, and how far you're willing to go....

    A first-rate mystery from one of the masters of the genre, Chasing Shakespeares is also a literary shell game, a love story, and a profound meditation on identity and ownership. Sarah Smith has created a novel that rivals A. S. Byatt's Possession in its rich and fast-moving blend of literary history and page-turning suspense.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWashington Square Press
    Release dateMay 11, 2010
    ISBN9781439122198
    Unavailable
    Chasing Shakespeares: A Novel
    Author

    Sarah Smith

    Sarah Smith is the CEO of acet UK, a Christian charity delivering relationships and sex education in secondary schools and providing training to youth workers, teachers and parents. She lives in London, and is a well known speaker throughout the United Kingdon. She is the author of A Guide to Growing Up: Honest Conversations About Puberty, Sex and God.

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    Reviews for Chasing Shakespeares

    4/5

    20 ratings11 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I love historical fiction....from many eras. While I I did not know a huge amount about Shakespeare, I got caught up in the story.
      It took me back to long ago college days of research, imagination & finding out that missing link. I liked the characters, especially Joe.....&, oh yes l learned a great deal of history!
    • 4/5
      Literary mystery about the authorship of Shakespeare's works. Favorite line which was oft repeated: "God is a librarian."
    • 5/5
      Every now and then I come across a book that I can't put down. Chasing Shakespeares is one of them. I am a Shakespeare collector who has delved into the author controversy. I usually come out wondering how people can believe such nonsense. But Sarah Smith weaves such a compelling story of diligent and scholarly Shakespearian research that she almost has me believing I am reading fact and not fiction. Moi recommends.
    • 5/5
      I adored this book. I think Shakespeare is one of the great mysteries of the world. Who was Shakespeare? He must have been sent by aliens. If nothing about the controversy about who wrote Shakespeare's plays captures your imagination, then you probably won't like this. If you are interested in the Shakespeare controversy, one of the best books about it I've read is Charlton Ogburn's The Mysterious William Shakespeare, the Myth and the Reality (1984). After reading the book, the one thing I was absolutely convinced of was that the man from Stratford did not write the plays.If you want to read the other side of the issue, about "how a young man from a small provincial town moves to Lond in the late 1580s and, in a remarkably short time, becomes the greatest playwright not of his age but of all time. . . . How did Shakespeare become Shakespeare? Read Stephen Greenblatt's Will in the World.My favorite quote from Smith's book: "I believe God is a librarian. . . that literature is holy; it is that best part of our souls that we break off and give each other, and God has a special dispensation for it, angels to guard its making and its preservation."
    • 5/5
      I would almost put this in a category with Alan Wall's School of Night as a research mystery of Shakespeare's authorial origins. Interesting characters put together the pieces of the puzzle in a way that makes different truths, depending on the angle from which you want to see it.
    • 3/5
      Good mostly for Shakespeare connections and plot. The hero is a callow youth hard to identify with, actually hard to identify.
    • 4/5
      Sadly, I'm now convinced that the Earl wrote the plays.
    • 4/5
      Absolutely delightful; this book was one of those that I read straight through today without stopping until I'd finished. I can't recommend this one highly enough; but I think that perhaps people who are interested in the topic are going to appreciate it the most. I've had such good luck this month with the books I've chosen to read, and this was no exception.In the author's "apologies and acknowledgments," on page 333, she notes that the book is about "how imagination meets research, how one believes what one believes...." and this really sums up the story. Having done years of research myself, I know from experience that the first thing a good researcher needs is imagination -- so I could really relate. The book focuses on a young college student named Joe Roper, who has loved Shakespeare all of his life, and who, when the story opens, has just spent a year fact checking for his professors who published a new volume on the life of Shakespeare. Joe is now working on some documents called the Kellogg Collection, most likely forgeries. But something does draw his attention -- it is a letter that makes it sound like Shakespeare the writer that we all know and love didn't write his famous words. Enter Miss Posy Gould, a flamboyant spoiled rich girl from Harvard, who convinces Joe that he should take the letter to a friend of hers in England to have it tested for authenticity. Posy is a believer in the "Oxford camp," those people who believe that the current Earl of Oxford during Shakespeare's times was the true author of the Bard's works. Joe follows Posy, and the two of them spend time meeting with anyone they can find who will help shed some light on the authorship issue, while Posy's friend Nicky is authenticating the letter. Joe begins to do some in-depth research at the British Library, and begins to make some startling finds that could eventually make for some drastic changes in his life. I don't want to say more and spoil the book for the next reader.I thought this book was truly wonderful and if you're into bibliomysteries, you'll love it.
    • 4/5
      This is a light mystery that appealed to my Shakespeare-loving-geekiness and sense of adventure. Although I can't say it has a wide audience, I thoroughly enjoyed this!
    • 4/5
      Sarah Smith's novel Chasing Shakespeares reminded me strongly of The Rule of Four, but with slightly better writing, and to a lesser extent Matthew Pearl's newest, The Poe Shadow (with its mix of history, research and fictional storyline).In Shakespeares I liked the premise a bit more than the product, but Smith's book is certainly an interesting read and a good basic introduction to some of the many questions that continue to surround Shakespeare's life, most importantly of course the issue of whether he actually wrote the plays that have been attributed to him. It made me want to go out and read more, which I suppose is what any good book (fictional or otherwise) should do. A good starting point is the book's website, which happily for me, footnote junkie that I am, contains complete references and a full bibliography. Oh joy!
    • 5/5
      This book bears repeated reading as I was so caught up in the plot that I feel that I missed many of the subtle details. I thoroughly enjoyed it and picked up a hardcover copy so that the book will stand up as I read it multiple times.