Podcast: Bill Bryson reads from ‘Shakespeare’

Podcast: Bill Bryson reads from ‘Shakespeare’:

Despite the scrutiny of generations of biog.. http://tinyurl.com/457kvt

Podcast: Bill Bryson reads from ‘Shakespeare’:

Despite the scrutiny of generations of b.. http://tinyurl.com/457kvt

I found this surprisingly interesting as I have not been a reader of shakespeare since schooldays Bill Bryson is magic

I have just started reading “Shakespeare” and through the author would like to know of an error on the first line of page 10.
“Hilary” is given as the winter term” whereas it is the spring or lent term.
Reference web2.comlab.ox.ac.uk/ox/terms.html

The style is excellent making for easy and enjoyable reading.

You may have read in the press, that Durham University’s First Folio Edition stolen eight years ago – has been recovered? The guy who allegedly stole it, took it to the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington DC to be authenticated and valued?

Well, the guy who is alleged to have taken it lives very, very close to us in Washington, Sunderland. He is a strange guy, lives in a tiny terraced house with his mother, yet has had Ferraris and Masaratis outside his house, in a district not known for its wealth (everyone wondered what he did for a living to afford such cars). The police came in force to arrest him a couple of weeks ago and they took boxes and boxes of things away (books probably – the BBC NE news said he was a rare book dealer).

However, this coincidence is too strong to ignore:

Reading Bill Bryson’s excellent book ‘Shakespeare’ we are told on page 164 that Henry Clay Folger collected an astonishing 82 of the 300ish first folios known to exist, and Bill talks about the library itself (its location, twelve shelves for the folios etc.).

We are wondering (Vicky (my wife) and I) if it is possible that – this guy who allegedly stole the Folio edition from Durham University – bought Bill’s book in ASDA (a supermarket owned by Wal-Mart: it appeared in this shop only a month or so before the guy was arrested)) and very near to us, read it and it triggered an idea that he should take it to Washington DC, USA to do what he is alleged to have done..

Does anyone else wonder that? Do you Bill? Maybe you might ponder and let us know?

P.S. We read your profile in the Sunday Times yesterday; you are a proper Anglophile who should recant your American citizenship! You are more English than the English and you understand our language better then we understand it ourselves (cf Mother Tongue!) – And as for a Brief History… You know everything and articulate it brilliantly. We bow in homage! Lol!

William and Vicky

Dear Bill Bryson (whom I met several times in Settle)
Would “teamwork, brainstorming and the like” , so common for good creative work nowadays, not be the best explanation for Shakespeare’s various diversities, his speedy output, his many facets, his wealth of knowledge etc etc ? After all , many of his colleagues shared the same urgent interest in producing work fast.
None of this would preclude Shakespeare’s final composition, arrangement and drawing up the final draft. Congratulations, Neil Hitchen.