Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


Join the CBR18 Book Bingo Reading Challenge—Now Underway!   

Well, well, well. If it isn’t the consequences of your own actions.

The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus by Christopher Marlowe

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CBR18 BINGO: Success, because Dr. Faustus sells his soul to the devil to become a successful magician Notes: The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus exists in 2 versions. The “A” version was published in 1606, and the expanded “B” version was published in 1616. The revisions and additions to the 1616 version are typically attributed to other playwrights, possibly with some input from Christopher Marlowe (both versions were published after Marlowe died, so who really knows for sure). I read the 1606 “A” version, which […]

“Why should you love him whom the world hates so? Because he love me more than all the world.”

Dark Renaissance: The Dangerous Times and Fatal Genius of Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival by Stephen Greenblatt

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It’s great reading a book where you’re not 100% sure what the author thought of his subject; it makes you not 100% what you think of the book. As you can’t tell from the title, Dark Renaissance is about Christopher Marlowe, Shakespeare contemporary who had a brilliant albeit brief career, dying at the age of 29 during an alleged brawl over a bill. There is not a whole lot of information about Marlowe available (even the possible sole portrait of Marlowe has not been actually […]

An addition to the Question of Who Wrote Shakespeare

Seven Shakespeare by Harold Sakuishi

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Bingo 20 (History/Schmistory) This is actually a review of 9 books, sort of. Seven Shakespeares turned out to be a lot more interesting than I thought. The premise sounded simple: a re-imagined version of how William Shakespeare become the household name that he has been since about 1600. I was pretty impressed by the degree of historical accuracy in the world, in that a lot of real Londoners involved in the theatre scene appear, as do a lot of real elements of Renaissance London beyond […]



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