I hope everyone had a wonderful and blessed Christmas (or soon will...a note of greeting in case any of my eastern Christian friends are reading this!). We got home from our travels last night, a little worn out, a lot grateful, and mostly glad to be here.
It's snowing outside, and I've spent the day going back and forth between writing work and laundry, with an evening of grocery shopping and paper grading ahead of me. We're taking some days off from school, which I'm hoping will give me time to both catch up on end of semester work as well as an editing project. Then I need to move ahead, with joy and energy! to lesson plans and syllabi tweaking for the new year.
The sweet girl gave her dolls a Christmas party this morning. We spent time curled up reading Christmas picture books this afternoon, and she's spent the rest of the day doing various art projects.
I've not had much time for reading in these oh so busy weeks (nor for writing about what I'm reading) but I did just finish up William W. Lace's The Little Princes in the Tower, a fascinating introductory book about the two young princes imprisoned in the Tower of London by Richard of Gloucester in 1483. I got interested in the topic when we covered the War of the Roses in Story of the World in our last week of school before Christmas break.
Lacy's book is a quick read, at only a bit more than 100 pages long, and is going on my book list for 6th grade, the next time we plan to cover medieval history. Yes, I'm finally getting wise and starting to make book lists that far ahead. So often I pick up library books which aren't quite "right" for the sweet girl's current age level, or are a bit advanced so we only use bits of them, but I find myself thinking "this is a good book for down the road." It finally dawned on me that every time I think that, the book should go on a list for the future!
Reading about Richard of Gloucester, who became Richard III, made me think of Richard III, of course, as in Shakespeare's Richard III. I honestly can't recall if I've read the play or not, though I've seen the film version starring Ian McKellan. (I remember it's a rather odd version...does anyone have any thoughts about how it compares to the old Olivier version?)
It's been a long while since I've tackled reading any Shakespeare, and I decided I wanted to try this particular play while the subject's on my mind. I need a copy I can carry around with me, not the hardback Riverside Complete Shakespeare from my college days (which could work well as a boat if we ever got caught in a flood) so I went looking in the library catalog for a suitable paperback. Who knew just how many paperback versions of the bard existed?
I went with Penguin because...well...it's Penguin. But I'd love to know if any seasoned Shakespeare readers out there have a favorite version of his plays to recommend, either in paperback or in online sources (one with particularly good notes would be especially helpful). I don't do e-readers, and I spend way too much time working on our slow computer to be able to enjoy reading anything of length and complexity on screen, but if there's a good online version with helpful notes, I'd love to bookmark it and visit it periodically while I'm waddling around with my Penguin paperback this January.
Happy fourth day of Christmas!
3 comments:
"I need a copy I can carry around with me, not the hardback Riverside Complete Shakespeare from my college days (which could work well as a boat if we ever got caught in a flood)"
LOL!! So true. And yet somehow, I managed to lose that behemoth of a book my junior year of college. Luckily, that Christmas, I discovered that my grandparents had a copy of it that had belonged to my uncle when he was in college, so I snagged that. But man, what a massive book!
I really enjoyed Richard III, dark as it was. When we went to the Shakespeare Festival in Canada my senior year of college, there were two plays being presented. I saw King Lear because Christopher Plummer was playing Lear, but my friend saw Richard III and said it was totally amazing. Kinda made me wish I'd seen that instead, but Plummer really was awesome...
Eeek! You saw Christopher Plummer play King Lear? I am totally jealous -- an actor I love, a play I love! :-) Seriously, that's wonderful!
I think I must've read Richard III in college, but oi, my memory for those days is growing dim. I've been muddling through the middle ages this year in more ways than one! ;-)
Having just read this book about the little princes, I was fascinated how much public opinion of Richard has been shaped over the years by Sir Thomas More and Shakespeare. The book quoted some of the better known passages from Richard III which really made me want to read it...
Oh, and I meant to give a good LOL that you lost Riverside...perhaps someone needed a door stop? ;-)
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