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Books to read if you're planning a vacation in "King William", sorted by average review score:

The Second Part of King Henry VI (Shakespeare, William, Works.)
Published in Paperback by Arden Shakespeare (April, 1999)
Authors: William Shakespeare and Andrew S. Cairncross
Average review score:

A Phenomenal sequel for an exquisite play!
Who says that sequels never live up to the original? Part 2 of this trilogy does just that! Immediately, Shakespeare grabs us with Gloucester's understandable fury at King Henry VI. This is soon followed by York's conspiracy to seize the crown himself. Later we are offered some comical touches with a false miracle. Some chilling pagan prophecies also grab our attention. Also Later, there is the hard passage where Gloucester uncovers the treason of his wife and later stands trial and is found guilty of crimes he is innocent of. Later his corpse is discovered. Shakespeare does not stop here! There is the chilling triangle between King Henry VI, Queen Margaret, and her lover Suffolk. King Henry VI is at his best in the trilogy when he banishes the vile Suffolk and faces down his queen. The scene where the delirious cardinal confesses his guilt is a scene of horror followed by Henry's touching forgiveness. The rebel Jack Cade simultaneously offers comedy and horror. His death at the hands of Iden is artfully drawn. But Shakespeare does not stop here! The War of the Roses actually starts.The demonic Richard III actually makes his first appearance in this play. The icing on the cake is yet to come. Clifford's father is killed in the war, and Young Clifford offers a sorrowful, terrifying, and yet beautiful passage on his intent for revenge!


Shylock and the King of England
Published in Hardcover by Vantage Press (December, 1996)
Author: Edna Krane
Average review score:

Provocative
A provocative and intriguing read. Throw out all old notions about the Bard's portrayal of Shylock in the Merchant of Venice. Clearly the product of extensive research and intense thought. Should be required for any course on the play or Shakespeare generally, or for anyone who would pretend to speak on the subjects with authority.


Silver Kings: The Lives and Times of MacKay, Fair, Flood, and O'Brien, Lords of the Nevada Comstock Lode (Vintage West Reprint)
Published in Paperback by Univ of Nevada Pr (July, 1986)
Author: Oscar Lewis
Average review score:

The Silver Kings of the Comstock Lode
I first read the "Silver Kings: The Lives and Times of MacKay, Fair, Flood, and O'Brien, Lords of the Nevada Comstock Lode", because there was a family story that James G. Fair might be a lost relative. If he is it's quite distant, but the book was so interesting that I've since read everything I could get my hands on about the Comstock Lode and it's characters. Virginia City really did more as the birth place of the myths and truths of the Old West than did Tombstone or Dodge City. I am also an "Earp" buff and have read much available on the "Gun Fight" related characters. Even Samuel Clemens, later known as Mark Twain, was a reporter for the Virginia City newspaper during his early days. The book was fantastic. I'm glad to see it in reprint as I will give it as gifts to some of my friends. I had hunted long and hard for my old copy. If you like stories of the Old West you will enjoy this one. And the stories are true.
Senator Mike Fair
Oklahoma State Senator


The Theory of the King's Two Bodies in the Age of Shakespeare (Studies in Renaissance Literature, V. 19)
Published in Hardcover by Edwin Mellen Press (December, 2000)
Author: Albert Rolls
Average review score:

Insightful excellent work
I came across this volume while researching for my Masters degree. I found it insightful and well-written. Highly recommended to a student of Renaissance Literature


Three Lives for Mississippi (Banner Book)
Published in Paperback by Univ Pr of Mississippi (June, 2000)
Authors: William Bradford Huie, Martin Luther King Jr., and Juan Williams
Average review score:

Buy it!
What makes this book interesting is that it was written between the murders and the trial. Huie knew who the murderers were, how they did it, and never expected a guilty verdict.

The book introduces you in detail to Michael (Mickey) Schwerener and all the details leading up to his murder. This detail will help you understand exactly why and how these murders took place.

This latest edition includes updates by the author to compare his early speculation against the results of the trial.


Too Rich: The High Life and Tragic Death of King Farouk
Published in Hardcover by Carroll & Graf (June, 1991)
Author: William Stadiem
Average review score:

Excellent, well researched bio of the man and modern Egypt
This is a book you can't put down! A well written biography of a man most Eqyptians do not want to talk about, even today. I travel frequently to Egypt and have met some of the Free Officers and Islamic Brotherhood who helped bring down Farouk. Some have read the book and feel it is a very accurate picture presented without bias - just the facts! I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in modern Eqyptian history


A very double life : the private world of Mackenzie King
Published in Unknown Binding by Macmillan of Canada ()
Author: C. P. Stacey
Average review score:

When Canada was governed by a loon...
Attentive students will recall that Prime Minister King was a bit odd, perhaps a mild eccentric, but this book will throw the door wide open. Essentially, WLM King was a loon. He obsessed over his mother and submitted to her control to the point where his visions of her ghost still guided him. King was a mystic, who engaged in seances and table-rapping to communicate with such "advisors" as his mother, Wilfrid Laurier, FDR, and other sympathetic spectres. If only people knew what was running through his mind every time he glanced at a clock, or took his dog for a walk... A very revealing book about a very mysterious man.


The Warrior King: Hawaii's Kamehameha the Great
Published in Hardcover by MacMillan Publishing Company (November, 1973)
Author: Richard William, Tregaskis
Average review score:

Warrior King : Kamehameha the Great
I find that this book is a exceptional historical depiction into the legendary leader of the Hawaiian Islands. From his years as a youth, to the pinnacle of his reign as the most powerful and famous of kings to rule and unite all of the Hawaiian Islands. This book brings the reader back in time to when the Hawaiian Islands were under the rule of many kings and the events that transpired to create a one Hawaiian Nation, governed by one ruler for the prosperity of all of the Hawaiian people. This book is a must for avid individuals who want to learn about the historical events that built a nation known as Hawaii.


A Wind Is Rising: The Correspondence of Agnes Boulton and Eugene O'Neill
Published in Hardcover by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Pr (April, 2000)
Authors: Agnes Boulton, Eugene O'Neill, and William Davies King
Average review score:

An amazing plunge into the life of a great playwright!
The letters sent between O'Neill and his second wife reveal a much more personal view of life in the spotlight. It exposes the personal grit and scandal of their relationship as well as revealing a more accurate picture of Agnes Boulton. The detailed yet brief background of their lives lends greater understanding to the personal contents of the letters. Most of all, it offers a greater appreciation for the human heart when pulled between love for a companion and a passion for their work. Put down the fiction and pick up this book about a real relationship full of fight and love that engulfs and excites even the simplest parts of a mediocre life! A must read for O'Neill fans and newcomers alike!


Macbeth
Published in Paperback by Washington Square Press (01 August, 1992)
Author: William Shakespeare
Average review score:

A dark bloody drama filled with treachery and deceit.
If you are looking for tragedy and a dark bloody drama then I recommend Macbeth with no reservations whatsoever. On a scale of 1-5, I fell this book deserves a 4.5. Written by the greatest literary figure of all time, Shakespeare mesmorizes the reader with suspense and irony. The Scottish Thane Macbeth is approachd by three witches who attempt and succeed at paying with his head. They tell him he will become king, which he does, alog with the aide of his ambitious wife. Macbeth's honor and integrity is destroyed with the deceit and murders he commits. As the novel progresses, Macbeth's conscience tortures him and makes him weak minded. Clearly the saying "what goes around comes around," is put to use since Macbeth's doom was similar to how he acquired his status of kingship. He kills Duncan, the king of Scottland and chops the head off the Thane of Cawdor, therefore the Thane of Fife, Macduff, does the same thing to him. I feel anyone who decides to read this extraordinary book will not be disatisfied and find himself to become an audience to Shakespearean tragedies.

Great Play Indeed
Noble Macbeth and the story of his decay due to the seduction of the forces of darkness - I liked it. The play sets off with an impressing scene, the chant of the three witches, a perfect use of language, I dare say. It takes only about a page and I knew it by memory after two times reading. We used to quote it during the breaks, and actually still do so sometimes. "When shall we three meet again...and so forth. After this promising start the language gets quite hard (I'm not any native form Enland, the US or any other english speaking part of this planet). One can follow the action though and every five or six pages there's a reward for your patience, at least for anybody who likes the power Shakespeare's language is able to display in their good or best moments: "Have we eaten on the insane root?" and the likes. Of course there's also the famous "It is a tale, told by an idiot...". It's for these moments, where Williams knew how to transfere a feeling of one of his caracteres into the realm of a universal significance, that I enjoyed the play...

Rapt Withal
Shakespeare's shortest and bloodiest tragedy, MACBETH is also possibly the most serious. Macbeth is a warrior who has just had his greatest victory, but his own "vaulting ambition," the spectral promises of the three weird sisters, and the spurring on of his wife drive him to a treason and miserable destruction for which he himself is completely responsible. The ominous imagery of the fog that hovers over the first scene of the play symbolizes the entire setting of the play. Shakespeare's repeated contrasts of such concepts as fair and foul, light and darkness, bravery and cowardice, cut us to the quick at every turn. MACBETH forces us to question "what is natural?" "what is honor?" and "Is life really 'a tale/ Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury/ Signifying nothing?'" Few plays have ever illustrated the torments of Guilt (especially how it deprives one of Sleep) so vividly and stirringly.

I have read this play curiously as a child, excitedly as a teenager, passionately as a college student, and lovingly as a graduate student and adult. Like all of Shakespeare's writing, it is still as fresh, and foreboding, and marvelous as ever. As a play it is first meant to be heard (cf. Hamlet says "we shall hear a play"), secondarily to be seen (which it must be), but, ah, the rich rewards of reading it at one's own pace are hard to surpass. Shakespeare is far more than just an entertainer: he is the supreme artist of the English language. The Arden edition of MACBETH is an excellent scholarly presentation, offering a bounty of helpful notes and information for both the serious and casual reader.


Related Vacation Book Subjects: Virginia
More Pages: King William Page 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16