Shakespeare by Bill Bryson

William Shakespeare, author of a considerable portion of Elizabethan and Jacobean drama, is largely an enigma. He was born to John Shakespeare, married, had a few children, wrote lots of plays, and died. Follow Bill Bryson as he tries to sort fact from fiction, truth from legend, and uncover the Bard of Avon.

Interesting. It seems odd that we have most of Shakespeare's work yet next to nothing on him. We have Macbeth and Twelfth Night and the sonnets, but we don't even know what the man looked like. If he was such a favorite of the Crown why did he never have a portrait done? Consequently, hundreds of people have dedicated their lives to attempt to uncover such mundane things as where he spent half of his life, where he learned a lot of his background information, what happened to some of his plays, what order the plays were written, and if they were even written by Shakespeare. As Bryson says, the lack of information is what makes his book so small.

Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke (sequel to Inkheart and Inkspell)

Angered by the book Mo has bound for the Adderhead that has made the Adderhead immortal, Death gives Mo a bargain: if he destroys the book and kills the Adderhead before spring, he will be allowed to live and his friend Dustfinger will return. If he fails, he, his daughter Meggie, and Dustfinger will all die. It seems easy to slip into the Adderhead's chambers and destroy him and the book, but Mo is the famed robber Bluejay, with a price on his head. The Adderhead will do anything to kill him, his family, and all whom he holds dear. Can he and Meggie read the right words, as they did before in Inkheart and Inkspell, and end the fear and threat?

Good. It was like the fifth and sixth Harry Potters, though: a good read, one I would read again and recommend, but mostly tying up loose ends- and creating more- that were left by the first two books. Sure Meggie's choice between Farid and Doria is interesting, but is it important? Sure the Magpie's revenge is scary, but is it necessary? If Funke doesn't set a limit and an overarching problem for the books, it will become a large, rather boring series.
Not to mention the whole Death thing. Interesting- is it possible to cheat Death? Can people die twice and still be alive?- but perhaps it's something best left alone. Nobody knows what it's like- too bad Lazarus didn't write things down- and it would be awfully easy to convey the wrong idea.

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National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is in the twentieth hour of its third day, with 5649 words!