Being Friends with Shakespeare

I buy the 800s (mostly literature not housed in the fiction collection) at work. In our library, the 800s are like the mistreated step-children of the Dewey Decimal System. The budget for the 800s is very small, because no one in our town reads poetry, plays, or literary criticism at the public library. So, I choose a different section of the collection to address each year, and the rest of the section gets neglected until it becomes the lucky winner for fix-up another year, when I have a new budget.

The last couple of years I've been adding mostly to the writing section, because everyone in town is writing a novel. I know this, not only because of the circulation statistics, but also because the would-be authors ask me how to contact J.K. Rowling so they can chat with her about having her ghost write their work. (I DO give them the contact info and then I send out a little silent Sorry into the universe for J.K.)

This year, I decided it's time to bulk up our Shakespeare collection and replace our battered copies of plays that were purchased in the 1960s. While I was going through the list of Shakespeare's plays, I realized that I'm REALLY close to having seen all of his plays. I've already seen some of the snoozers (I'm not a big fan of Shakespeare's historical plays, except for the version of Richard III set in Nazi Germany that I saw back in the day at the International Cinema) and the creepy ones like Titus Andronicus, so it seems logical to just go ahead and finish watching the rest. (Knowing almost nothing about science, math, and geography, it seems wise to become as proficient as possible in some area of study.) I dragged home Troilus and Cressida, Measure for Measure, and Cymbeline from the library last week, and I've finished the first two (seems I left the plays with the most lechery for last).

In preparation for finishing the historical plays, I picked up The Complete Illustrated Guide to the Kings and Queens of Britain, which is a BEAUTIFUL book, broken up with each ruler receiving a two-page, well-illustrated treatment. It's wonderful if you need to know that Eleanor of Acquitaine is the mother of both King John and Richard the Lionheart or that William the Conqueror was so obese at the time of his death that he came spilling out of his coffin or if you happen to be morbidly fascinated by Richard III's murdered nephews who were found (scientists believe) buried in the Tower of London (and I AM).

Now go to your libraries and check out as many books from the 800s as you can carry, so you stop causing your librarians to despair. And if you live in my town, check out Henry IV, Part I. The version from the Marlowe Society hasn't checked out since 1995.