The Bard and Bull

Shakespeare
Bill Bryson
Harper Collins

No, the title for this week's post is not the name of my local pub (although it is kinda catchy.) "The Bard" (for those of you who have been living under a rock your entire lives) is an oft-used moniker for one of the greatest English language writers the world has ever produced--William Shakespeare.

Part of me wonders what Bryson was thinking. Why would someone knowingly write yet another biography about one of the most researched subjects/authors in all of English literature? What new, interesting and enlightening scholarship could he possibly have to add? Well, the joy in this book is that Bryson resists conjecture and sticks only to the facts. Yes, it is a slim volume, but what he does write makes for an elegant, accessible, and entertaining read.

Did you know, for example, that of the six recorded signatures by Shakespeare, not one of them is spelled the same? Were you aware that the words "abstemious, antipathy, ... lonely, leapfrog, zany, well-read, and countless others - including countless!" were first found in Shakespeare's works? Bryson manages to take an over exposed dude like Shakespeare and reinvigorate the subject while leaving the reader amused. Three kingdoms for a horse, er, I mean out of five.

Re-Branded

My Booky Wook

Russell Brand

Hodder

As mentioned a number of blog posts ago, I'm not a huge fan of the memoir. I think there's something dishonest about a genre that purports itself to be "non-fiction" when we all know that it is next to impossible to accurately remember events without the cloudy lens of perspective. That said, when I do read some kind of autobiography, it is usually of the train wreck variety. A few months ago, I read the latest offering from Augusten Burroughs. Funny and only slightly disturbing. This week's subject matter, British comedian Russell Brand, is infinitely more so in both categories. Hilarious and, well, more than just a little bit shocking.

For those of you who aren't familiar with Russell Brand, I would say that he's one of the UK's top comedians. His brand of humour is hard to describe, but he is very articulate, extremely witty and often very silly. What sets him apart is that he doesn't seem to come with boundaries and will do pretty much anything to get the laugh. He did, after all, get fired from MTV for showing up to work the day after 9/11 dressed as Osama bin Laden. He's also a man who has found the inner resolve to work through a number of addictions and his memoir, My Booky Wook, walk us through his life up to the point where he gets clean.

This book has often been described as laugh-out-loud funny. I decided to put that claim to the test and every time I caught myself chuckling, I put a big fat check mark in the margin. There's at least 10 ticks in my copy and would have been more had I also been keeping track of the smiles and occasional snorts. Three outrageous stand up acts out of five.