Bill on Will ...

I'll make this brief as well ... I LOVE Bill Bryson! I will read anything this author puts out, and he has never failed to surprise and enlighten. I was pleasantly amused to find that Bill's latest book is on the Bard himself. Bryson is himself an ex-pat now living quietly in the England he so loving explored in Notes from a Small Island. Loving the UK as he does, it is no surprise that he turns his attention and pen to the life of William Shakespeare. This is a nice, neat addition to the Eminent Lives Series - and thankfully the Bryson wit, wisdom and tenacity for the facts are all here.

Admittedly, this is a very brief book as we know very little about Shakespeare, which it seems would best be spelled Shakspere if we were in keeping with what we do know of the man. Bryson gives us wonderful detail about Elizabethan London - a place of plague, pestilence and wonderful theatre! Bill does a magnificent job of countering the anti-Stratford arguements that Will in one man did not exist. It is great fun and I offer that this is the perfect book to read if you little time and wish to learn a great deal about a great man who we happen to know nearly nothing about!

Al's short course on discourse ...

I'll make this brief ... read this book. The now Nobel Prize winning vice-president and global champion returns to his political roots and turns in a very simple lesson for us all. If you are like me and have found yourself asking how one might possibly try and address (let alone try and fix) the varied political problems facing our democracy, Gore does us all the favor of suggesting that we look no further than the core of the American constitution and return once again to reason and the power of a well-informed citizenry. The key word being well-informed. The self-proclaimed father of the Internet does an excellent job making the case for not mistaking quantity for quality in the role that information plays in our lives. Once we arm ourselves with solid information and facts, the central role of reason and discourse can return to our democracy. It seems like a simple lesson that we all did learn at one time in our American History class. For Al Gore it is a lesson which bears repeating. I would agree. An excellent and easy read. Do not spend too much time considering the overall layout of the book. The chapters have little discernable order and so flow from one idea to the next. The resulting effect is that you will be given pause to think and hope once again.