Annnnnd number 26 of the year was actually finished a couple of weeks ago, but between work being an all-consuming bitch and buying a house, I haven't had much time to say anything about it. So here we are at Shakespeare by Bill Bryson.

I like Bill Bryson's work, I've read a few of them now. I find his interest in the English language very... well, interesting. As my husband often points out, I am a literary geek and that is true. Bryson's look at Shakespeare has resulted in a rather slim tome, since Bryson has resisted extrapolating or even making things up for Shakespeare's biography. Instead, Bryson takes the very little we actually KNOW about the Bard and then mainly debunks a lot of things we don't actually know about the Bard. Which really is a lot.

It's not a long read, but its a good read and a must read for anyone who is interested in the venerable William Shakespeare.

I'm really not getting much reading done these days, due to a myriad of reasons. Well, ok, really only one reason, but he's a good one :) However, on my week long holiday spent at the parents' and the cottage, I did manage to read The Devil Wears Prada. I saw the movie a few weeks ago and really, really enjoyed it, so when I saw the book at my parents' place, I dived in. Took me all of a day and a half to read it. It has now been added to my official "The Movie is Better than the Book List". It's actually rare that I find a movie better than a book, I usually always like the book better, but not in the case. I liked the ending of the movie much better and I actually found the main characters of Andy and Miranda much more sympathetic in the movie. Also, the author's (whose name I don't even remember) writing style left me a little cold in places. She definitely went for some rather overly complicated sentences a little too often. Overall, the characters in the movie felt far more fleshed out and I agreed with their decision to amalgamate about 3 separate characters into the one of Nigel, so brilliantly played by Stanely Tucci. The movie also left out a huge subplot about an alcoholic roommate, which, while I understand its importance in the book of displaying how Andy's job was consuming her life to the point where she wasn't there to help her friend, I thought was demonstrated just as ably in the movie through a stronger plotline concerning Andy's boyfriend. Anyway yeah, movie, great, book, not so much.

I also started The Mother Tongue by Bill Bryson. I really enjoyed Bryson's book "A Brief History of Nearly Everything", so when I saw he had written about the beginnings of the English language, I thought I just had to pick it up. Of course, I'm not really learning anything new, most of what he talks about here was covered during my Old English course at university, but Bryson definitley has an easier way of explaining things than good ol' Professor John Chamberlain did. But of course, Bryson isn't also trying to teach a bunch of second year students how to speak and read Old English :)