Monday, January 1, 2018

January 2018

January 2018
Happy New Year! It has been a turbulent year, this 2017, but here we are, entering 2018 with perhaps more optimism than I would have thought possible. What fools these mortals be but also how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable.

As always, I will once again mention to visitors of this blog that Shakespeare Calling – the book is available for purchase. Please help promote the book by buying it, of course, and telling your friends about it, by liking and sharing it on Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Bokus…. And please encourage your local book shops and libraries to buy it.  Thank you. Your support is needed to keep this project alive.

FINALLY easily available for those of you in Great Britain and Europe on this site:

or
or Adlibris. Or contact the publisher info@vulkan.se

Shakespeare Calling – the book is promoted by
and

Shakespeare sightings:
  • ·       In the novel Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh the title character is a misfit, ‘like Joan of Arc, or Hamlet, but born into the wrong life – the life of a nobody, a waif, invisible.’ Later she had to leave school to take care of her mother and was secretly relieved but blamed her parents for her unhappiness and wished she was ‘in school again learning…the history of art, Latin, Shakespeare, whatever nonsense lay in store.’
  • ·       The Swedish YA fantasy novel Norra Latin by Sara Bergmark Elfgren is about the historical upper level school Norra Latin (which in reality is now a conference centre). In the novel it is still a school with a theatre program. It also has magic and ghosts but so much Shakespeare that the author was interviewed in the latest number of the journal of the Swedish Shakespeare Association.
  • ·       A literature critic compared the current turbulence in the Swedish Academy (brought about by the #metoo campaign) to a Shakespeare drama.
  • ·       In the rather sweet YA novel about werewolves, one of the two main characters, Sam, who is sometimes a wolf but often human, says to the other main character Grace’s mother, who claims not to be disappointed in her daughter’s practical nature: ‘Methinks the mom doth protest too much.’ Whether or not he knows he’s quoting Shakespeare is not mentioned.


Further since last time:
  • ·       Finished reading aloud with Hal: The Two Noble Kinsmen. Some by Shakespeare, more by Fletcher. Quite a strange play but not without interest.
  • ·       Wrote and posted: ‘Reflections’ on The Two Noble Kinsman
  • ·       Scheduled with friends E, E, A & L but not yet played: ‘Shakespeare – the Bard Game.’
  • ·       Had a book signing event, Saturday 9 December, with my alter ego Rhuddem Gwelin at the local bookshop Klackenbergs in Sundbyberg, Sweden. We mostly sold and signed the Merlin books but Shakespeare Calling – the book received not a little attention as well
  • ·       Received from friend JS – a calendar of Shakespeare insults. The insult for today, 1 January 2018, is ‘That quaffing and drinking will undo you’ (Twelfth Night). Very mild as Shakespeare insults go!
  • ·       Discovered that the public library in Ă–stersund (northern Sweden) has Shakespeare calling – the book as an e-book.


Posted this month
  • ·       ‘Reflections’ on The Two Noble Kinsmen https://rubyjandshakespearecalling.blogspot.se/2018/01/the-two-noble-kinsmen-reflections.html 
  • ·       This report









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