This Is Shakespeare

“Brilliantly illuminating. . . . Perhaps the best book on Shakespeare, full stop. . . . Emma Smith’s voice is disarmingly frank, refreshingly irreverent, full of pop culture . . . Her reading of the plays is dazzling, her original research totally convincing.” —The Observer
 
“Anyone who doesn’t understand what all the fuss is about should read This Is Shakespeare. Smith—who is no enemy of fun: her book fizzes with jokes—is celebrating a Shakespeare who talks to the present. She does it all with such a light touch you barely notice how much you’re learning.” —The Guardian

“Cuts through the accumulated crust of ‘schoolroom platitudes,’ cant, and literary piety in order to dust Shakespeare off and see him as he is, was, and might be.” —The Daily Telegraph (London)
 
“Quirky, brilliant. . . . [Smith] sees the plays as almost organic: not only contradictory but alive.” —Spectator
 
“An exemplary job of restoring the greatest of English writers to his own time, and explaining why he then speaks to ours. . . . An invigorating examination.” —The Times (London)
 
“Intriguing . . . Smith argues that the defining characteristic of Shakespeare’s plays is their ‘permissive gappiness.’ This must also surely be the first book on Shakespeare to use the slang term ‘woke.’” —Evening Standard (London)
 
“I admire the freshness and attack of her writing, the passion and curiosity that light up the page.” —Hilary Mantel, author of Wolf Hall
 
“If I were asked to recommend one guide for readers keen on discovering what’s at stake in Shakespeare’s plays, This Is Shakespeare would be it.” —James Shapiro, author of The Year of Lear: Shakespeare in 1606