The Book of William: How Shakespeare’s First Folio Conquered the World
By Paul Collins
Bloomsbury
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Paul Collins takes readers from a Sotheby’s auction in London to the backwoods of Kent, the Folger museum, and eventually “deep inside Kodama Memorial Library” at Tokyo’s Meisei University in search of tomes most coveted by book collectors—Shakespeare’s First Folios. Shakespeare’s plays have been loved and studied for centuries, but Collins doesn’t search for pearls of wisdom from his texts so much as he maps the habits of bibliophiles since the 16th century. Originally sold for shillings, the folios are now acquired for millions of dollars by an exclusive bunch of eccentrics who clearly amuse Collins and will fascinate readers. The book doesn’t require a background in or love for Shakespeare, though scholars will adore it—just an appreciation of the quirky characters Collins finds in his treasure hunt for the extremely limited editions of the book they all want.
The Book of William is arranged in five acts, one for each locale in the journey. Like Collins’ wonderful memoir and bestseller, Sixpence House, he discusses his love of books in the first person, though he takes a judicious backseat here, allowing the spotlight to fall on the first folios and their paths around the world.
The Book of William is Collins’ sixth title. He is an antiquarian who edits the Collins Library imprint of McSweeney’s Books, and he appears on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition as the show’s resident literary detective. His work has appeared in The New York Times, Smithsonian, and Slate. He is an assistant professor of English at Portland State University.
Will You Take Me As I Am: Joni Mitchell’s Blue Period
By Michelle Mercer
Free Press
Of Joni Mitchell’s album Blue, Michelle Mercer writes, “Released in June 1971, it was in some ways a farewell to the 1960s, a private rumination on the passing of the decade’s collective hopes, its innocence and ideals.” Certainly a favorite of many, and named as one of Time magazine’s “All-Time 100 Albums,” Blue’s impact on the music world, including on the likes of Miles Davis, is indeed monumental. Mercer reminds us of the album’s artistic poignancy and of Mitchell’s life—the way she was always her own person, how she differentiated herself from Judy Collins and Joan Baez with sometimes excruciatingly honest lyrics. While most singer/songwriters of her period have lost relevance, Mitchell’s work continues to penetrate each generation.
Will You Take Me As I Am engages readers with anecdotes about Mitchell’s long-time romantic relationship with Graham Nash, and each of their artistic products from their time together. She also discusses the influence of Mitchell’s European travels in 1970 and their impact on the album’s mood and lyrics, as well as that of her serial involvements with rock stars following the relationship with Nash. A reader interested in Mitchell, and perhaps especially her Blue period, will delight in the book’s details with great interest. But in spite of the juicy opportunity to peer into Mitchell’s life, Mercer renders the biography with painful self-consciousness. The author feels young to the reader; we read along as she wrestles to get her head around a subject and history that feel too big for her own experience. The result is a convoluted tale with too many interjections in the first person, which doesn’t seem to do justice to an icon like Mitchell.
Will You Take Me As I Am is Mercer’s second book. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times and The Village Voice, and she is a regular contributor to National Public Radio. She lives in Pikes Peak, Colorado, and Bahia, Brazil.
The Blue Star
By Tony Earley
Little Brown & Company
Set during the early stages of the Second World War, The Blue Star is a story of innocence and first love complicated by racial tension. Jim Glass, who was also the protagonist in Earley’s first novel, Jim the Boy, finds himself drawn to Chrissie Steppe, but her father, Indian Joe, has already thrown the shadow of his bad reputation across his family. If that weren’t enough, Chrissie is engaged to Bucky Bucklaw, who is away at war, and whom she doesn’t love. As Jim contemplates his own manhood, he watches his best friend, Dennis Deane, drop out of school for a mill job to support his first child, while other friends join the military. Faced with hard choices but graced by a supportive family, one thing is certain for Jim: life in Aliceville, North Carolina, as in the rest of the U.S., is certain to be dramatically altered by the war.
Earley chooses clear prose to reflect the seeming simplicity of the way of life during the Second World War period. The distinct stratification between those who do the right thing and those who do not makes for a leisurely read which doesn’t demand too much of the reader, and points to the sensibility of Southerners in times much less harried than today.
Tony Earley is the Samuel Milton Fleming Professor of English at Vanderbilt University. The Blue Star is his fourth book and the second one featuring Jim Glass. His work has also appeared in The New Yorker and the annual Best American Short Stories anthology. Earley grew up in North Carolina, earned an MFA from the University of Alabama, and now lives in Nashville with his family.
