Books for/about - Hamlet

Publisher: Washington Square Press
Authors: William Shakespeare

ISBN: 074347712X
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Summary: The Tragedy of Hamlet
Hamlet is the finest Shakespearean play, and one of the most celebrated literary works in the world. It is essential reading for anyone interested in canon literature. The "To be, or not to be" soliloquy is a frequently quoted passage.

The play concerns young Hamlet, Prince of Denmark and the revenge he seeks against the royal court for the murder of his father, King Hamlet. Despite trickery and deception occurring on all sides, Hamlet manages to avenge the death of King Hamlet, though at a terrible price.

I enjoyed this book a great deal, and would recommend it even to those readers who do not ordinarily enjoy classics.

Summary: I love the play Hamlet!
Shakespeare, William. Hamlet
Heart
Barrowed from Library
Fiction

If you have never read Hamlet or at least seen the movie, well you are missing out on an all time great, and must read book. I have only read a few of Shakespeare plays, such as, Romeo and Juliet, Macbeth, and of course Hamlet, and I must say, Hamlet is his best play. Of course I have seen the movie and it is great too, but nothing compares to the book. Yes, it can get a little confusing reading the book because we don't talk in such ways they do during that time period, but when you do understand it you will love it.

Shakespeare, for his time had a great way of expressing humor and how things were during that time, in his play Hamlet. When Hamlet wanted to show the people how his Uncle had killed the king, (Hamlets Father), in a play he put together, I thought Shakespeare had a very created way for Hamlet to express his feelings towards his Uncle, and reenacting his fathers murder. Then people couldn't believe what they heard and had to leave the stage. Hamlet is determined to get revenge on his Uncle, and his Uncle starts thinking what he had done and can't handle the pain. When the book jumps into the next scene when Hamlet starts talking to him-self about what he will do to his Uncle, it gives you chills, and the sense that Hamlet isn't messing around anymore. Then it starts jumping back and forth to Hamlet and his Uncle talking to them-selves, expressing their deep down feelings. The rest of the book is great from that point, but you have to read the rest of the book to be able to find out. This play is a must read!

Summary: Best Shakespeare
It's a good edition in terms of footnotes that help to describe what is happening throught the course of the play. Hamlet is Shakespeare's longest play and in my opinion his best. The speaches are beautiful and everything comes together so nicely. Hamlet is such a great character brcause he is so colpletely loveable and yet ridiculously frustrating. I definitley reccomend this if you are starting out with Shakespeare because it is likely to leave you wanting to read more of his works!

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	England in Literature Hamlet (British & World Literature) Publisher: Scott Foresman & Co Authors:
ISBN: 0673270076 List Price: $70.45 Amazon Price: $70.45 Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: Reviews: Summary:

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	Backwards and Forwards: A Technical Manual for Reading Plays Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press Authors: David Ball
ISBN: 0809311100 List Price: $17.50 Amazon Price: $17.50 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: . . . and Hamlet too. I agreee wholeheartedly with those below. But Mr Ball is not merely a theorist, he supplies a chapter in which he takes us on a brief journey backward through Hamlet for a distance, and through this method shows how single and specific Hamlet's action is. I can't approach a script now without setting up my dominoes and charting it backward. It seemes foolish not to. Summary: Required reading for anyone working on the stage!! I had a conversation yesterday in which the other theatre artist asked what approach this book advocated to script analysis: "is it feminist theory? queer theory? Marxist?" "No, it's the one where you read the script." Seriously, I don't know what I was doing in the theatre prior to reading this book, and I am so excited to begin my next project now because I feel that I have so much improved in my grasp of how to read a play. Why I wasn't required to read this book in Intro to Theatre or one of my first design classes I don't know, but I am so happy that I did now. Summary: Valuable advice The scope of BACKWARDS AND FORWARDS is narrow, but its ambition is important. This is a book about how to read a play. More specifically, it's about how to read a play whose production you are planning. There are 96 pages in this book and many of them are only partially filled. Some of them are blank. So in very few pages, author David Ball gives some valuable and (I would say, essential) advice. So many bad productions are bad simply because of a basic misreading of the script. Ball tells prospective directors what's important and how to recognize what's important. His advice is very straightforward and concise. He does not pad the book by going off on tangents or use long anecdotes to illustrate a point. He makes a point and then moves on to the next one. I think this book should be compulsory reading for the director, but it is also valuable to the playwright, the actor and the designer. This book is basic. There is a great need to get back to basics. David Ball has done the theatre a great service by writing this valuable book. Summary:

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Shakespeare's Hamlet (Cliffs Complete)

Publisher: Cliffs Notes
Authors: William Shakespeare Terri Mategrano

ISBN: 0764585681
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Summary: Finally understanding Shakespeare!
This book is a great way to make it through Hamlet and actually understand it! The sidenotes really help wtih the vocab, and at the end of each chapter is a commentary that pieces everything together so it totally makes sense.

Summary: Absolutely Essential Reading
This book is the essential resource for anyone who wants to understand Hamlet. I eagerly recommend it to students from 8th grade to master's level, and to anyone who plans to teach this play. This text contains the complete original play, expert commentary, and very useful additional resources. Dr. Mategrano has done a thorough job of explaining the play, providing historical, theatrical, social, and religious background information. Explanations are provided to such crucial questions as why Hamlet, the dead king's only son, did not automatically become the reigning monarch. I found the section on the status of women to be especially insightful into the behavior of Gertrude and Ophelia. Anyone who teaches, studies or attends a performance of Hamlet will benefit greatly from having read this text.

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Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And Its Transmission Through Myth

Publisher: David R. Godine Publisher
Authors: Giorgio De Santillana Hertha Von Dechend

ISBN: 0879232153
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Summary: Lacked Structure
There more than enough interesting material here for a good book. Reading this is like following a dozen rabbit trails without a guide. Even knowing the point of the essay before-hand only carried me so far. These authors needed more interested editors.

Summary: Clear reasoning, chaotic structure, engaging book.
Santillana and Dechend have made a compelling case for the role that myth plays in describing and capturing complex astronomical observations. I read it with great interest and engagement, but could have used better laid connections between the appendices and the main text. I am reasonably well-read in myth, but I still found myself flipping rather frantically back and forth and searching for online references so that I better understood what was being said.

The rambling nature of the essay (cheerfully admitted by the authors in the preface) serves as both a strength and a flaw. It may have been easier to read if written in a more orderly way. However, the elliptical prose made it quite engaging, and eventually invited the reader to have a dialogue with the text in a way that I quite enjoyed.

Still, I hope that in the next edition, some editors take mercy on the readers and connect the dots between the essays and appendices.

Summary: Scholarly, Thorough, Thought Provoking
Hamlet's Mill: An Essay Investigating the Origins of Human Knowledge And It's Transmission Through Myth

GIORGIO de SANTILLANA & HERTHA von DECHEND

Hamlet's Mill is an amazing piece of macrocosmic literature that should be recognized as a true classic.

While some scholars and researchers may attempt to discredit this work as attempting to pull together unrelated mythology from distant times and cultures, this couldn't be farther from the truth. Nearly all religions are based upon two primary foundations, the first being astrotheology, the second being the use of entheogens; as above, so below.

While the stars in the sky may show differently at different locations, and the plants in a specific vicinity may be different, this does not negate the overall concept of the foundations being the same.

Santillana & Dechend have done a fantastic job at providing evidence that the knowledge of the Precession of the Equinoxes is far older than can be escaped, downplayed, or ignored.

The cultural myths, though slightly varying by time and distance have the same foundations, the same origins because they're based on the same concept...the stars and heavens...know the heavens or die... essential knowledge for planting, harvesting and storing food as well as for preparing for seasonal changes.

This is a most important book of many for understanding the ancient mysteries. Other books that will help the reader understand these concepts include John Allegro, Acharya S., Robert Hewitt Brown, Gordon Wasson, John Major Jenkins, Peter Lamborn Wilson, Jonathon Ott, Terence McKenna, G. Schiaparelli, Albert Hofmann, Richard Schultes, Christian Ratsch, Joseph Campbell, Manly P. Hall, Kersey Graves, Jordan Maxwell, Ernest Busenbark, Gerald Massey, etc., to name a few.

One draw back to the book is that the authors skipped over the highly important microcosmic research of R. Gordon Wasson which was available at the time. A tying together of these two works (Hamlet's Mill and Soma), as Jenkins discovered (Maya Cosmogenesis 2012), can not be over looked and is a most rewarding discovery.

A solid 5 star work

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	Hamlet (Shakespeare Made Easy) Publisher: Barron's Educational Series Authors: William Shakespeare
ISBN: 0812036387 List Price: $6.95 Amazon Price: $6.95 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: great story hamlet, one of my favorite kooks. everybody dies in the end. that's perfecto. Summary: Easy does it Hamlet (Shakespeare Made Easy) places English beside English for those that need a translation from English to English. If this is read or acted out loud the translation would be superfluous. There is nothing wrong with a starting place but reading is not the way. ------------------------------------------------------- This really is "The Tragical History of Hamlet Prince of Denmark" and not only the Prince but his family. Not only his family but his friends. Not only his friends but all though that came before him and is told to those that came after him. You can slow down and pick apart many underlying themes and may of the phrases that now challenge Bible sayings in today's sound bites. But the real fun is in just reading the story and you will find that it is not as foreign as you may have thought. A quick synopsis is that Old Hamlet conquered Old Fortinbras seizing his land. Now that Old Hamlet is dead, Young Fortinbras wants his land back and is willing to take it by force. Meanwhile back in D�nemark Young Hamlet who is excessively grieving for the loss of his father, gets a now insight from his fathers ghost. Looks like he was a victim of a "murder most foul"; it looks like his mother and uncle were in cahoots on the murder. The story is about what each person felt and acted or did not act upon the situation. You will find many movies and perverted imitations of the story but nothing will replace the original that was intended to be watched but reads well. Summary: !!!FLASH-FLOW!!! what fire-spells lie in hamlet's mind! here is not some two-dimensional action figure whose only purpose is to enflame the audience with wonder with his sword-slash and his martial agility. here is not some cheap revenge drama where the hero eventually magno-triumphs in glory and thus satiates the spec-tators rage-lust for justice. asymmetrical! here is a man spider-entangled with enigma, here is man truly bewildered by life's perplexo. here is a man who fails to overcome his own interior twists and banish the fog that grips him in paraly-scourge. this drama causes us to ponder life's rattle of chaotica more acutely, it compels us into the prison of inquiry, baffles us and leaves perhaps wiser than before. for what intrigues we humans most is mystery, the unknown, the irresolvable and thus this scholar of wittenberg, armed with a formidible array of proofs, evidences, theories and conjectures, nevertheless, despite all his bookish wisdom, finds himself helplessly at the mercy of rage-orcs when he is challenged to confront the world's unjustice, become a man of action and right his uncle's wrongs! are we all not hamlet? do we all not shrink in the face of tyranno-blight? do we all not at some time or another complacently let injustice govern us, rule us, oppress us? do we all not occasionally become enwebbed by reality's night-shadows and cannot for the life of us rouse the tank-courage needed to banish the vipers? this is a man of emotion! this is a man who thinks! this is a man who contemplates the conundrums harrowing our sleep in constanto! he cannot help but arouse our sympathy and draw us into his sphere, cheering for him, rooting for him, praying for his eventual conquest of lechers for we all at one time or another have experienced similar ideas floating in our cosmos. and yet when he fails life's omnipresent hazard strikes us in greater prepondera thus causing us think more deeply on our existence. kyle foley, author of Lorelei Pursued, Wrestles with God Summary:

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Hamlet (Cliffs Notes)

Publisher: Cliffs Notes
Authors: Carla Lynn Stockton

ISBN: 0764586033
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Summary: Helped me get an `A' in Shakespeare!
I remember well using Cliffs Notes for Hamlet when I was in high school. I did not like Shakespeare at all. I couldn't understand it. I didn't just read the Cliffs Notes, but used it as I read the book to help me interpret what I was reading. The book explains the play passage by passage.

As useful as the Cliffs Notes are for understanding Shakespeare, I found the analyses at the end an excellent extra for diving deeper into the story. In fact, I used one of the analyses for a paper I had to complete in my class. I did my paper on the idea that there were two parts to Hamlet's personality. He was a morally-conscious seeker of truth as well as a man obsessed with bloody revenge and avenging truth. Cliffs Notes not only gave me this idea for the paper, but cited passages throughout the play as evidence. My paper discussed the two sides of Hamlet and how his changing emotions steered the course of the play. I covered Hamlet's encounters with Claudius, his mother Queen Gertrude, Polonius (showcasing Hamlet'wicked side), Horatio, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Ophelia (Cliffs notes reveals certain passage that might imply Hamlet stole her virginity) as proof of my thesis. I ended up getting 100% on the paper which was amazing considering how poor I was in understanding Shakespeare. The class was 14 years ago and I still have the paper. I owe it all to Cliffs Notes!

Summary: Very useful!
I had to write an essay on "Hamlet" in English class this year, and the Cliffsnotes helped me tremendously (considering that I hadn't even read the book, I wrote a pretty good essay with its help). Each scene is given a thorough explanation, and it has an index of themes and a tree of all the characters. Not only does it simplify the book, it also analyzes further and clears up any confusion about the plot. It helped me a lot, I recommend it highly!

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Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace

Publisher: The MIT Press
Authors: Janet H. Murray

ISBN: 0262631873
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Summary: There's no future in Murray's dreaming...
This book came highly recommended to me. With all the hype surrounding its apparent genius I expected to be blown away. Sadly though, this book comes across as someone who has just played a video game for the first time (MYST) and decided that the kids might be on to something. Murray proclaims that one day in the distant future, they'll make a 'holodeck' and we'll finally have true immersion. In the mean time, we can gloss over all the interactive components that make such an experience compelling in the first place. The future of gaming/narratology/ludology whatever-you-want-to-call-it is already here. You don't need a "VR Suit" or some imaginary technology to have a truly immersive experience. Her woefully uninformed look at the games of her day are completely inexcusable:

"...interactors will be lured into worlds where they float, tumble, and arc through thrillingly coloured spaces, fly through imaginary clouds and swim lazily across welcoming mountain ponds. The nightmare landscape of the fighting maze, in which we feel imperiled may give way to enchanting worlds of increasingly refined visual dealight that are populated by evocative fairy-tale creatures."

At the time of this book's publishing (1997) games such as Jumping Flash, Mario 64, and Tomb Raider had already taken the world by storm. By reducing contemporary gaming to mindless, juvenile violence (while championing those themes in 'War & Peace', 'Hamlet' and 'Star Trek') Murray shows a complete lack of interest and imagination.

The heavy hand of narrative is not the only way to tell a story. We don't need a "cyberdramatist" the likes of a Dickens or a Shakespeare to show us the way. She could have explored the work of Miyamoto, Wright or Kojima and the stories that arise out those gaming experiences. Instead she focuses on the Miller Brothers because they offered up the most conventional form of storytelling. Eight years on, their impact is almost forgotten. Above all, people want to act - not in the theatrical sense, but in the name of imaginative 'play'. Maybe someday she'll prove us all wrong and the "Dr. Quinn Holodeck" will sweep us up in the rapturous joy of existing in a town populated by:

"...blacksmiths, barbers, general store owners, saloon keepers, scouts, and, of course, female doctors and who could be given their own homesteads or boardinghouse rooms in particular physical locations within the fictional world."

Sounds like fun.

Criticism aside, I did enjoy the chapter "Eliza's Daughters". Murray's look at procedural characters and believable agents proved informative and intriguing. If only the rest of the book were as objective and plausible then I might actually believe the hype surrounding, "Hamlet on the Holodeck".

Summary: playing with Story in cyberspace
janet murray's book is a seminal work for anyone interested in what story-entertainment is going to look like in cyberspace.

imagine if you were alive in 1889 when the movie camera was invented. it was not immediately obvious that this new invention would play a role in the world of story. There wasn't until the teens of the 20th century that dw griffith developed a language of story on film... and not until the early teens until the movie theatre with pop corn came upon the scene.

we are at a similar place with the new technologies of digitalness, cbyberspace, interactivity, ..... as humans were with the movie technology over 100 years ago.

janet murray's book gives us the thinking of the best minds at the MIT Media lab as to what might be going on here.

a great book...

Summary: Take a spin into the midst of the future
Some may find this terse, warmly witty, and tidy treatise about "whither literature in the world of CyberSpace" as just too esoteric to read. Stop. This is not a book grieving over the lost art of words and writing that nurtures the lives of all readers. This wise book is a guide to the possibilites that elude pessimists wary of the ultimate effects of the computer on this century. Relax, discover the possibilites about which you've never dreamed, and let Murray tell you some stories in the mode of the future. For writers, for teachers....but also for the committed readers. Enjoy!

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