A very enjoyable books (and to those of you who have been turned off by Bryson in the past, he remains well under control here).

There is very little that we know about Shakespeare, and a whole lot that has been imagined. Bryson separates the fact from the fancies and ends up with a totally plausible biography about a likeable guy who also happened to be an exceptionable author. Bryson give a lot of details about what life was like in England during Shakespeare's day, and that is the most fascinating part of the book. It also has the advantage of being less than 200 pages long, unlike most Shakespeare biographies.

Bryson ends by debunking convincingly all the pretenders to Shakespearean authorship. It is in this chapter that Bryson's wit is most evident (particularly in the final sentence in the book).

In short, it was a quick, educational, fun read on a subject about which I wanted to know around 196 pages-worth of stuff.