It's also a stunning argument for editing Shakespeare down for performance.

Ha!

I'm in the "couldn't sit through it" group. The age of the performers makes everything weirder. Like, maybe Ophelia went nuts because he's been leading her on for at least a decade. And why bother with the murder and mayhem when they'll all be dead of natural causes soon?

you owe yourself to see Billy Crystal as the First Gravedigger.

See, I feel like if one is committed to murder & mayhem, you should start with Billy Crystal and then move on to Robin Williams.

I'm in the "couldn't sit through it" group. The age of the performers makes everything weirder. Like, maybe Ophelia went nuts because he's been leading her on for at least a decade. And why bother with the murder and mayhem when they'll all be dead of natural causes soon?

Hee. I'm with Strega and Juliana.

Isn't there a website where you can search for book titles by their plots?

I mean, where you know what the book is about but can't recall the title?

Sumi, is this it?

[link]

I need a site like that specifically for kids books. I remember reading two books as a pre-teen that no one else seems to have heard of and I cannot remember their titles at all.

One was about a teen girl who entered a school essay contest just because she liked to write and ended up winning first prize of flying lessons. It followed her throughout the lessons until she flew solo the first time. I think it might have been written in the 60s or so because it was all "Ooooh, a girl won that prize! Ooooh, so radical!! Girls don't fly!!"

The second book I'm positive had been translated from either Norwegian or Swedish. The main characters were a brother and sister who stumble into some kind of dastardly plot to steal something. I don't remember the nefarious intentions offhand, but what stuck in my head was that they used Morse code to communicate when one of them was tied up to the pipes in a basement by the bad guy.

I'm sure if I re-read these books now, I'd be really disappointed in their quality, but I liked them very much as a kid.

It's also a stunning argument for editing Shakespeare down for performance.

I agree, but yet, I own it on DVD. (Or do we have the BluRay version? I can't remember.) Because there are parts of it that are good, and the costuming and scenery are gorgeous.

That could be it.

Thanks!

Someone recommended me the Percy Jackson series recently. It does look fun.

I remember rather liking Branagh's Hamlet, although, yes, it is a mighty ego-trip. But lots of things to like about it. Just....probably easier to cope with if it were a mini-series.

Meanwhile, on a related note, I've just read The Dead Fathers Club, which is narrated by an 11 year old boy whose father has just died, and whose uncle is cozying up to his mother, and who then sees the ghost of his father popping up clamouring for vengeance...

I enjoyed it a lot, in no small part for the prose - which, God help me, is wholly sans apostrophes or commas, but is, nevertheless, crammed with very sharp observations and original turns of phrase, and does a terrific job of evoking the world through the eyes of a kid.

I'm a little more iffy on the various Hamlet parallels. There were times when I just wasn't sure why he wasn't going the whole hog - but it's definitely worth a look, imho.

I really liked Branagh's Hamlet, but I had just taken two classes on Shakespeare. Still, I can see the need to cut things for a live performance. However, if you are studying it as literature, I don't think anything should be skipped.