Amateur Reader (Tom) @amateurreader

Nice.

24.02.2026 02:35 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Thomas Dekker's The Shoemaker's Holiday - hire him, good master, that I may learn some gibble-gabble; ‘twill make us work the faster I think of Thomas Dekker as one of the great hacks of Shakespeare’s time, writing over a long career a large number of plays, mostly lost, t...

A bit of gibble-gabble about Thomas Dekker's livel London comedy "The Shoemaker's Holiday" (1599).

"How, merry? why, our buttocks went jiggy-joggy like a quagmire."

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2026/02/thom...

19.02.2026 03:37 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

This one has the Nazi book club chapter! What is not to like?

19.02.2026 03:34 — 👍 3 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

You, that have so graced monsters, may like men - Every Man in His Humour Ben Jonson was, like Shakespeare, an actor-playwright from a modest background. He had a better education, of which he was enormously vain,...

On Ben Jonson's first hit, "Every Man in His Humour":

"Oh, no: a rhyme to him, is worse than cheese, or a bagpipe."

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2026/01/you-...

14.02.2026 20:49 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Kawabata's The Sound of the Mountain - He began to feel that there was some sort of special little world apart over behind the shrubbery Dolce Bellezza hosted her 19th Japanese Literature Challenge last month. Once I have written this post it will be the 54th book in this ye...

On Kawabata's "The Sound of the Mountain":

"The American government designated the beard a national monument; and so he could not of his own free will cut or dress it."

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2026/02/kawa...

14.02.2026 20:48 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

What I Read in January 2026 – Robustious rothers in rural rivo rhapsodic. I will be in London in early March, so my reading has been v v British, more so than usual. If only I wanted to write anything. NOT S...

With some notes here:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2026/02/what...

Not Shakespeare should be back on schedule soon, I hope.

14.02.2026 20:47 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

IN FRENCH & PORTUGUESE

L'Ignorant (1958), Philippe Jaccottet
O Hóspede de Job (The Guest of Job, 1963), José Cardoso Pires
Les mots (The Words, 1964), Jean-Paul Sartre
& the lyrics to 2 Caetano Veloso albums both titled "Caetano Veloso" (1968 & 1969)

14.02.2026 20:47 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

NOVELS

Men at Arms (1952), Evelyn Waugh
The Sound of the Mountain (1954), Yasunari Kawabata
The Kindly Ones (1962), Anthony Powell
An Unsuitable Job for a Woman (1972), P. D. James

POETRY

The Shield of Achilles (1955), W. H. Auden
For the Unfallen (1959), Geoffrey Hill

14.02.2026 20:47 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

WHAT I READ IN JANUARY

NOT SHAKESPEARE
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1595?), William Shakespeare
Every Man in His Humour, Italian (1598) & London (1616) versions, Ben Jonson
The Shoemaker's Holiday (1599), Thomas Dekker
Poems (???), Sir Walter Ralegh
Nothing Like the Sun (1964), Anthony Burgess

14.02.2026 20:47 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

What I Read in December 2025 – We ain’t gonna eat that. I am not so interested in writing a longer summary of my year in reading, so I will put that here. Finishing the massive The Story of the ...

What I read in December: Elizabethan stuff, plus Percival Everett, Jules Verne, Amy Rigby, etc. etc.

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2026/01/what...

12.01.2026 22:10 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

What I Read in November 2025 – The stars move still, time runs, the clock will strike I only have one Marlowe play left to revisit. I should start thinking about a set of plays for this winter. I will likely read up to 1603,...

What I read in November: Elizabethan stuff but also two genuinely new novels.

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/what...

12.01.2026 22:10 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Not Shakespeare for next year - Jonson, Marston, satire, revenge With one Marlowe play left to write up, The Massacre at Paris , next week, I am thinking about what I will read in the winter and spring. ...

My next round of Not Shakespeare reading, if anyone would like to join in here or there. Lots of John Marston and Ben Jonson. I especially recommend Marston's "The Malcontent":

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/not-...

12.01.2026 22:07 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Joost van den Vondel's Baroque play Lucifer - from their lofty nest / They see their dreaded foe How I find books: Andrei The Untranslated posted a list of Baroque writers from Otto Maria Carpeaux’s massive História da Literatura Ocid...

"Lucifer," a classic of the Dutch Baqoque theater by Joost van den Vondel - all news to me. wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/joos...

12.01.2026 22:06 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Edward III - This fellow is well read in poetry I logically followed Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II with the anonymous, but see below, Edward III (published 1596). The first two acts l...

The anonymous "Edward III" has one great act - maybe written by Shakespeare! Or not, but still it is good:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/edwa...

12.01.2026 22:06 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Marlowe's Massacre at Paris - And so let's forward to the massacre! Saving the worst for last, it’s Christopher Marlowe’s The Massacre at Paris (1592?, published soon after), a poor play that is full of Marl...

"The Massacre at Paris" is not so good, but is it ever full of Marlowe:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/marl...

12.01.2026 22:04 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Christopher Marlowe's Edward II - And now and then stab, as occasion serves I take Doctor Faustus as Christopher Marlowe’s richest play but Edward the Second (performed 1592?, published 1594) as his best play-as-su...

Although "Edward II" is also awfully good:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/chri...

12.01.2026 22:04 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Marlowe's restless Doctor Faustus - I’ll burn my books! In Christopher Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus the great scholar sells his soul to the devil in exchange for twenty-four years of power and knowle...

Christopher Marlowe plays:

Dr. Faustus, the best one:
wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/12/marl...

12.01.2026 22:04 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

I have neglected my self-promotion. How will I ever accomplish whatver that is supposed to accomplish?

So here come many links.

12.01.2026 22:02 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Good advice.

17.12.2025 05:17 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Next up is Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus," one of the greats. Please join me if interested.

26.11.2025 22:20 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

Arden of Faversham, an early true-crime murder farce - Oaths are words, and words is wind, / And wind is mutable. Arden of Faversham (c. 1591, pub. 1592) is a true-crime play, a dramatization of a famous forty-year-old murder case. An adulterous wife, ...

On the surprisingly "Fargo"-like early true-crime play "Arden of Faversham":

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/11/arde...

26.11.2025 22:20 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Marlowe's hilarious farce The Jew of Malta - How sweet the bells ring now the nuns are dead A conceptual innovator himself, Christopher Marlowe responded to other innovations. In The Jew of Malta (1589, maybe), he wrote, following...

On Christopher Marlowe's hilarious farce "THe Jew of Malta":

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/11/marl...

26.11.2025 22:20 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

This may all be a fantasy - Stephen Greenblatt's new biography of Chrsitopher Marlowe Potted bio of Christopher Marlowe: Son of a semi-literate Canterbury cobbler. He impressed someone and became a scholarship student first a...

On Stephen Greenblatt's quite good new biography of Christopher Marlowe:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/11/this...

26.11.2025 22:20 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

More Henry VI - I am myself alone More rambling around Henry VI , Parts 2 and 3, Shakespeare’s first big playwriting project. 3. As easily as I accept that large parts ...

Poking at Shakespeare's "Henry VI, Pts 2 & 3"

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/11/henr...

and

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/11/more...

26.11.2025 22:20 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

History before Shakespeare - The Famous Victories of Henry V - he hath taken the great raze of ginger that Bouncing Bess with the jolly buttocks should have had The establishment in the 1570s of permanent theaters just outside of the walls of London led to a massive increase in the demand for new pla...

I have neglected posting links to Wuthering Expectations so I will put the recent ones here. Hope it is not too annoying.

On "The Famous Victories of Henry V," the earlier, not as good Henry V play.

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/11/hist...

26.11.2025 22:20 — 👍 1 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

What I Read in October 2025 – What a simple daily pleasure. October was so long ago. It is almost December. Why do I write these. MARLOWE AND SO ON The Famous Victories of Henry V (1580s?), ???...

With various light annotations on the blog:

wutheringexpectations.blogspot.com/2025/11/what...

26.11.2025 22:15 — 👍 2 🔁 0 💬 0 📌 0

IN FRENCH & PORTUGUESE

Primeiro Livro de Poesia (First Book of Poetry, 1991)
Le coffre (The Cartopper, 2019), Jacky Schwartmann & Lucian-Dragos Bogdan
Retour à Birkenau (Return to Birkenau, 2019), Ginette Kolinka avec Marion Ruggieri
Avec les fées (With the Fairies, 2024), Sylvain Tesson

26.11.2025 22:15 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

OTHER BOOKS IN ENGLISH

Platero and I (1914), Juan Ramón Jiménez
The Plague (1947), Albert Camus
Class Clown: The Memoirs of a Professional Wiseass (2025), Dave Barry

26.11.2025 22:15 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

POETRY

Brides of Reason (1955) &
A Winter Talent and Other Poems (1957) &
A Sequence for Francis Parkman (1961), Donald Davie
Night Watch (2025), Kevin Young

26.11.2025 22:15 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

WHAT I READ IN OCTOBER

MARLOWE ETC

The Famous Victories of Henry V (1580s?), ???
Tamburlaine, Pt. II (1587?), Christopher Marlowe
The Spanish Tragedy (1587?), Thomas Kyd
Henry VI, Pt. 2 (1590?), William Shakespeare
English Tragedy before Shakespeare (1955), Wolfgang Clemen

26.11.2025 22:15 — 👍 0 🔁 0 💬 1 📌 0

Amateur Reader (Tom)

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