The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Tempest by William Shakespeare. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.
While I usually do not like the writing style of Shakespeare, and I generally don't like reading plays in general, there are some plays that I do enjoy. The Tempest is perhaps one of, if not the, weirdest of the Shakespearean plays. The premise of the play deals with a mystical island with witches and spells. And although many of Shakespeare's play do have a bit of magic in it, such as Macbeth, I feel The Tempest strives the furthest into science fiction/fantasy of all of his plays. And that may be the reason that I enjoyed it so much. The story may be a bit abstract but this ranks within my top three favorite Shakespearean plays. It is rather easy to read for me and straight forward to follow plot wise making it one of his most accessible plays in my opinion.
Continuing on through my "quick reads", I decided to read another Shakespearean play, this time Othello. Again, Shakespeare is not my favorite, and this play is no exception. I feel it is mostly because I don't appreciate the language that Shakespeare uses in his plays. For me it is hard to read. I know what you'll say though, "but you should see it live". For me though, as someone who is hard of hearing, even seeing the plays live I am often left confused and wanting because I can't understand what the actors are saying. So most of Shakespeare's plays leave me with a less than ideal taste in my mouth. Othello is a play about love, interracial romance (a certainly taboo subject at the time), racism, jealousy, and eventually, death. The play deals with some heavy topics and so I can see its continued use in modern day society helping people to discuss difficult topics, especially in schools, but the play isn't for me.
