On reading Shakespeare with my sister

My family is big on reading. Like, BIG on reading. Dad would read us Dr. Seuss every night before bed, the parents would take us to the library at least once a week, Mum tried to read us The Hobbit (but gave up after a few chapters because some of the kids were way too young to care or appreciate it), and Mum was always reading in her free time (even enforcing a “quiet time” in our rooms a couple times a week so she could have some peace to read). As we grew up more, introducing each other to new books was an important part of my life and my siblings’ lives.
There was one period of time that was especially interesting. I took a Shakespeare class in high school and fell in love. Wanting to expand my knowledge and read more, I decided to start reading Shakespeare at home. But reading to myself made it difficult to follow along (it can be tough to know what exactly he’s saying if you accidentally skim parts of it). So I enlisted the help of my then twelve-year-old sister. We’d assign characters and spend hours reading Shakespeare plays out loud in the front room. We made it through Much Ado About Nothing and Twelfth Night and a few others before I moved away to college.
It’s been a few years (obviously), but last year, my sister called me up and asked to read Shakespeare with me again. SInce we live in different states, we opened Skype, assigned characters to read, and got down to business with Shakespeare Henry V. She’s now the age I was when we started this, so it was interesting to see how her love of Shakespeare has changed over time and how much more she understood this time around.
And I realized that reading Shakespeare is so different when you’re experiencing it with someone. Often, we’d stop and talk about parts that interested us or wording that was confusing or the reasons good ole Will would include certain pieces of dialogue. And in doing this with my sister, we got to connected over something we both love and share that experience together - Henry V will now always remind me of my little sister stumbling through very long speeches about war and patriotism.
It took a few days, but we powered through and were able to discuss the famous speeches, the significance of the play, the confusing parts, the inspirational parts, the parts that made us laugh. We couldn’t do that a few years ago, but both of us are much smarter, better read, and more knowledgeable than we were when we first did this. And I think this ultimately brought us a lot closer.


How do you read plays? Do you like to read Shakespeare aloud or is it easy enough for you to understand while reading to yourself?

On women and mental illness

This post was taken from the Goodreads List “Women and Mental Illness."


I love books about feminism. I’m also really interested in books about mental illness. So this list caught my eye. I was kind of pleased with myself (though I still have some work to do…) because I’ve read 13 out the top 100 books - one of the higher percentages I’ve had on any Goodreads list. Still, this list gave me a lot more to read. Below are five of the books I’ve read from this list.

• The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath (#1) - (Synopsis taken from Goodreads) Sylvia Plath's shocking, realistic, and intensely emotional novel about a woman falling into the grip of insanity. Esther Greenwood is brilliant, beautiful, enormously talented, and successful, but slowly going under—maybe for the last time. In her acclaimed and enduring masterwork, Sylvia Plath brilliantly draws the reader into Esther's breakdown with such intensity that her insanity becomes palpably real, even rational—as accessible an experience as going to the movies. A deep penetration into the darkest and most harrowing corners of the human psyche, The Bell Jar is an extraordinary accomplishment and a haunting American classic.
  Oh, Sylvia Plath. I read this book at an age that it made an impression on me - specifically regarding casual sex, virginity, and suicide. This book was fascinating and dark and a really interesting and unique read. I highly recommend this and I can see why it tops this list.

• An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison (#6) -The personal memoir of a manic depressive and an authority on the subject describes the onset of the illness during her teenage years and her determined journey through the realm of available treatments.
  I read this book fairly recently for a class on human development and social issues. This was a really interesting read - especially to see how bipolar treatment has changed throughout the years. 

• Macbeth by William Shakespeare (#13)-  Promised a golden future as ruler of Scotland by three sinister witches, Macbeth murders the king to ensure his ambitions come true. But he soon learns the meaning of terror - killing once, he must kill again and again, and the dead return to haunt him. A story of war, witchcraft and bloodshed, Macbeth also depicts the relationship between husbands and wives, and the risks they are prepared to take to achieve their desires.
  I was initially surprised to see this so far up this list. But on reflection, Lady Macbeth is a (murderous) feminist, so she belongs here. I may need to reread to fully understand the mental health aspects of Macbeth.

• Go Ask Alice by Beatrice Sparks (#17) - A teen plunges into a downward spiral of addiction in this classic cautionary tale. January 24thAfter you've had it, there isn't even life without drugs.... It started when she was served a soft drink laced with LSD in a dangerous party game. Within months, she was hooked, trapped in a downward spiral that took her from her comfortable home and loving family to the mean streets of an unforgiving city. It was a journey that would rob her of her innocence, her youth -- and ultimately her life.Read her diary.Enter her world.You will never forget her. For thirty-five years, the acclaimed, bestselling first-person account of a teenage girl's harrowing decent into the nightmarish world of drugs has left an indelible mark on generations of teen readers. As powerful -- and as timely -- today as ever, Go Ask Alice remains the definitive book on the horrors of addiction.
  I read this book multiple times as a teen, partly at my mum’s suggestion (maybe she was trying to steer me away from drugs?). It’s an interesting and unique read. I don’t know that I’d want to read this again now.

• Hamlet by William Shakespeare (#19) -One of the greatest plays of all time, the compelling tragedy of the tormented young prince of Denmark continues to capture the imaginations of modern audiences worldwide. Confronted with evidence that his uncle murdered his father, and with his mother’s infidelity, Hamlet must find a means of reconciling his longing for oblivion with his duty as avenger. The ghost, Hamlet’s feigned madness, Ophelia’s death and burial, the play within a play, the “closet scene” in which Hamlet accuses his mother of complicity in murder, and breathtaking swordplay are just some of the elements that make Hamlet an enduring masterpiece of the theater.
  
  Again, I’m surprised to see Shakespeare on here. And then I think of Ophelia and her problems and her eventual suicide and it makes so much sense. A great addition to this list.

What books on this list have you read? What books on this list are you interested in? What are your thoughts on this list? What Goodreads lists have you loved?