'Shakespeare Saved My Life'

April 23, 2013 Subscribe · Forward Solitary Confinement Prisoner: 'Shakespeare Saved My Life' Today, we published an excerpt from Laura Bates's Shakespeare Saved My Life: Ten Years in Solitary with the Bard. Bates taught Shakespeare to solitary confinement prison inmates. She befriends a convicted murderer named Larry. In the piece published on HuffPost Books today, we hear the story behind their budding friendship: "Oh, man, this is my favorite freakin' quote!" What professor wouldn't like to hear a student enthuse so much over a Shakespeare play—a Shakespeare history play, no less!—and then to be able to flip the two-thousand page Complete Works book open and find the quote immediately: "'When that this body did contain a spirit, a kingdom for it was too small a bound!'"  Continue reading... How NYT Decides What Books To Review The History Of Erotic Fiction Laura Bush Helped Design Presidential Library Award-Winning Children's Book Author Dies Best New Books Out This Week 13 Most Overlooked Presidents In History WATCH: 'Great Gatsby' Cupcakes, Mini-Meal PHOTOS: Why Printed Books Have An Amazing Future Award-Winning Children's Book Author Dies Massive Online-Only Library Launches JAMES FRANCO Some More Books: Part 4 In Concrete Comedy, David Robbins is interested in comedy that engages with the real world. One of his main examples of such an approach is Andy Kaufman. In effect, Robbins is our ambassador in the world of Andy; he allows us to see the artist behind the performance. Continue reading... TOM ENGELHARDT Filling the Empty Battlefield There was a secret history of twenty-first-century American war crying out to be written. Now, we have it in the form of Jeremy Scahill's latest book, Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield. Continue reading... MARTHA BURK Cooked: Is Fast Food Feminism's Fault? Our culture is stuck in the '50s when it comes to feeding the family. It's still her job, even if it now means picking up a pizza, or microwaving frozen concoctions that taste like the cartons they come in. Continue reading... THOM NICKELS New Book Suggests UFOs Still a Government Secret A groundbreaking new book, UFOs: Generals, Pilots and Government Officials Go on the Record, by Leslie Kean, has been called "the most important book on the phenomenon in a generation." Continue reading... MEG WAITE CLAYTON At the Intersection of Earth Day and National Poetry Month Can I resist the excuse of the intersection of Earth Day and National Poetry Month to share two favorite poems that explore the earth and nature? Continue reading... Received this from a friend? Sign up for alerts from The Huffington Post here. Unsubscribe here. Huffington Post, 770 Broadway, New York, NY 10003