Glad Game 2019 - January 6

* managed to convince my body we could sleep in, rather than waking up and getting up between 0530 and 0600. Then had a nice lie in for a bit upon actually waking up.

* got into the office and took down all the Christmas decorations for another year.

* 1.5 hour nap during the afternoon with Ozy curled up with me.

2019 reading challenge: a book set in Scandinavia

Hamlet, Prince of Denmark by A.J. Hartley

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Rating: 4.5 for story 5 for the narration

I was excited to come across this book for two reasons. 1) I needed a book for a reading challenge that was set in Scandinavia and I was really tired of reading Nordic Noir books, and 2) I had listened to Macbeth and loved it so when I saw the same authors did the same treatment to Hamlet, I was in. It was only after I started listening to it did I pay attention to who was the narrator. Richard Armitage can read a story to me any day - yum. His voice is such that I had to rewind several times because I had allowed his voice to carry me away and I had stopped paying attention to the story (take that as a pro or a con - I leave it up to you).

The story is what it says in the title - Hamlet. Just a novelization of the play we've all had to read at least one (or many times) throughout school. I liked how they delved more into backstory, battles and motivations. I was not as thrilled with the death of Ophelia but that's a personal issue as what they did and why worked for the story being told.

This is not a book to use in substitution for reading the play, but a good accompaniment to it. And I certainly hope the authors approach more of Shakespeare's work like this. I'd love to see Othello, Taming of the Shrew and Merchant of Venice done by them.



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