2019 reading challenge: a book set in Scandinavia

[baronessekat]

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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Comments

[mesotablar]

I had never heard about PopSugar's reading challenge before I found your reviews here. I am definitely going through them and finding good things. This one especially. I love finding different variants of Shakespeare's works.
I think I am far too lazy (or embarrassed) to do reviews (I just keep a book list on another site), so thank you for doing them and good luck for the rest of it!

[baronessekat]

Welcome!!

I highly recommend the MacBeth redo by these two authors (but I am a bit biased as MacBeth is my favorite of the Bard's Plays)

[mesotablar]

I must say MacBeth is my favourite as well, so that is probably the first one I would go for. Have you heard of 'The Shakespeare Curse' by JL Carrell? It is the less well known follow up to her great first book but Curse focuses on MacBeth. But I found it muddled and disappointing, so probably not something to recommend...but still it has some very interesting factoids and speculation (though not as great as the first book in the series. That one is incandescent)

But I do have a soft spot for staged Hamlet adaptations, so a novelization sounds intriguing.