What Are You Reading?

What Are You

Reading?

What Are You Reading? A project sponsored by the Friends of the Macomb Public Library District to encourage reading and book discussion in our community. Would you like to share your favorite books with other readers? Please send your name, occupation or grade level, book author and title, and a brief statement about the book and why you liked it to Kate Joswick, [email protected].

Reviewer’s Name: Michael Wallick Reviewer’s Occupation: Retired Book Title: By Any Other Name Book’s Author: Jodi Picoult Two women. Both are playwrights. One, Emilia Bassano, practiced her craft in Elizabethan England; the other, Melina Green, in 21st century New York. Both faced the same dilemma. How would they get their plays produced in theaters controlled by and for men? Both resorted to deception. Melina's best friend submitted her play under a male pseudonym. Emilia paid an actor by the name of William Shakespeare to front her work. Jodi Picoult is one of my favorite authors. In this work of historical fiction, she deals with the centuries old question of Shakespeare's authorship. Did he really write the plays and poems that are credited to him? Or did he collaborate with Emilia Bassano, an Italian Jew, who was the first woman to publish a book of poetry in England.