Why am I passionate about this?

When I first saw Shakespearean text, I could not get how anyone related to things written so many centuries ago. It took me several years before my soul awakened to these words that now felt fresh, like they could have been whispered to me that very day by a best friend who understood all the pain and all the laughter of my life. Very little is known about the man himself leaving writers a lot of room to create their own version of Shakespeare. I know my Shakespeare is just that: my magical, enigmatic, wise Shakespeare. It’s exciting to see how others give him life in their own stories.


I wrote

Airy Nothing

By Clarissa Pattern,

Book cover of Airy Nothing

What is my book about?

John is a character befitting so many of Shakespeare’s creations. He is Puck, Ariel, Juliet, and Viola all rolled into…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of Dream Country

Clarissa Pattern Why did I love this book?

As someone who spends my happiest moments in entirely made-up places with people who, it pains me to write, don’t actually exist, I am obsessed with the wavy lines between the life we imagine and the life we live. And no one writes about that cloudy blue haze between reality and our interior world better than Neil Gaiman. Shakespeare is glimpsed in other parts of the epic Sandman saga, but it is in the stand-alone story A Midsummer Night’s Dream where he is the star. It is both delightful and disturbing in a way that Gaiman is a master of.

By Neil Gaiman, Kelley Jones (illustrator), Malcolm Jones, III (illustrator) , Colleen Doran (illustrator) , Charles Vess (illustrator)

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Dream Country as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The third book of the Sandman collection is a series of four short comic book stories. In each of these otherwise unrelated stories, Morpheus serves only as a minor character. Here we meet the mother of Morpheus s son, find out what cats dream about, and discover the true origin behind Shakespeare s A Midsummer s Night Dream. The latter won a World Fantasy Award for best short story, the first time a comic book was given that honor. Collects THE SANDMAN #17-20.


Book cover of The Daylight Gate

Clarissa Pattern Why did I love this book?

I am secretly, or not so secretly now, in love with Jeanette Winterson. So I was very happy to discover that Winterson wrote a novel based on the 1612 Lancashire Witch Trials featuring an appearance by Mr. William Shakespeare. Not that this is a happy novel. It is brutal and made more horrific by the facts behind it, but that just makes it all the more enthralling to contemplate what humans are capable of doing to each other.

By Jeanette Winterson,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Daylight Gate as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'Utterly compulsive' Daily Telegraph
'A gripping gothic read' Sarah Hall, Guardian
'So seductive ... I was hooked' Independent

The Forest of Pendle used to be a hunting ground, but some say that the hill is the hunter - alive in its black-and-green coat cropped like an animal pelt.

Good Friday, 1612. Two notorious witches await trial and certain death in Lancaster Castle, whilst a small group gathers in secret protest. Into this group the self-made Alice Nutter stakes her claim and swears to fight against the rule of fear. But what is Alice's connection to these witches? What is magic…


Book cover of The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory

Clarissa Pattern Why did I love this book?

I love anything that explores issues of identity, how we define ourselves and others. Throw in a subtle questioning of the ‘truth’ of our most treasured memories, and I am completely hooked. Jorge Louis Borges does all that in this irresistible short story where it is possible for a person to have access to Shakespeare’s memory. As wondrous as this sounds for scholars of Shakespeare’s work, the reality is actually much more mundane and troubling.

By Jorge Luis Borges, Andrew Hurley (translator),

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

The acclaimed translation of Borges's valedictory stories, in its first stand-alone edition

Jorge Luis Borges has been called the greatest Spanish-language writer of the twentieth century. Now Borges's remarkable last major story collection, The Book of Sand, is paired with a handful of writings from the very end of his life. Brilliantly translated, these stories combine a direct and at times almost colloquial style coupled with Borges's signature fantastic inventiveness. Containing such marvelous tales as "The Congress," "Undr," "The Mirror and the Mask," and "The Rose of Paracelsus," this edition showcases Borges's depth of vision and superb image-conjuring power.

For…


Book cover of A Dead Man in Deptford

Clarissa Pattern Why did I love this book?

A Dead Man in Deptford was the last published novel of Anthony Burgess’s lifetime and can be seen as a companion piece to his earlier fictional biography of William Shakespeare, Nothing Like the Sun. A Dead Man in Deptford follows Christopher Marlowe’s life, and Will of Warwickshire lurks very very much in the background of this novel. This somehow adds to the poignancy, as even within his own story, the reader is always aware that Marlowe’s era will be dominated by the name of William Shakespeare. 

By Anthony Burgess,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked A Dead Man in Deptford as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'One of the most productive, imaginative and risk-taking of writers... It is a clever, sexually explicit, fast-moving, full blooded yarn'
Irish Times

A Dead Man in Deptford re-imagines the riotous life and suspicious death of Christopher Marlowe. Poet, lover and spy, Marlowe must negotiate the pressures placed upon him by theatre, Queen and country. Burgess brings this dazzling figure to life and pungently evokes Elizabethan England.


Book cover of No Bed for Bacon

Clarissa Pattern Why did I love this book?

Shakespeare’s plays can be very funny, (many of my friends disagree with this, but I swear by the goddess of Renaissance puns it’s true!), and this is a light, fluffy book that deserves a place on any bookshelf because it embraces silliness and turns it right up to eleven. Our Will’s key predicament is something everyone who has ever written can relate to, being certain you have a literary masterpiece locked up in your mind if only you can be left alone long enough to make it magically appear on the blank page. 

By Caryl Brahms, S.J. Simon,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked No Bed for Bacon as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Shakespeare's in love, perchance, in this rollicking send-up of the Age of Elizabeth.

With an Introduction by Ned Sherrin.


Explore my book 😀

Airy Nothing

By Clarissa Pattern,

Book cover of Airy Nothing

What is my book about?

John is a character befitting so many of Shakespeare’s creations. He is Puck, Ariel, Juliet, and Viola all rolled into one… Airy Nothing is a rare book, indeed. Magical and airy, delightful and intriguing, a tribute work to Shakespeare and an exceptional work of art by this talented author.
An HFC Silver Medalist for Best Period Fantasy of 2021

Book cover of Dream Country
Book cover of The Daylight Gate
Book cover of The Book of Sand and Shakespeare's Memory

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Why am I passionate about this?

Author Novelist Reader History enthusiast Occasional composer Sometime chorister

K.R.'s 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

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