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eBook – The Empire Striketh Back

eBook –  The Empire Striketh Back Full title :  William Shakespeare's The Empire Striketh Back By : Ian Doescher  Iillustrations :  Nicolas Delort Score : 9/10 Year : 2014 Publisher : Quirk Books  eISBN :  978-1-59474-716-8 Based on  978-1-59474-715-1 (hard cover) Pages : 176 *  Language : English From Goodreads : Hot on the heels of the New York Times best seller William Shakespeare’s Star Wars comes the next two installments of the original trilogy: William Shakespeare’s The Empire Striketh Back  (and not reviewed as yet,  William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return.) Return to the star-crossed galaxy far, far away as the brooding young hero, a power-mad emperor, and their jesting droids match wits, struggle for power, and soliloquize in elegant and impeccable iambic pentameter. Illustrated with beautiful black-and-white Elizabethan-style artwork, these two plays offer essential reading for all ages. Something Wookiee this way comes!  *** As he explains at the end, Ian Doescher

Book - The expelled (Beckett)



Book – The expelled
Author: Samuel Becket
Score: - 
Year: Book 2006, (this play = 1955) 
Publisher: Pocket 
ISBN 2-266-15859-7
Pages 102 (this play pages 13-52*)

Language: English (explanations in French) 

I'd taken this book from the library, as part of my goodreads challenge (which I'll detail in a few days) and sadly, couldn't be bothered in finishing both plays. 

Instead, I read only the first, The expelled, which I didn't like much, or, I should rather say, disliked quite a bit. 
Indeed, the story of a person who goes off recalling his difficult past, and telling one particular story in a monologue in which he talks about his hatred of people, and his incontinence as he takes a cab, and sleeping over at his cabbie's barn, but I couldn't relate to any of it, and liked very little of his literary style. 

This is, with no should of a doubt, the only book I didn't like at all this year. 

The author's ending of the play, saying that he doesn't know why he told this story and that if he ever told another, we'd see how alike they are didn't give me any wish to pursue the matters into the Old tune, also present in this edition. 

* As for the pages : this book is geared towards french students, studying literature ; the book starts at page 4 with pronunciation, how to use, abbreviations, a short biography about the author, and a presentation of both plays, before the Expelled (13) and the old Tune (55), each of these, in turn, have a page of text and a page of notes... Thus the plays are shorter than they initially appeared from taking the 102 pages book... which ends in a bibliography (94) & glossary (95-102).

I don't know and don't think I'll ever try the second play, but, who knows, right ? 

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