EXIT, PURSUED BY A BEAR

The book people have been back and this time, they've left some real gems for our perusal and potential purchase.

The first book that caught my eye was How to Teach Your Dog New Tricks. It seemed to be a glossy collection of ways to show off to your friends by making your dog balance things on its nose, or bury its head under the rug when you say 'Who's a naughty boy then?' and so on. All that did was make me feel sorry for dogs.

Beyond a glossy cookbook and Carol Vorderman's Coding For Kids... there was only really one other book, or rather set of books, that caught my eye. It was a box set of Shakespeare stories for children. What a great idea! The Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, a Midsummer Night's Dream, written out really simply and illustrated a la Quentin Blake.

What I particularly loved was that the author had included actual quotes, taken straight from the bard to recreate the dialogue. There was a curly-haired Shylock asking, "Hath not a Jew eyes?" and Portia claiming that "The quality of mercy is not strain'd..." Marvellous.

So while the kettle was boiling, I started reading a play that I've never read before. You might have read it and know what happens, but for me, gently flicking through the pages of The Winter's Tale, I felt like a child, encountering Leontes' furious jealousy and Hermione's confusion about it, for the first time.

The Winter's Tale is famous for the inclusion of one particular stage direction, where Shakespeare simply writes: Exit, pursued by a bear. No-one knows whether he intended an actual bear, someone dressed up as a bear, or whether it was included ambiguously to keep us guessing. I rather think it was the latter, the old cove.

The kettle clicked and I returned the thin volume to the box. I might go home and read it properly to find out what happens.

I guess that was always the writer's intention though.