Manga Shakespeare: As You Like It / Richard Appignanesi / 208 pgs

Manga Shakespeare: As You Like It is a really well-done adaptation of Shakespeare's original play. I've enjoyed all of Appignanesi's adaptations that I've read, and this one had the added bonus of improving the original for me. He makes Touchstone, the clown, more likeable, Orlando actually earns his admirers, and Jaques is still hilarious. It's all about interpretation!

Vinegar Girl/Anne Tyler/237 pgs.

The subtitle of the novel tells it all: the taming of the shrew retold. This book is part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project whose purpose is a modern retelling of Shakespeare's works. In Tyler's version, Kate Battista is being encouraged by her widowed, researcher father to consider marriage to his foreign research assistant, Pyotr. Pyotr is getting close to being deported--marriage to Kate would solve the problem. I really like Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew," and don't feel that Anne Tyler does the original characters justice.