This summer, in addition to the family trip, the required professional development dossier, and the effort to see what progress I could make in reclaiming my house from the chaos which always happens during the school year, I decided upon a project for myself. Inspired by a character in a fantasy series my husband and I had been listening to via Audible, I decided to read the entire works of William Shakespeare.

Yep, I decided to read the whole thing.

This was not a project to be undertaken with my now-13-year-old daughter, the one who was my previous Shakespeare reading partner. (We’re now reading Harry Potter together.) No, this was a project just for me.

Unwilling to lug a massive tome of William Shakespeare’s works around with me, and recognizing that I would have a difficult time with the copy I have, anyway, as my eyes are succumbing to the afflictions of middle age, I decided to pick up a copy on Kindle. Interestingly enough, although these plays and poems are considered public domain, it being long past 70 years after the author’s death, not all of Shakespeare’s works are available free on Kindle. There are a few copies of the complete works, however, which range from 99 cents to under three dollars, with links from the table of contents to the start of the plays, so I felt comfortable in this case actually paying for something I could just as well read on-line for free. After all, on my Kindle Paperwhite, I could read in sepia tone and adjust the size of the lettering to make it comfortable.

I decided to start with Hamlet. Yes, I had read it with my daughter a couple of years ago, but it had, well, been a couple of years, so why not?

In addition to highlighting famous quotes as I read, I found myself highlighting phrases which are recognizable as English sayings, but which may have actually originated with Shakespeare, as I knew many phrases had. It was fun to be once again looking for Shakespearean Easter Eggs.

After Hamlet, I decided to work on a comedy, so I started with All’s Well That Ends Well. I decided it wasn’t really my favorite. (After all, a tale about a guy who is forced by his monarch to marry a woman, but then decides to pout about it by refusing to consummate the marriage and runs off to the wars instead, only to fall in love with an innocent young girl there and try to take her virtue, whereupon his wife, who has followed him in disguise, persuades the young girl to pretend to give in, except the wife would take her place in the dark . . . just makes me a little disgusted with the woman who felt she had to have the monarch force the guy to marry her, and with the guy who didn’t even give his wife a chance.) Knowing from my previous reading of Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare that there is a lot of identity confusion, cross-dressing, and issues with sexual partners in the comedies–devices repeatedly employed to the point where the Reduced Shakespeare Company, in The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Abridged, chorused, “Why did you write 16 comedies when you could have written only one?“–I wasn’t sure if I really wanted to read all the comedies one right after the other.

Even so, I plowed on to the next one in the alphabet (and the book): As You Like It. This one was more interesting, but only mildly so. At any rate, I decided the comedies would need to be taken in small doses.

After two comedies in a row, I decided it was time to hit a tragedy, so I turned to Macbeth. Wow, wow, wow . . . Yes, I knew the plot, and yes, I already knew how things would end, and I even knew a lot of the cool lines. But still, wow. What a play! I found myself salivating with excitement when it was time for me to retire to my room at night and pick up my Kindle to read a little before bed. It was a delightful interlude.

Since that time, I’ve read Love’s Labours Lost (rather more interesting than the previous two comedies, but I was disappointed in the ending) and Measure for Measure (my favorite comedy I have read in this journey, so far). I’ve also started on the histories, the plots of which I had never read before, finding to my surprise that Henry IV, parts 1 and 2, were excellent. (If you’re looking for some fun Shakespearean insult exchanges, pick up these two.)

I am now in the middle of Henry V, arguably one of the most exciting I have read, so far. The language and ideas are fantastic, and I’m now dying to go watch the entire movie featuring Kenneth Branagh in the lead role, as I’ve only actually seen the St. Crispin’s Day clip. (Makes me cry every time.)

During the school year, I will already be lined up to reread Romeo and Juliet and Julius Caesar with my English I and II classes, so I’ll spend my evenings on other plays, but I expect that by next summer I’ll have made it through most, if not all, of the works of William Shakespeare.