The Bard and the Queen is the book I received as a gift from my aunt and uncle, written by Paola Zannoner, known for writing many books for children, and published by DeA Planeta.

Paola Zannoner has a WordPress blog and the first thing she says about herself is that she lives in Florence.

I imagine that living in cities of art can confer the privilege of having an immense source of inspiration.

And it is the subject of inspiration that I would like to put to you, starting with this book.

I would say that there is no need to explain what a story entitled The Bard and the Queen could possibly be about.

I don’t know about you, but I have a particular fondness for Shakespeare.

I started reading the bilingual books, remember them? Every page had the text in the language opposite.

Back in the glorious days, which as you know I often quote, finding ways to learn languages was not a click away, and these books offered the possibility of having the translation available simultaneously, a bit like today’s online translators, and I point out ‘just a bit’ 🙂

Given that it is certainly not easy to choose, do you have a favourite work among all that Shakespeare has left us?

The book The Bard and the Queen mentions some of them in the course of our William’s life, explaining how they came about, that is, from the events that one day after another make up what is a person’s journey.

Do you think this is necessarily so?

I mean: can one write well about something one does not know?

Did Shakespeare live in the shoes of his characters?

Reading this book I visualised all the time the faces of the performers in the film Shakespeare in love.

But while my imagination did not particularly run to the faces, this book has in my opinion the merit of being sensory.

Smell.

The writer’s meticulous research focused my attention on the olfactory sense, succeeding in describing the atmosphere of a London that is not usually considered in this respect.

Have you ever read a book that was able to materialise one of the five senses?