Happy Release Day!
Congratulation Jodi
on the recent release of
By Any Other Name!
By Any Other Name by Jodi Picoult
Historical Fiction, 544 pages
Published August 20, 2024 by Ballantine Books
Two women, centuries apart — one of whom is the real author of Shakespeare's plays — are both forced to hide behind another name to make their voices heard.
In 1581, Emilia Bassano — like most young women of her day — is allowed no voice of her own. But as the Lord Chamberlain's mistress, she has access to all theater in England, and finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. And yet, creating some of the world's greatest dramatic masterpieces comes at great cost: by paying a man for the use of his name, she will write her own out of history.
In the present, playwright Melina Green has just written a new work inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor Emilia Bassano. Although the challenges are different four hundred years later, the playing field is still not level for women in theater. Would Melina — like Emilia — be willing to forfeit her credit as author, just for a chance to see her work performed?
Told in intertwining narratives, this sweeping tale of ambition, courage, and desire asks what price each woman is willing to pay to see their work live on — even if it means they will be forgotten.
My thoughts about By Any Other Name ~~
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)
First lines—"Many years after Melina graduated from the Bard College, the course she remembered the most was not a playwriting seminar or a theater intensive but an anthropology class."
By Any Other Name was an interesting read and nothing like I have ever read. I know when I start one of Jodi Picoult's books that I am going to be learning a lot about a subject I knew little to nothing about. This time it was all about Shakespeare and two women who were wrapped up in his works.
This story is told in two time periods. One it set back in the 1500's around the hard life of Emilia Bassano. Her life was not at all easy and being a very talented writer, but a women, her work would not be recognized for its worth. Then in the present day, Melina Green, has written a screenplay centered on the life of Emilia but runs into roadblocks because she is a woman. Has nothing changed in all these years?
I enjoyed this story for the struggles of the two women even though I am not really much of a fan of Shakespeare. There is so much more to this story, focusing on the lives of these two amazing women. And once again, I came away from a Picoult book knowing so much more that I did before I started.
I received a copy of By Any Other Name rom the publisher via NetGalley and this is my honest opinion.
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About the author
Picoult is the recipient of many awards, including the New England Bookseller Award for Fiction, the Alex Awards from the YALSA, a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction from the Romance Writers of America, the NH Literary Award for Outstanding Literary Merit and the Sarah Josepha Hale Award. She holds honorary doctor of letters degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of New Haven. She is a patron of the Carole Shields Prize for Fiction which is awarded to female fiction writers.
Jodi Picoult is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of 29 novels, including By Any Other Name, Mad Honey, Wish You Were Here, The Book of Two Ways, A Spark of Light, Small Great Things, Leaving Time, The Storyteller, Lone Wolf, Sing You Home, House Rules, Handle with Care, Change of Heart, and My Sister's Keeper, and, with daughter Samantha van Leer, two young adult novels, Between the Lines and Off the Page.
Picoult lives in New Hampshire with her husband. They have three children.
Connect with Jodi
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