pickJeanette Winterson's re-telling of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale is at its best in Leo, Xeno, and MiMi's back story and the present day of Shep and Perdita, but the parts connecting them didn't quite work for me.
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Gap of Time | 
pickJeanette Winterson's re-telling of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale is at its best in Leo, Xeno, and MiMi's back story and the present day of Shep and Perdita, but the parts connecting them didn't quite work for me.
bailedTried for 2 hours but could not do it. As it‘s a library book I don‘t feel too bad about not reading it. Now on to something that catches my attention.( I hope). It‘s rainy and very windy here perfect reason to stay inside and read.
so-so⭐️⭐️⭐️.5
I only kept reading this because I was interested in the story. I found the writing to be wooden and uninteresting, the characters either pretentious (who thinks Walden and Ben Franklin are obscure??), stupid, or absolutely insane. I also found the age-gap between Perdita and Zel concerning, as well as Clo‘s obvious attraction to teenage girls. Yikes. #bookspin
“I saw the strangest sight tonight.”
#firstlinefridays @ShyBookOwl
1. It depends. Keep if I want to reread it, reference it again, or if it's important enough. sell what I can and donate the rest.
2. An afternoon, or in 3 months. I dunno, shorter fiction feel too much like cheating these days. Pepperharrow took 2 days, I've been at A Distant Mirror (600 pg of dryish nonfiction) since November
3. Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time. I try to finish everything if I can. #wondrouswednesday @Eggs
A book is now on the way for you @arubabookwoman and it should arrive Tuesday. #LMPBC #Round007 #GroupM
panI read this because it‘s part of the Hogarth Shakespeare retellings. This one is The Winter‘s Tale. The early section with Leo is insufferable, but I stuck with it because it‘s part of the series. It got a bit better as we saw Perdita as an adult. It wasn‘t my favorite, but I still enjoy seeing these famous plays reimagined in a modern setting.
@Shakespearience The book should arrive by Monday.
#LMPBC #round7
pick
bailedThe first section of this retelling of The Winter's Tale is excellent. Rich, visceral, and told from the perspective of a very interesting character. The second section starts out strong but soon becomes unnecessarily violent (even accounting for the Shakespearean origins) and too outlandish to believe. The third jumps right in with geographical and racial stereotypes exacerbated by the audiobook narrator's accents. And that's as far as I got.
pickA new fave Jeanette Winterson and one of my fave Hogarth Shakespeares! I loved the changes she made to make a very odd plot make sense in the modern day, Leontes and Polixenes‘ relationship, everything about Paulina (Paulina is one of my all time darlings), and everything she wrote about time. This did justice to one of the weirdest and best Shakespeares so well
pickI adored this "cover version" of "The Winter's Tale!" Winterson is such a gorgeous writer and she captures both the brutality and the hopefulness inherent in the play. I'm glad I read this one after seeing a Public Works production last year that moved me to tears, it def made her approach resonate more than my college memories of the play would've. I loved the way she focused on the concept of time to bring out her themes through the entire book.
bailedHadn‘t read this in several days and I realized that I totally didn‘t care about the outcome. So, I decided to abandon it because I should care more than that about a book that I‘m reading, about the characters‘ lives.
pickThis is a brilliant read. Great twisty plot (a 'cover version' of A Winter's Tale) and Jeanette Winterson's writing is as engaging and poetic as ever.
Next up
bailedWelp, the narration is killing me. More than halfway through and I can't stand listening to any more vile characters speak in French, British, Louisiana, or Detroit accents. Some lovely passages on time helped me think a bit about the play, but overall I found this a very unpleasant book. Maybe I don't want my Shakespeare updated. Maybe I need to read something else by Winterson. 🏃♀️🐻
It was worth a shot! @zsuzsanna_reads @batsy @Lcsmcat
panWinterson's retelling of Shakespeare's The Winter Tale. Sadly, this just didn't do it for me. I was annoyed from start to finish with how the characters+events were shoehorned into the Shakespearean narrative. One could suspend disbelief in the play; here, it was almost painfully embarrassing. The characters all struck me as token types: gay, feminist, trans, Jewish, Black. The book made me uncomfortable in how it used race & gender & violence.
Not sure if this is stupidity, bad editing, laziness or what, but SCOTLAND IS OUTSIDE of ENGLAND. I have Scottish friends who would get crazy angry over this.
@batsy @merelybookish #readaling #buddyread
It's a stormy night, I cannot sleep (it's 2.39 am) so I have started on my Shakespeare retelling #buddyread with @merelybookish and @batsy . I'll let you guys know how it's going one I've finished part 1. My first impressions are mixed.
Last time I posted it was a beautiful autumn day, now it‘s a beautiful winter day and winter in Montana means more time for reading because it‘s too cold to go outside.
Currently I‘m working through The Gap of Time for school (loving it so far!), but then my reading plans are fairly free. What‘s a recent one you loved?
It is December, the #shakespearereadalong for The Winter's Tale is coming to an end and I get to start this book for a buddy read!
@merelybookish @batsy
I had a slow month in November, partly because instead of audiobooks I listened to The Great Courses The English Novel. Which was great and added to my TBR! So 8 new reads and one reread, 3 audio, I eBook, and 4 print books. I‘mgoing to the symphony tonight #novemberstats
pickI finished this one the same way I started it, with a cat on my lap! This is the second of the Hogarth Shakespeare retelling I‘ve read and I think I need to read them all. A nice companion to the #shakespearereadalong, but a good story, even if you‘re unfamiliar with the original. (But you really should read The Winter‘s Tale first!)
My evening plans after a crazy day at work.
If I‘m toread this alongside The Winter‘s Tale, Balthazar says I‘d better get started. @zsuzsanna_reads Are you in?
My #treat tonight was #bookmail from ThriftBooks. I‘m taking @zsuzsanna_reads suggestion and reading this Hogarth retelling along side The Winter‘s Tale for the #shakespearereadalong in November. @batsy
pickI enjoyed this retelling. The story itself is dark so this strange modern twist was quite fitting. Finished it up at the retreat at the lake this weekend. Binged it.
Constant access to globe shop = happy Shakespeare nerd
Amusement park reading.
bailedI never ever bail on books. And yet. I love Winterson and I love Shakespeare. And yet. I hate this so much. I tried for two fucking years.
Needed this like I needed a hole in the head, but it was Dollar Tree! Who knew you could get books at Dollar Tree?! It‘s a retelling of A Winter‘s Tale. Have you read it? Curious to see if it‘s any good.
#shakespearereadalong
#TBRtemptation post 4! This was the first installment in the Hogarth Shakespeare series. During the tumult of the 2008 financial crisis, a storm-ravaged American city called New Bohemia will be the setting for this "The Winter's Tale" adaptation. King Leontes is Leo, a paranoid hedge fund manager; King Polixenes is Xeno, a video game designer. Let burning jealousy and reunion commence! #blameLitsy #blameMrBook ?
so-soQuick audio listening for a book club next week! This felt like barely a variation from the original in terms of plot points. I enjoyed the characters but it was just sort of meh. I didn‘t love what Winterson did with Leo, he was just so intense the whole time. I did think the relationship between Leo and Xeno was interesting, and I did love the father/daughter relationship with Perdita and Shep.
My holiday reading from last week! Particularly a fan of Jeanette Winterson's The Gap of Time - insanely well written, gripping (even written over 17 years), and cleverly connected to its inspiration (Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale) -- also can't believe it took me this long to read A Room of One's Own, and I can safely say it met and exceeded all of my expectations. I love finding books to recommend! 📚🤓😍
Just read the play, so it's time to read the book. So far, it's a winner. That's no surprise, it is Jeanette Winterson!
so-soI'm obviously in one of those slumps at the moment where no book seems to be able to please me. Meh! This retelling of Shakespeare's Winter's Tale was alright but my problem is the convolution of the plot which is already an issue in the original. So this was a nice read but I didn't love it.
Bookworm problems: Not being able to read just one book at a time. 🤣😊
pickSo much beautiful language in this book! I was really excited to read this because I know Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale inside and out because I wrote a similar retelling of #thewinterstale, but new adult/young adult (it's being published soon!). I was surprised that we reimagined some of the characters very similarly. Comparing our interpretations made it even more fun to read! It was a quick read and the ending threw me (the style of it).
And the world goes on regardless of joy or despair or one woman's fortune or one man's loss. . . And the things that change us forever happen without us knowing they would happen. And the moment that looks like the rest is the one where hearts are broken or healed. And time that runs so steady and sure runs wild outside the clocks. It takes so little time to change a lifetime and it takes a lifetime to understand the change.
