Take a walk along Silver Street - and meet the real Shakespeare! - Rated 
The Lodger came to me as a Christmas present that went unread till just now. Well, Happy Not-So-New Year to me - I'm so glad I finally got around to it! My bet is that you will be, too.
At first glance, the concept and/or genre of the book may not be universally inviting; but I assure anyone who picks this up that you'll be hooked from early on. So, before going into the subject, style and so on, please - take it on trust: this is a gem, one of the most positively infectious books around.
OK, here we go: Who would have guessed that the facts about Elizabethan hair-piece manufacture could be so absolutely fascinating! What's more, this material is utterly absorbing of its own accord, even without the Shakespeare-connection that is key to the book's construction.
All credit to the author, whose meticulous attention to detail is enriched by his obvious delight in the subject, along with a patent desire to communicate this to the reader with great clarity and goodwill. Scholarship this accomplished really shouldn't be so accessible - but it is!
Painstaking documentary research into immigrant populations and work patterns in Jacobean London is brought to vivid life, not just through the Shakespeare Effect, but by dint of sly and entertaining nods towards, for instance, Victoria Beckham, the hideous modern business concept of "networking" and the "bums on seats" commercial realities behind the vaunted offerings at the Globe and other venues (which, by the way, are shown to be not just theatres but places of assignation and integral to the sexual spice of the day).
Like Shakespeare, this fantastic work combines genuine instruction and fierce intellect with splendid entertainment. Not to mention a cast of characters - real people - who are brought to miraculous life by the author's dedicated leafing through arcane records and the like. I swear, by some alchemy, these people are lifted off old paper and imaginatively animated to the extent that you can hear their accents, smell the smells of their houses.
You don't even have to be a particular fan of the Bard (but how could you not be!) or a history-buff to get a genuine thrill, not just from the story that unfolds but from the amazing evocation of the Elizabethan/Jacobean world (especially the London setting) that is accomplished here.
That tangible sense of "real life" hits the reader with just the same intrigue and awe as, say, the cinematic equivalent whereby we might find ourselves viewing Ancient Roman or Trojan CGI vistas as if we were actually there (although this narrative equivalent is far more authentic in its particulars). The sense of verisimilitude is definitely the same; and this isn't some fictional Gladiator or mythic hero but Shakespeare, the man himself, Will in all his glory.
If you're not a fan now, perhaps this marvellous human perspective will help rehabilitate him from academic rarification? If, on the other hand, you're already a Shakespeare devotee, you will find some great new ways into his verse along the byways of Silver Street.
The temptation is to say that this delicious book "wears its scholarship lightly" or some such - but that would be a disservice to the deep forensic research, cross-referencing and deduction that underlie the riches shared here. It's the author's engaging voice that makes it all feel so easy and enticing; when actually great pains have been taken in bringing us these insights. The speculations are always credible, never shoe-horned. And, in any case, what we learn on the way is worth the trip on its own, so friendly and informed is our guide.
One last thought. This book represents true scholarship, genuine research, superior "yarn-spinning" and lovely, fluent sentences. In any just literary world, The Lodger would enjoy popular success far above that of The DaVinci Code (pardon my same breath).
The Bard's Questionable Associates - Rated 
From the initial court case Nicholl has managed to spin lives for all those involved even the servants, allowing for possibilities where fact is not available but never descending into if, buts and maybes. He looks at what the area was like but with the added flourish of imagining what the view from Shakespeare's window was, the route he would have used to get to the theatres and the landmarks he would have known - friends houses, taverns etc. This chapter combined with the one looking at the local parish records, tax records and the ground plans of a nearby house all make for a very evocative scene setting. The Mountjoys were French and Nicholl takes care to explain what a difference being French in London made to their options and trading. Further chapters look at the make up of the house (who was living there, how it was furnished and split between working and living areas), the background of the Mountjoy family and their friends as well as what they were doing in 1604-12, the trade they were involved and how they got to know Shakespeare, the court case that left such a tantalising record and just what Shakespeare was doing lodging in Silver Street anyway when he had a perfectly good house in Stratford.
It sounds dull and fact-laden. It's not dull. The facts are there but they are lightly handled and the author has a very readable voice. Out of several interesting possibilities that he points up some are very convincing, yet he is cautious and points out that no evidence means no conclusion can be drawn. Still the lives the Mountjoys lived seem pretty scandalous (brothel keepers for friends, illegitimate children and love affairs) and it was fascinating to see how Shakespeare might have included them and their problems in his plays. I enjoyed this book far more than I thought I would, I was expecting a perfunctory read but ended up delighted by a well crafted, thought provoking and very, very likeable book that had something new to say about Shakespeare - no mean feat. 8/10.
Avaunt ye, Baconites! - Rated
Charles Nicholl is on a roll. This is at least the fourth Nicholl book I've read (the others being "Borderlines," "The Reckoning," and "Somebody Else"), and each has been better than the last. Nothing could be more mundane, on its surface, than a book about one of the houses where Stratford property owner and family man William Shakespeare lodged when writing his plays in early Jacobean London. Surprisingly, however, the story of how he tendered his services in bringing about a "handfasting" (or betrothal) of his head-tire-making landlord's daughter and his apprentice, and the subsequent story of the couple's suing (some eight years later) of that landlord for failing to pay a promised dowry, makes for compulsive reading. Along the way, we learn something about the seamier side of Shakespeare's neighborhood, as well as the surprising character of some of his neighbors and acquaintances. These latter include a fortune-telling "doctor," Simon Forman, who had the ear of England's distaff elite, and a brothel-keeping poetaster (and the bard's collaborator on "Pericles"), George Wilkins. How all these characters come together makes for a fascinating journey into research on one of literature's most enigmatic geniuses, William Shakespeare himself. The text is supplemented by "the chief documents relating to the Bellott-Mountjoy case," most notable of which is the playwright's own 1612 deposition, signed "Willm Shaks." Francis Bacon could never have made this stuff up.
A Face in the Crowds of Jacobean London - Rated
Wow. This book is an absolute peach, and kills stone dead the myth that `we know nothing of the real Shakespeare'. Nicholl has impeccable credentials as a student and textual detective of the 16th century literary underworld. If you have read and relished his book on the death of Christopher Marlowe `The Reckoning', you have some idea of the pacy narrative combined with careful scholarship that he deploys in the search for a glimmer of the real Shakespeare, located momentarily in time and place. `The Reckoning `won awards from aficionados of crime writing, and `The Lodger' is no different, providing literary history with a powerful narrative drive.
Nicholl starts with `Exhibit A': the testimony given by William Shakespeare, gentleman of Stratford upon Avon, in a tetchy law case involving his former landlords the Mountjoy family of Silver Street. The dispute about a promised dowry closely shadows plot elements of `Measure for Measure', and most tellingly of all, the deposition given by Shakespeare is our only record of his actual spoken words. From dusty archives comes the voice of a real man, rooted in the bustling London of the 1600s, and woven into the networks of literary and commercial relationships that surrounded him.
If you watched and enjoyed Michael Wood's series and book `In Search of Shakespeare' you have some idea of how the transcendent genius of Shakespeare becomes so much more human when placed in context. While the people surrounding the greatest writer in the English language are far from edifying individuals on the whole, they are powerfully human, flawed and fallible. Nicholl has shown how the actualities of 17th century life were turned into the most enduring dramatic and poetic art. He's done the Lodger of Silver Street a powerful service.
The Ordinary Life of the Most Successful Writer of All Time - Rated
It is a rare thing to find a book on the Bard which manages to locate the poet for all time in his own time. Last year James Shapiro's '1599' gave readers an insight into the political landscape during the final years of Tudor rule, now Charles Nicholl zooms in a little closer to Shakespeare's own habitat. 'Shakespeare on Silver Street' raises the bar again for scholars, identifying Shakespeare amidst London's tradesmen and artisans, the back bone of his literature and the society about which he wrote. Here is Shakespeare the economic migrant, spending his working life away from home as an actor, small businessman, and wordsmith. Here are the domestic surroundings in which he toiled far from home.
At the peak of his celebrity, Shakespeare lodged at the residence of Christopher Mountjoy, his wife, daughter and apprentice. The Mountjoys leased the house and ran their business in it, producing elaborate headpieces, "tires" to a fashionable clientele including Queen Anne. Nicholl describes the house on Silver Street as having been much like the Shakespeare birthplace in Stratford from where John Shakespeare ran his tanning and glove making shop. Both premises comprised a workshop as well as space for interaction with customers and family living space above.
Like Shapiro, Nicholl uses Shakespeare's writings to help illuminate this world and does not seek to impose a retrospective academic or ideological approach. It is as though animation has been given to Andrew Gurr's 'The Extraordinary Life of the Most Successful Writer of All Time'. The twist being that prior to his triumphant retirement to one of Stratford's largest residences, so much of Shakespeare's life was spent in very ordinary surroundings.
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