#TopTenTuesday Books I Think Will Be Future Classics #TuesdayBookBlog

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Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish and now hosted by Jana at That Artsy Reader Girl.

The rules are simple:

  • Each Tuesday, Jana assigns a new topic. Create your own Top Ten list that fits that topic – putting your unique spin on it if you want.
  • Everyone is welcome to join but please link back to That Artsy Reader Girl in your own Top Ten Tuesday post.
  • Add your name to the Linky widget on that day’s post so that everyone can check out other bloggers’ lists.
  • Or if you don’t have a blog, just post your answers as a comment.

This week’s Top Ten Tuesday topic is Modern Books You Think Will Be Classics In The Future. I struggled to come up with a precise definition of what makes a book a classic. The best criteria I could come up was a book that will stand the test of time (i.e. will still be read in 50 years’ time), has universal themes or is ‘ground-breaking’ in some way. I took the easy option of picking books that have won literary prizes. I accept some of them don’t meet the definition of ‘modern’ and in fact could be considered ‘classics’ already.

  1. Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie (Booker Prize 1981)
  2. The Colour Purple by Alice Walker (Pulitzer Prize 1983)
  3. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Attwood (Arthur C. Clarke Award 1987)
  4. Beloved by Toni Morrison (Pulitzer Prize 1988)
  5. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (Booker Prize 1989)
  6. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (Pulitzer Prize 2007)
  7. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (Booker Prize 2009, Walter Scott Prize 2010)
  8. All The Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (Pulitzer Prize 2015)
  9. Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (Booker Prize 2020)
  10. Orbital by Samantha Harvey (Booker Prize 2024)

Book Review – The Assassin of Verona by Benet Brandreth

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About the Book

Venice, 1585. William Shakespeare is disguised as a steward to the English Ambassador. He and his friends Oldcastle and Hemminges possess a deadly secret: the names of the Catholic spies in England who seek to destroy Queen Elizabeth. Before long the Pope’s agents will begin to close in and fleeing the city will be the players’ only option.

In Verona, Aemelia, the daughter of a Duke, is struggling to conceal her passionate affair with her cousin Valentine. But darker times lie ahead with the arrival of the sinister Father Thornhill, determined to seek out any who don’t conform to the Pope’s ruthless agenda . . .

Events will converge in the forests of Verona as a multitude of plots are hatched and discovered, players fall in and out of love, and disguises are adopted and then discarded. Can Shakespeare and his friends escape with their secrets – and their lives?

Format: Hardcover (384 pages) Publisher: Zaffre
Publication date: 21st September 2017 Genre: Historical Fiction

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My Review

The Assassin of Verona is the second book in the author’s historical thriller series featuring William Shakespeare, now cast as spy as well as playwright. I haven’t read the first book, The Spy of Venice, and I felt I missed out by not knowing what happened in that book, such as how William came to be recruited into the role of spy, how his friendship with Oldcastle and Hemminges came about, and the origins of his relationship with beautiful courtesan, Isabella. The reader is rather plunged straight into the story without much recap of previous events.

The author is clearly an aficionado of Shakespeare and makes liberal use of quotations from his plays throughout the book, not just in the dialogue. The prose is not exactly Shakespearean in style but tending that way. Many of the characters’ names are drawn from Shakespeare’s plays, including Orlando (As You Like It), Prospero (The Tempest), Aemilia (The Comedy of Errors) and Valentine (The Two Gentleman of Verona). Much of the action takes place in a forest, a familiar setting of Shakespeare’s plays, and some of the characters are in disguise, including posing as the opposite sex.

I didn’t find William a particularly likeable character. He’s plunged into melancholy by events in Venice pretty early on and seems to find it difficult to shake it off, leaving his two friends in a bit of a bind. Oldcastle is an engaging character, full of bluster and supremely confident he can play whatever part is needed, leading to some humorous scenes when his bluff is called. Hemminges is the man of action, a skilled tactician and handy in a swordfight. He finds himself drawn to Aemilia, admiring her pluck even if it does land a lot of people in trouble. Although there are villains, including the fanatical Father Thornhill who likes nothing better than torturing information out of people, the plot is for the most part quite lighthearted. That is until the end when it gets much darker and for some it’s definitely not ‘all’s well that ends well’.

The Assassin of Verona is an engaging historical mystery, peppered with Shakespearean allusions, albeit a bit on the slow side.

In three words: Entertaining, witty, lively
Try something similar: Martyr (John Shakespeare #1) by Rory Clements

About the Author

Benet Brandreth is a highly regarded Intellectual Property barrister, rhetoric coach and authority on Shakespeare, working regularly with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Donmar and others on Shakespeare’s use of language. He has also written and performed for radio and the stage – his one-man show, ‘The Brandreth Papers’, was a five-star reviewed sell-out at the Edinburgh Festival and on the London transfer. He is qualified as an instructor in the Filipino Martial Arts and as a stage combat choreographer. He lives in London with his wife and two sons and is exhausted from all his efforts at becoming a Renaissance Man.

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