Author: Jay Ruud

 Life and Death are Wearing Me Out Mo Yan (2006) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Shakespeare-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’76’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Most American readers don’t really know much about contemporary Chinese novelist Mo Yan, or if they’ve heard of him at all it’s because they remember he won the Nobel Prize for Literature in… Continue reading Life and Death are Wearing Me Out

Bloomsbury’s Late Rose Pen Pearson (2019) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Shakespeare-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’76’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] If you’ve never heard of the Edwardian British poet Charlotte Mew, you’re not alone. Mew is these days as little known as she was during most of her life. In Bloomsbury’s Late Rose—her fictionalized story of Mew’s… Continue reading Bloomsbury’s Late Rose

Rebecca Ben Wheatley (2020) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Susanns.jpg’ attachment=’78’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=10” appearance=’on-hover’] 2 JACQUELINE SUSANNS [/av_image] If you’re an Alfred Hitchcock fan, you know that the master of suspense, one of the most respected auteurs in the history of film, never won a Best Director Oscar, despite being nominated five times.… Continue reading Rebecca

War Lord Bernard Cornwell (2020) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/Shakespeare-180×180.jpg’ attachment=’76’ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Ask anyone about the greatest battles in English history and the Battle of Brunanburh is not likely to trip lightly off their tongue. And yet without this battle there would have been no “England” at all. The battle,… Continue reading War Lord

The Trial of the Chicago Seven Aaron Sorkin (2020) [av_image src=’http://jayruud.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/3-12.jpg’ attachment=313′ attachment_size=’square’ align=’left’ animation=’left-to-right’ link=” target=” styling=” caption=’yes’ font_size=” appearance=’on-hover’] Three Tennysons/Half Shakespeare[/av_image] [av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”] Just in case 2020 hasn’t given you enough images of civil disobedience, police brutality, and governmental abuses of power, Aaron Sorkin’s new film takes us back to… Continue reading The Trial of the Chicago Seven