a quiver of books about Shakespeare

What Was Shakespeare Really Like? by Stanley Wells (Cambridge University Press, 2023)
Short book, revised transcript of four lectures, intended to convey Shakespeare's personality as deduced through his works, including the Sonnets. Best at discussing the compositional process of the plays, though it doesn't go far into how the roster of the currently available acting company constrained the writing of the plays.

Shakespeare Beyond Doubt: Evidence, Argument, Controversy edited by Paul Edmondson and Stanley Wells (Cambridge University Press, 2013)
Collection of essays by various hands, defending Shakespeare against alternative authorship theories. Surprisingly sympathetic to Delia Bacon, depicted as a talented scholar driven mad by the lack of academic opportunities for women in her day. A very clear essay on the Earl of Oxford, exploring the evidence for his connection with playwriting and the theater: he had his own company of players, making it improbable that he would have been writing plays for some other company. Sophisticated discussion of other associated attribution questions in the light of the authorship controversy, and an even more daring one on lies and false attributions in the plays themselves.

Shakespeare in a Divided America by James Shapiro (Penguin Press, 2020)
Eight essays on hot spots in Shakespeare's reception in America. John Quincy Adams, though famously anti-slavery, was utterly repulsed by the inter-racial relationship in Othello, to the point of writing an article denouncing it. The young U.S. Grant was once cast as Desdemona in an army camp performance, which was cancelled due to the homophobia of the officer cast as Othello (but who did he think was going to play Desdemona in an 1845 army camp?) John Wilkes Booth's acting career in Shakespeare: he liked to play villains like Richard III and Macbeth, avoided the romantic comedies. Yeah, that sounds like him. How Kiss Me Kate dealt with changing women's roles in its day. Same thing with extramarital affairs and homosexual desire in Shakespeare in Love. Lastly, the controversy over the production of Julius Caesar which depicted Caesar as looking and acting like Donald Trump. Various indignant persons said, "What if there were one in which it were Obama?" Well, there had been one, and it passed with no controversy whatever, including sponsorship by the same companies that were so shocked, shocked, at the Trump one that they pulled out.

Nine Lives of William Shakespeare by Graham Holderness (Continuum, 2011)
One chapter each on nine ways of looking at Shakespeare - as writer, actor, working class lad, businessman, husband, lover (of both men and women), possible Catholic, and through his portraits - each divided into discussions of the known facts, the recorded traditions, and speculations. The briefest of these is the "Facts" section on Shakespeare's supposed inamorata the Dark Lady: "The documentary facts can be disposed of quickly and simply. There are none. The only certain existence of the Dark Lady is as a fictional character." But that's not all! Each chapter is followed by a fictional document or story elaborating on it, including memoirs as if written by people who knew Shakespeare, plus a pastiche Sherlock Holmes story about the theft of Shakespeare's ring from a museum, and a pastiche Hemingway story transferring the account of the Dark Lady to World War I.