Will and me : how Shakespeare took over my life

Shakespeare has always been part of Dominic Dromgoole's life.

From school plays to adolescent angst, from his love of Stratford to his experiences as a director, the shadowy figure of the Bard has always been there.

Here, he recounts the story of his life through Shakespeare, and in turn shows us what Shakespeare can tell us about the world.

In this free-wheeling and passionate exploration of Shakespeare the artist, the man, the playwright, the hack and the genius, Dominic Dromgoole explores why it is that he can enter our lives with such force and teach us so much about living.

An enigmatic man, whose own life is a source of constant speculation, the figure of Shakespeare is one of almost unimaginable affection and importance for many people, who find in his plays real meaning and real life.

Using his own encounters as a guide, this book shows how Shakespeare's words on war, love, death, drunkenness, family, friendship and everything else reveals us to ourselves.

This is the true nature of Shakespeare: a godhead of comic, dirty, sublime English humanism, whose plays and characters have somehow become a universal way of understanding the world. Poignant, revealing and often bawdy book, by turns soliloquy, tragedy and comedy, "Will and Me" is a glorious appreciation of how a life can be illuminated through encounters with Shakespeare's rough and ready genius.