Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell Book Summary

BOOK SCORE
4.5
TOTAL RATINGS
1,757
BOOK PRICE
$12.99

NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait delivers a luminous portrait of a marriage, a family ravaged by grief, and a boy whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time. “Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare’s life ... here is a novel ... so gorgeously written that it transports you." —The Boston Globe  

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.

Hamnet Book Details

Book Name Hamnet
Genre Literary Fiction
Author Maggie O'Farrell
Published 21 July 2020, Tuesday
Price $12.99
E-Book Size 3.96 MB

Hamnet by Maggie O'Farrell Book Reviews

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Juliusa

Interesting. This was not as amazing as I’d read. It was an interesting premise, but overly dramatic to the point of being verbose and dull as it went on. Certainly a good writer, just not what it appears to be.

Kasl or bust

Hamnet. Compelling story. Hard to put down.

Very.carrie7

Such gorgeous, sweeping prose. As many good authors of historical fiction, Maggie anchors you in the place and time through the five senses. One of the most notable passages is the one that talks about how the Black Plague traveled to Shakespeare’s family— truly a journey. Looking forward to continuing to read her work. What a gorgeous book, from beginning to end.

NAF19

Amazing. Amazingly well written but so heartbreakingly sad.

Popular cat115

Hamnet. Life is about loss. The difference between one who drowns and lives beyond grief is the ability to rise above the waves. Keeping oneself distracted with purposeful work helps the body to move forward. Always hopeful to one day be rejoined with our love ones we lost. This book ,with its beautiful language is a revelation and comfort to all who have lost a loved one . Thank you. Catherine M Schulte

Klernerfrnkel

Hamnet. A beautiful story by a gifted writer. Thank you. Never wanted it to end

Kaykaybean13

No is quite as brilliantly amazing as Maggie. This book enraptured me from the start. The ability to draw in the reader inflicting the pain the joy the suffering the loss and grief as if it were their own. To build characters that have such substantial lives, leaving indelible imprints upon the reader long long after the book has ended leaving the reader with an unsettled melancholy for their old familiar kinships which profoundly evolved into remarkably dynamic and constructed beings whose lives were celebrated cherished and impacted those fortunate souls who had encountered them in the written words borne from the extraordinary exceptional imaginations of the writer.

Go2gwen

HAMNET. Suspenseful, engaging, emotional, informative. A historical novel with some bite to it. Multi-faceted characters. Exquisite detail. Compelling mise-en-scène. I felt transported and didn’t want it to end. It inspired me to want to read more of the author’s work, and I appreciated the perspective of more than one character and the meticulous amount of research that the story represents. Vivid descriptions. The author recreated a world, and I fully embraced.

MCDMUG

A modern classic. Excellent from start to finish.

Cut wood

Great writing. It’s not quick to read. But it’s a beautiful book. The characters came alive.

Jherlihy13

This novel is about the plague, not Shakespeare. Glowing superlative reviews portray this novel as s great work of fiction about Shakespeare’s roots. It is not. It is a poorly written novel about the spreading of the plague, and Hamnet is a minor character. Furthermore, it jumps from times and settings with no clarity as to where you are and what year. I fought through half the book and after reading a dozen pages about how infected fleas jumped from rats to humans, I gave up.

NoNameMaloy

Shakespearean insight?. I enjoyed “Hamnet” very much. I could picture all the 17th Century life styles of country, small town and London. All the cultural, religious views and medical traditions, ignorance, and prejudices of the day. How the life and death of his own son could influence/inspire the creation of “Hamlet”.

RachelCLWalsh

A Masterpiece. Hamnet is a phenomenal story and a beautiful read. The author grabbed me from the first page to the last.

Usereviewer555

For fans of the Bard. A fiction, but a good one. The characters are well drawn, rounded and make the story engaging.

LK 99

Sorry it ended.. I’m not a fan of historical fiction, but this was so much more. Highly recommended.

Ellen Viola

Disappointing. So much wordiness about nothing. After all the build up and endless detail I thought the book would go somewhere. But it didn’t.

SpayMart

Unexpectedly awesome. I was surprised by how much I loved this

Doshea

I had to put it down. Then pick it again. I cannot think of any novel that affected me as much as Hamnet. There was a point, which those who have read i will identify, when I had to stop to consider the event, before continuing two days later. Agnes/Anne is drawn so richly that she is the equal to her famous (unnamed) husband. Horatio's “now cracks a noble heart…” although not expressed in the text could have been a eulogy for his beloved son.

Epopovitz

heartbreaking. i almost couldn’t finish as my eyes were blurry with tears. what a great novel.

DavidCFar

Good. Great technical execution and writing. Very solid ending. Middle can drag a bit if you don’t love family dramas

Michellr F

Hamnet. Excellent read!

Sunnyislesbeach

Recommend. Outstanding details and characters that meld with archetypes and Shakespeare and history. Pleasurable read and I want to reread it immediately.

Iosnopes

Meh. I suppose some of my disappointment comes from expectations. This is just a novel. The language is good, but earthbound. The plot? If this was about the son of a glove maker in sixteenth century Britain but not Shakespeare, would anybody care? The author lets our fascination with Shakespeare do the heavy lifting.

Connie McC

Spellbinding, raw; tears at your very soul. I couldn’t put it down.. Maggie O’Farrell’s characterization of the Shakespeare family is gut wrenchingly authentic and beautifully told. Seamlessly moving through time and subplots, she tells this story of loss with such raw emotion, never holding back, letting the reader in on all of the family’s devastation. I was absolutely captivated.

RossB-B

This book will make you feel you are back in Shakespearean England. The interactions among different characters are very well done. The details about life in the 1500’s showed how many aspects of life were different and harder then, but human interactions have changed but little.

Jomartha8

JML. Beautifully written.

Bat4330

Beautiful. Beautiful story, beautiful writing. I couldn’t put it down

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Maggie O'Farrell - Hamnet Comments

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About Author "Maggie O'Farrell"

Sharon Farrell (born Sharon Forsmoe, December 24, 1940 – May 15, 2023) was an American television and film actress, and dancer. Originally beginning her career as a ballerina with the American Ballet Theatre company, Farrell made her film debut in 1959 in Kiss Her Goodbye, followed by roles in 40 Pounds of Trouble (1962), A Lovely Way to Die (1968), and the neo-noir Marlowe (1969). She worked prolifically in television, including recurring parts in the series Saints and Sinners (1962), Dr. Kildare (1965), and Hawaii Five-O (1980). Farrell's other roles include Larry Cohen's horror film It's Alive (1974), Dennis Hopper's drama film Out of the Blue (1980), and the teen comedy Can't Buy Me Love (1987). She continued to appear in television and film until 1999. In 2013, she reappeared in a minor role in the web series Broken at Love. Early life Born Sharon Forsmoe on Christmas Eve 1940, to Hazel Ruth (née Huffman) and Darrel LaValle Forsmoe, in Sioux City, Iowa, she was of Norwegian de....

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