The thing about this one is that it is a book about four masterpieces. “We can’t say that we have an objection to a book about Shakespeare. She said: “We are not going to hold the fact it is a book about one of the greatest writers ever against it. It comes in the same year as the 400th anniversary of the first printed edition of Shakespeare’s collection of plays, commonly referred to by modern scholars as the First Folio.Īuthor and academic Sarah Churchwell, who sat on the judging panel, said the anniversary had not been in their minds when they considered the shortlist.

The book was announced as the overall winner during a ceremony hosted at the National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, on Thursday evening.Ī professor of English at Columbia University where he teaches Shakespeare, Shapiro has written a number of book about the Bard, including 1606: The Year Of Lear and Shakespeare In A Divided America. Jason Cowley, chairman of the judges, commended it as a “poised and original re-imagination of biography” that “transforms our understanding – not only of the great works but also of the social atmosphere of his times”.

The £25,000 prize marks the 25th anniversary of the contest by selecting the best of its 24 previous winners, spanning investigative journalism, biography and history.ġ599: A Year In The Life Of William Shakespeare won the prize in 2006 and explores a pivotal year in which Shakespeare produced some of his greatest works. Now he promoting two films: Mending the Line, in which he plays a Vietnam vet who’s good at fly fishing, and Prisoner’s Daughter where as the title suggests, he’s a prisoner attempting to reconnect with his daughter (Kate Beckinsale).1599: A Year In The Life of William Shakespeare (The Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction/PA)Īuthor James Shapiro’s “remarkable and compelling” book about Shakespeare has claimed the Baillie Gifford Prize For Non-Fiction’s winner of winners award. On TV, he’s appeared in Red Dwarf, Frasier, Deadwood, Doctor Who, The Simpsons and a little show called Succession that’s apparently very good. Silly Brian.Ĭox can still boast he was the original Dr Hannibal Lecter (or Lecktor), in Michael Mann’s Manhunter in 1986, he played Big Winnie in 2017’s Churchill. And if he’d been a bit nicer to the apes in Rise of the Planet of the Apes, perhaps they wouldn’t have taken over the world. Turns out Treadstone was all his fault in 2002’s The Bourne Identity.

Roles soon followed in The Long Kiss Goodnight and Super Troopers. His performances in Rob Roy and Braveheart shot him into the mainstream. This one is the 76-year-old Dundee-born actor, who started his career as a classically trained Shakespearean thespian, who played opposite Laurence Olivier in King Lear in 1983. Brian Cox needs no introduction – other than the usual one establishing which Brian Cox we’re talking about.

The year of lear shakespeare in 1606