Much Ado About Shakespeare: Modern Adaptations & Retellings
Updated 4/10/2023
April 23rd is William Shakespeare's birthday (in 1564, and, likely his death date as well) so it's a fitting day to celebrate his contributions to literature and culture. While we absolutely recommend reading Shakespeare's work anytime (his plays are available on our SimplyE app), today we're also recommending you try one of the many modern retellings of his work. These authors take the central themes that Shakespeare explored and give them new settings, characters, and interpretations.
Many of the titles below are part of the Hogarth Shakespeare project which publishes adapations of his works by bestselling authors. We've also included some Young Adult titles which are a perfect entrée to the world of Shakespeare if you're feeling intimidated.
All of these titles are available from the Library in e-book format and most are in our free reader app SimplyE.
Adult
The Gap of Time
by Jeanette Winterson
In The Gap of Time, Jeanette Winterson’s cover version of The Winter’s Tale, we move from London, a city reeling after the 2008 financial crisis, to a storm-ravaged American city called New Bohemia. Her story is one of childhood friendship, money, status, technology, and the elliptical nature of time. Written with energy and wit, this is a story of the consuming power of jealousy on the one hand, and redemption and the enduring love of a lost child on the other.
Shylock is My Name
by Howard Jacobson
Winter, a cemetery, Shylock. In this provocative and profound interpretation of The Merchant of Venice, Shylock is juxtaposed against his present-day counterpart in the character of art dealer and conflicted father Simon Strulovitch. With characteristic irony, Jacobson presents Shylock as a man of incisive wit and passion, concerned still with questions of identity, parenthood, anti-Semitism, and revenge.
Vinegar Girl
by Anne Tyler
A modern retelling of The Taming of the Shrew follows the experiences of a preschool teacher who alienates others by speaking her mind and who manages her family's home before she is expected by her eccentric father to marry his assistant to prevent the young man's deportation.
Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold
by Margaret Atwood
A psychologically charged story inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest, reimagined by the award-winning author of The Handmaid's Tale, follows the retribution plot of a deposed artistic director who teaches prison inmates while consulting with a fantasy child who has taken the place of the daughter he lost years earlier.
New Boy
by Tracy Chevalier
The tragedy of Othello is transposed to a 1970s suburban Washington schoolyard, where kids fall in and out of love with each other before lunchtime, and practice a casual racism picked up from their parents and teachers. Arriving at his fifth school in as many years, diplomat’s son Osei Kokote knows he needs an ally if he is to survive his first day—so he’s lucky to hit it off with Dee, the most popular girl in school. But one student can’t stand to witness this budding relationship. By the end of the day, the school and its key players—teachers and pupils alike—will never be the same again.
Dunbar
by Edward St. Aubyn
A modern reimagining of Shakespeare's King Lear follows Henry Dunbar, who hands over his global media corporation to his two oldest daughters and finds himself confined to an upscale sanatorium in rural England, where he starts planning his escape.
Hamnet
by Maggie O'Farrell
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 taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.
Macbeth
by Jo Nesbø
A modern retelling of Macbeth by the award-winning author of the Harry Hole series is set in a run-down industrial town in the 1970s and follows the efforts of a popular but increasingly corrupt police officer and his calculating casino owner girlfriend to work with a powerful local drug dealer to murder a professional rival and set up his best friend.
A Thousand Acres
by Jane Smiley
A successful Iowa farmer decides to divide his farm between his three daughters. When the youngest objects, she is cut out of his will. This sets off a chain of events that brings dark truths to light and explodes long-suppressed emotions. An ambitious reimagining of Shakespeare’s King Lear cast upon a typical American community in the late twentieth century, A Thousand Acres takes on themes of truth, justice, love, and pride, and reveals the beautiful yet treacherous topography of humanity.
Foold
by Christopher Moore
In 1288, as King Lear watches his kingdom descend into chaos, the king's fool, Pocket, and Pocket's apprentice, Drool, take it upon themselves to restore order amidst the mayhem, and in the process make a surprising discovery about their own heritage.
Also check out Moore's The Serpent of Venice
Warm Bodies
by Isaac Marion
Alienated from his fellow zombies because of his dislike of having to kill humans and his enjoyment of Sinatra music, "R" meets a living girl who sharply contrasts with his cold and dreary world and who he resolves to protect in spite of her delicious appearance.
The Dead Fathers Club
by Matt Haig
Introduced to the Dead Fathers Club of murdered men by the ghost of his late father, eleven-year-old Philip Noble learns that his uncle, who has designs on Philip's mother, murdered Philip's father in order to get his hands on the family pub.
Young Adult
Waking Romeo
by Kathryn Barker
At the end of the world, 18-year-old Juliet, with Romeo in a coma, meets a mysterious time traveler who makes her question everything she knows about life and love—and a chance to rewrite her future.
Two Winters
by Lauren Emily Whalen
A modern YA retelling of Shakespeare’s The Winter’s Tale about birth, death, Catholic school, improv comedy, and the healing nature of time.
Ronit & Jamil
by Pamela L. Laskin
Ronit, an Israeli girl, and Jamil, a Palestinian boy, fall desperately into the throes of forbidden love, one that would create an irreparable rift between their families if it were discovered.
As I Descended
by Robin Talley
Tapping a dark power to prevent the favorite candidate of a distinguished educational prize from winning, school power couple Maria and Lily unleash fatal energies that blur the lines between reality and madness.
These Violent Delights
by Chloe Gong
In 1926 Shanghai, eighteen-year-old Juliette Cai, heir of the Scarlet Gang, and her first love-turned-rival Roma Montagov, leader of the White Flowers, must work together when mysterious deaths threaten their city.
Exit, Pursued by a Bear
by E.K. Johnston
At cheerleading camp, Hermione is drugged and raped, but she is not sure whether it was one of her teammates or a boy on another team—and in the aftermath, she has to deal with the rumors in her small Ontario town, the often awkward reaction of her classmates, the rejection of her boyfriend, the discovery that her best friend, Polly, is gay, and above all the need to remember what happened so that the guilty boy can be brought to justice.
We Were Liars
by E. Lockhart (King Lear)
A modern, sophisticated suspense tale by the National Book Award finalist author of The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks follows the revolutionary activities of four friends who turn against each other in the wake of trauma, differing political views, and a devastating secret.
Saving Hamlet
by Molly Booth
Excitedly embarking on her sophomore year and her assistant stage manager duties for the drama club's production of Hamlet, Emma endures social drama before being transported back to the year 1601, where she is mistaken for a boy and put to work by the bard himself.
Speak of Me As I Am
by Sonia Belasco
Melanie and Damon are both living in the shadow of loss. For Melanie, it's the loss of her larger-than-life artist mother, taken by cancer well before her time. For Damon, it’s the loss of his best friend, Carlos, who took his own life. As they struggle to fill the empty spaces their loved ones left behind, fate conspires to bring them together. But when the two join their school’s production of Othello, the play they both hoped would be a distraction becomes a test of who they truly are, both together and on their own.
Take Her Down
by Lauren Emily Whalen
Stakes are cutthroat, scheming is creative, and loyalty is ever-changing in this queer, female-driven YA retelling of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar.
Summaries provided via NYPL’s catalog, which draws from multiple sources. Click through to each book’s title for more.