New Arrivals

Haruki Murakami
349 Kč
Eli Zuzovsky
775 Kč
Dave Eggers
249 Kč
Michael O'Pray
249 Kč
Slavoj Zizek
379 Kč

Bestsellers

shakes.cz
159 Kč
Franz Kafka
419 Kč
Franz Kafka, Susan Bernofsky (TRN), David Cronenberg (INT)
389 Kč
Naomi Klein
335 Kč
Milan Kundera
377 Kč

Staff Picks

Matthew Walker
351 Kč
James Bridle
449 Kč
George Orwell
350 Kč
Andrea Wulf
375 Kč
Peter Sis
599 Kč

April Literary Birthdays


WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
April, 1564 - April 23, 1616

England's greatest poet and playwright was born at Stratford-upon-Avon, the son of a tradesman and Alderman of Stratford, John Shakespeare. He wrote approximately 38 plays and 154 sonnets, as well as a variety of other poems. Already a popular writer in his own lifetime, Shakespeare became increasingly celebrated after his death and his work adulated by numerous prominent cultural figures through the centuries. Shakespeare's works have been translated into every major living language, and his plays are continually performed all around the world. In addition, Shakespeare is the most quoted writer in the literature and history of the English-speaking world.

Some of his works:
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Hamlet
King Lear
Macbeth
Othello
The Merchant of Venice
The Sonnets

Search for his books


Other Literary Birthdays

Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen (1805)
French writer and insurgent Emile Zola (1840)
American writer Washington Irving (1783)
London-born animal behaviorist (chimps) and writer Jane Goodall (1934)
Vietnamese novelist and screenplay writer Marguerite Duras (1914)
Missouri-born novelist poet, dramatist, and performer Maya Angelou (1928)
British poet Algernon Charles Swinburne (1837)
English romantic poet William Wordsworth (1770)
Denver native and depression-era novelist John Fante (1911)
Annapolis (MD)-born novelist Barbara Kingsolver (1955)
French poet, essayist, and art critic Charles-Pierre Baudelaire (1821)
Massachusetts native, travel writer, and novelist Paul Theroux (1941)
Irish playwright and novelist Samuel Barclay Beckett (1906)
American writer Eudora Welty (1909)
Irish poet and 1995 Nobel Prize winner Seamus Heaney (1939)
American novelist (born New York) Henry James (1843)
French novelist, poet, political satirist, and 1921 Nobel Prize winner Anatole France (1844)
British novelist, poet, and short story writer Sir Kingsley Amis (1922)
Danish writer and traveller Karen Blixen (1885)
Wisconsin-born playwright and novelist Thornton Niven Wilder (1897)
English novelist Charlotte Bronte (1816)
English novelist and playwright Henry Fielding (1707)
Russian novelist, poet, scholar, translator, and butterfly collector Vladimir Nabokov (1899)
Brooklyn native (became Irish citizen 1967) and novelist J.P. Donleavy (1926)
English journalist, essayist, political tract writer, and novelist Daniel Defoe (1659)
English novelist Anthony Trollope (1815)
Scottish philosopher and historian David Hume (1711)
NYC-born novelist and short-story writer Bernard Malamud (1914)
Alabama-born Harper Lee (1926)
British sci-fi and fantasy writer, creator of Discworld Terry Pratchett (1948)
American author Annie Dillard (1945)