this is exactly what it says it is: a shakespeare quote for every day, including a few lines or a few paragraphs of context for why each quote matches each day. like a little morning calendar! if that is the kind of thing you like, you will like this. in case anyone was curious, and because i was, i counted the number of quotes from each play (they were listed in an index in the back; i didn't have to flip through all those pages), and the least quoted plays are coriolanus, pericles, and sir thomas more (which i didn't even think shakespeare wrote? maybe i'm wrong), with two quotes each. most quoted is--well, it's the sonnets (28 quotes), but there are dozens of those; the most quoted play is a midsummer night's dream (14), which makes sense. extremely iconic part of the canon.

there are some iffy bits. bold move, for example, to place shylock's "hath not a jew eyes" speech on international holocaust remembrance day. even BOLDER move to summarize the merchant of venice (in the summaries of each play in the endnotes) WITHOUT EVER SAYING THE WORD JEWISH. (???) (?????)

but a beloved friend got this for me, so i'm fond of it. at some point in the year i started using it vaguely as an obsessive-compulsive divination tool? i had to get surgery in august and all i’m saying is that that very day’s piece was a richard ii quote about trimming excess branches so the tree can flourish healthily. all i’m saying. drop your birthday in the comments and i'll give you the quote for that day