The scholarship is there, as is the evident love of Shakespeare. The first section on tragedies is much more convincing and compelling than the latter part of the book, which focuses on comedies (and marginally on the sonnets). I especially enjoyed reading about the historical performances of the works, although I'm not sure I would be up for attending an original practices production of "Titus Andronicus". I can't pretend to know what it must feel like to have the validity of your work in academia challenged by the noted literati of 24hourcampfire.com. But there is certainly a similar trend in French culture, where Molière, Beaumarchais and the like are hostages to identity politics. Appropriation of those texts by people who are not 'Gaulish' French has ruffled feathers for some time. The huge success met by Abdellatif Kechiche's "L'Esquive" twenty years ago shows that just like with Shakespeare, there is a thirst for meeting over those texts.