... entertaining.

...captivating.

McCarthy does not join those who have denied Shakespeare’s authorship, typically attributing the Bard’s works to Francis Bacon or Edward de Vere. However, Blanding interprets McCarthy’s views as discernibly similar. Readers not persuaded by McCarthy’s theory may still gain from his insights into how guardians of orthodoxy deal with an interloper..

Blanding recounts the odyssey of an iconoclast scholar seeking recognition in a world to which he doesn’t quite belong. Even more, though, this book is a painstaking accounting of how McCarthy arrived at his conclusions.

... lively.

... lively.