Much Ado About Nothing by William Shakespeare
3/31/20261 hr 17 min
Jeff and Rebecca take on one of Shakespeare's best–and best-known–comedies, Much Ado About Nothing. They talk about its enduring appeal, the "merry war" of banter that continues to inspire and influence rom-com writing, and the classic novels that wouldn't exist if Shakespeare had never written Benedick and Beatrice.
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First 90 secondsJeff O'Neill· Host0:00
This episode of Zero to Well Read is brought to you by thriftbooks.com, with more than 19 million new and used books. thriftbooks.com is a place where you can read more and spend less, not just books, but also movies, games, gifts, and other sorts of things. With Much Ado About Nothing, which is the subject of today's episode, there's lots to choose from. You can get big concordances, all the Shakespeare in one huge volume. But with something like Much Ado About Nothing, which maybe you wanna read on a beautiful spring day, throw it in your bag, prop it open, crack that spine, really live in it, you can get something great for five or six bucks here. Movies too, at the same time. There's of course the great Kenneth Branagh edition. I've discovered, poking around on thriftbooks.com, there's a Much Ado About Nothing film starring Sam Waterston as Benedict. I didn't even know this existed. That's the kinda stuff you can find out on thriftbooks.com. Thanks so much for them for sponsoring this season of Zero to Well Read. [upbeat music] Welcome to Zero to Well Read, a podcast about everything you need to know about the books, and sometimes plays, Rebecca- Yes ... you wish you read. I'm Jeff O'Neill.
Rebecca Schinsky· Host1:11
And I'm Rebecca Schinsky. Today we're taking on the OG of rom-coms, William Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing. And before we jump in, you can click the link in our show notes to sign up for our free newsletter. Our colleague, Vanessa Diaz, fleshes that out with all sorts of interesting show notes, information about