January title - Perspectives Book Group from NH Humanities

Perspectives Book Group

Hamnet: A Novel of the Plague

Wednesday January 25th at 1pm 

Hopkinton Town Library

Presenter: Carrie Brown

As part of New Hampshire Humanities' Perspectives Book Groups, we're reading "Hamnet," by Maggie O'Farrell.  In this imagined re-creation of the early life of Shakespeare, his wife Agnes is an extraordinary woman, a gifted healer, and a central force in her husband's life. Tragedy occurs in the family just as the young husband's career in the London theatre is taking off. 

Drawing on Maggie O'Farrell's long-term fascination with the little-known story behind Shakespeare's most enigmatic play, Hamnet is a luminous portrait of a marriage, at its heart the loss of a beloved child.

Warwickshire in the 1580s. Agnes is a woman as feared as she is sought after for her unusual gifts. She settles with her husband in Henley street, Stratford, and has three children: a daughter, Susanna, and then twins, Hamnet and Judith. The boy, Hamnet, dies in 1596, aged eleven. Four years or so later, the husband writes a play called Hamlet.

Award-winning author Maggie O'Farrell's new novel breathes full-blooded life into the story of a loss usually consigned to literary footnotes, and provides an unforgettable vindication of Agnes, a woman intriguingly absent from history.

Please contact the library at info@hopkintontownlibrary.org or 603-746-3663 to reserve a copy of the book.  The meeting will take place at the library.  There will be a zoom option; contact the library as above for a zoom invitation. 

This book is also available on Overdrive/Libby as an audiobook or ebook. Login to your Overdrive account to make sure you are seeing all copies available.