Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare

If you can bypass the constant broad assumptions that the author often makes, this book gives you an excellent feel for the time and place where Shakespeare made his mark on the world.

I have never had much understanding of the Sonnets and their place in the Shakespeare canon, but I feel better informed now and better able to find additional resources to pursue some further research.

It is quite amazing how someone whose work has endured for hundreds of years left so little information about their personal life. Michael Wood's recent television biography of Shakespeare offered a few recently discovered bits of information, but the life of Shakespeare is still mainly shrouded in the mists of time.