Chasing Shakespeares by Sarah Smith

Ellen's Comments: Here is a book for you if you: a) like Shakespeare OR b) like detective stories OR c) enjoy sorting out minutiae OR d) think Elizabethan England is cool OR e) are into tracing genealogy OR f) would love to visit the British Library (or have already been there) OR g) like to poke around historic sites OR h) think you’re good at figuring out “whodunit” OR i) are acquainted with the politics of academia.

Joe Roper is a grad student with the task of sorting and cataloguing the Kellogg Collection, a massive collection of Shakespeariana—most of which consists of forgeries.
He hopes to find in the collection at least one authentic, important item, one that could launch his career as a Shakespearian biographer. After his colleague, Mary Cat, leaves to become a nun, Joe encounters Posy Gould, a rich Barbie-esque “Valley Girl” grad student from Harvard who has an intense interest in the Kellogg Collection. She persuades him to go with her to England to check the authenticity of a letter he has found in the Collection. Smith sends them, and us, through the maze of London streets, seventeenth century landmarks, and English country lanes (with a little hanky-panky on the side), and through the very intricate intellectual maze of “Who Wrote Shakespeare?” Check Status at GPL