This engaging book draws on all of Shakespeare's plays to show they can still be used as a guide to life.

* Introduces beginning students and general readers to Shakespeare's plays by highlighting the connections between the issues addressed by the plays and those of our own time.

* Focuses on the characters, situations and stories in Shakespeare which are still familiar today.

* Shows how Shakespeare's plays illustrate some of life's most familiar stories - love and obsession, parents and children, sex and politics, suffering and revenge

* Makes Shakespeare's plays accessible to the widest possible audience.