Books like Disappearing Acts — picked by fans

This was the first book I read when researching Argentina’s military dictatorship over twenty years ago. It was gifted to me by the head of the graduate program in international affairs at The New School. It explores the use of language in the context of the human rights atrocities that occurred during this dark period of Argentina’s history.

Marguerite Feitlowitz's marrying of investigative narrative with human storytelling makes the work accessible and richly informative.

In this book, Laura Alcoba recounts memories of her childhood from the tender perspective of a 7-year-old girl whose parents are being targeted by Argentina’s dictatorship. Laura and her family hide out in a small house on the outskirts of Buenos Aires, where a resistance movement is operating a secret printing press behind the façade of a rabbit farm.

Through snippets of conversations that she isn’t meant to understand (but does) and strict rules of secrecy intended to protect her, wonder and curiosity prevail. I loved seeing this hidden world through Laura’s eyes.

Alicia Partnoy was one of the estimated thirty thousand people captured during Argentina’s dictatorship. An Argentine poet, author, human rights activist, translator, and professor, she was torn from her home—and away from her baby daughter, who was left behind with relatives—in 1977.

This is a literary account of the subsequent months she spent in a clandestine prison in Bahia Blanca called La Escuelita, where she and other prisoners were subject to torture and abuse at the hands of the junta. Translated from Spanish, this is a survivor’s memoir. I loved the poetic and near-spiritual explorations of these harrowing experiences. Alicia has since been reunited with her daughter, providing invaluable inspiration and insight for my book.

This is one of my favorite books about the work of the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. In it, Arditti quickly summarizes the historical backdrop of the dictatorship (within fifty pages), then provides a touching, thorough, and informative account of the grandmothers’ work, often using their own words.

She showcases obstacles and milestones—from ‘The Catholic Church’ to ‘The Grandmother's Gift to Science’—in easily digestible sections, capturing decades of tenacious search efforts and the emotional result when found grandchildren are reunited with their biological families.

Widge is an orphan in Elizabethan England, where orphans are sadly too common. But Widge is unusual. He has a unique talent which he learned from his first master: he knows a secret kind of shorthand. Sold to a dastardly villain who wants to use that talent to steal Shakespeare’s newest play, Widge finds himself in London apprenticing with the theatre company. Will he steal the play or risk his life to be loyal to the only “family” he’s ever known? Inspired by Shakespeare’s Lord Chamberlain's Men – and a very real problem of plays being stolen – there’s plenty of action, including swashbuckling swordplay. From the first page, I found myself rooting for Widge, hoping he would make the right choice and live to become an actor in the company.

Shapiro’s work is often a model of the kind of writing that I would like to attempt. This book, which focuses on a single year in Shakespeare’s life–1599–and its historical, political, and theatrical events (including performances of Henry V and Julius Caesar), brings its material to life.

It is a deeply researched book, with a wealth of resources listed in its bibliographical essay, but its handling and style are still so captivating and accessible that I couldn’t put it down when I first read it!

When we write about early modern literature and history, we construct narratives that draw on invention and imagination. Shapiro’s book reflects that vital mix of rigorous historical research, insightful interpretations of literary texts, and its own acts of storytelling.

If Arnott’s approach makes it easier to understand and appreciate how Greek drama and theatre were part of a performance culture in classical Athens, Baldry’s widens that perception to the much broader social and political climate of ancient Greece, from the likely ‘invention’ of tragedy and comedy in Athens at the end of the 6th Century BCE, to their development throughout the Greek world over the next two centuries and survival to our own time.

The whole sense of this new art form, a synthesis of storytelling, poetry, music, and dance, which developed as a kind of living and moving sculpture, is a hard one to take in all at once.

What Baldry offers is a brief but clear introduction to the background of both tragedy and comedy for anyone whose awareness of the potential of plays and players only begins with Shakespeare. He is both readable and a reliable… show more.

“I wish I was any animal but a giraffe,” said Raffi. Disappointment melts through this little(or not so little) guy like butter in the sun. When children set up hope for something and it doesn’t work out, they are devastated. Raffi realizes that while he is not suited for some things, he is just the right answer for another. Where there is a will there is a way.

If your rock star is a little shy about sharing her talents, she might relate to Bear. When it’s time to put on a show, Bear’s friends focus on making shiny tickets, sequined curtains, and very tall hats while Bear takes notes. As the title suggests, it’s up to Bear to actually figure out the show. As someone much more comfortable taking notes (and finding just the right pen and notebook first), I find Bear highly relatable.

This book was amazing in helping me think about Shakespeare and the history of divisions in our own history. Like all of James Shapiro’s work, Shakespeare in a Divided America is filled with fascinating information delivered in lively and engaging prose. This book provides a cultural and historical exploration of how readings and performances of Shakespeare’s plays in the past two centuries have exposed fault lines in our country’s political and social fabric. In the nineteenth century, the assassination of President Lincoln and the deadly Astor Place Riots; in the twentieth-century debates over free speech, gender, immigration, and race; and in our own time controversies over political division and Trump-era extremism: Shapiro shows how all of these have issues played out through the vehicle of Shakespeare’s plays, particularly Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Othello.