How to Think like Shakespeare offers an enlightening and entertaining guide to the craft of thought—one that demonstrates what we’ve lost in education today, and how we might begin to recover it. In fourteen brief, lively chapters that draw from Shakespeare’s world and works, and from other writers past and present, Scott Newstok distills vital habits of mind that can help you think more deeply, write more effectively, and learn more joyfully, in school or beyond.
Challenging a host of today’s questionable notions about education, Newstok shows how mental play emerges through work, creativity through imitation, autonomy through tradition, innovation through constraint, and freedom through discipline. It was these practices, and a conversation with the past—not a fruitless obsession with assessment—that nurtured a mind like Shakespeare’s. And while few of us can hope to approach the genius of the Bard, we can all learn from the exercises that shaped him.
Written in a friendly, conversational tone and brimming with insights, How to Think like Shakespeare enacts the thrill of thinking on every page, reviving timeless—and timely—ways to stretch your mind and hone your words.
"Scott Newstok’s latest book, How to Think Like Shakespeare, could be just the game changer the teacher (and administrator should have) ordered. . . . I couldn’t help but be won over by his earnest enthusiasm for the subject and ended up wanting to hear still more."—Robert M. LoAlbo, PlayShakespeare.com
"As a concise history of Western pedagogical development, How to Think Like Shakespeare succeeds beautifully. . . . By the end of How To Think Like Shakespeare, [Newstok] has us thoroughly convinced. To think and create effectively requires one to train and practice. By apprenticing ourselves to the past, we can ourselves become links in the glorious chain of human intellectual achievement."—Fernanda Moore, Chapter 16
"How to Think Like Shakespeare is not the work of an activist militating for his cause but a thinker reveling in his work. Newstok reminds us that this work is, above all, fun, and the calling on display is infectious."—Karl Schuettler, A Patient Cycle
"A lively and evocative new volume . . . a beautifully written, succinct description of educational principles derived from the best features of a renaissance education. The book is 'deliberately short,' but packed with quotations from the Bard and scores of great authors, all combined to make us think – and, with a little luck, to think more like 'our myriad-minded Shakespeare.' I highly recommend Newstok’s book for its pith, clarity, and insight – and the sheer breadth of its bibliography, including delightful footnotes, a bibliographic essay, and an index of Shakespearean cornucopia."—Rob Jackson, Institute for Classical Education
"Scott Newstok’s How to Think like Shakespeare: Lessons from a Renaissance Education really is a feel good book. A thick lather of the author’s enthusiasm, a comprehensive coverage of his subject matter, and the common sense inherent in his value judgments, work together to whip up a likeminded enthusiasm in his readers . . . I found the experience of reading Newstok nothing short of exhilarating"—Ian Lipke, Queensland Reviewers Collective
"[How to Think Like Shakespeare] is a playful, quote filled romp into the mind of Shakespeare."—Fourteen Lines blog
"A clever new book . . . [How to Think Like Shakespeare is] an incisive commentary on the pitfalls of contemporary American education . . . a smart and valuable new book."—Daniel Blank, Los Angeles Review of Books
"An engaging, witty, wide-ranging critique of contemporary pedagogical fads and a spirited provocation to return to classical and Renaissance models. . . . A book of heavy import, lightly tossed, it is at once instructive and amusing, elucidating why and how Shakespeare is good to think with."—Louis J Kern, The Key Reporter
"Part humanist manifesto, part commonplace book, [How to Think Like Shakespeare] combines erudition and accessibility in an inviting package that is a joy to read."—Sententiae Antiquae Reviews
"Even in giving concrete, practical advice, [Scott] Newstok displays a flexible virtuosity [in How to Think Like Shakespeare]; he is a practiced craftsman at home in the workshop of language."—Joshua P. Hochschild, First Things
"A wonderful new book."—Martha Barnett, NPR’s A Way with Words
"In 14 short, pithy chapters, Newstok shows how to recover the lost art of thinking."—Casey Chalk, The American Conservative
"An engaging, witty, wide-ranging critique of contemporary pedagogical fads and a spirited provocation to return to classical and Renaissance models. . . . A book of heavy import, lightly tossed, it is at once instructive and amusing, elucidating why and how Shakespeare is good to think with."—Louis J Kern, The Key Reporter
"How to Think Like Shakespeare seeks to inspire us to break free from the paradigm trap that prevents us from imagining alternative and more inspiring and effective ways to think about higher education’s purpose and pedagogy. . . . This book decries the generational chauvinism that assumes that today’s educational system is superior to all that came before."—Steven Mintz, Inside Higher Ed
"How to Think like Shakespeare is a book that does not fit neatly into any established genre. Above all it’s about how to think and how to teach people to think, but it’s not a how to manual. At a time when higher education is stampeding toward everything shiny, new, and up to date, this book is deliberately backward looking. It looks unapologetically to the past for ideas, models, and habits of mind that Newstok contends are just as relevant now as they were in Shakespeare’s time."—Erik Gilbert, BadAssessment.org
"A clever new book."—Ian Warden, Canberra Times
"Eminently sensible . . . the pay-off is an emphatic appreciation of just how valuable the pedagogical insights of four centuries ago remain today."—David McInnis, Australian Book Review
"[How to Think Like Shakespeare is] a serious history of thinking, and although serious, it’s very readable, and even playful. . . . How To Think like Shakespeare is a refreshing book and a stimulating read. The lively writing is a great treat, with things to smile at as you read."—Ralph Goldswain, No Sweat Shakespeare
“A lucid, human, terrifically engaging call to remember our better selves and a supremely unstuffy celebration of what’s essential.”—Pico Iyer, author of The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere
"How to Think like Shakespeare is a witty and wise incitement to shape our minds in old ways that will be new to almost all of us. By description and by imitation, Scott Newstok performs an improbable but delightful resurrection of five-hundred-year-old methods of engagement with words and thoughts. And hey: if they worked for Shakespeare, why shouldn't they work for you?"—Alan Jacobs, author of How to Think: A Survival Guide for a World at Odds
"A wonderfully light-footed and erudite investigation of education (and so much more), by means of Shakespeare (and so much more). Scott Newstok's book, a playful delight, also delivers a serious pedagogical punch."—Sarah Bakewell, author of How to Live: Or a Life of Montaigne in One Question and Twenty Attempts at an Answer
"Splendid, tremendously clever, and obviously inspired by a real love of Shakespeare. The whole basic idea is terrific, with wonderful passages to illustrate each new idea. Bravo."—Ken Ludwig, author of How to Teach Your Children Shakespeare
"Scott Newstok has written an urgent account of Renaissance education and our own impoverished equivalent. Learned, pacey, full of witty observation—I loved the idea of thinking as humanity's 'killer app'—it is a brilliant enactment of its own central ideas about the importance of liberated thinking and the constitutive pleasures of rhetoric. The chapter titles recall Bacon and Montaigne, essayists of Shakespeare's time: Newstok is their worthy successor."—Emma Smith, University of Oxford
"Scott Newstok's How to Think like Shakespeare is something to treasure. The book lays out a case for Shakespeare's vital connection to the lives we live today, opening the door to new ways of thinking and experiencing the world, which are essential to a life well lived."—Michael Witmore, director of the Folger Shakespeare Library
"Insightful and joyful, this book is a masterpiece. It invokes and provokes rather than explains. It reminds rather than lectures. It is different from any book I have ever read. And it works. Drawing on the past in the best sense of the term, it reminds us that we are part of a long tradition. Few books make the case for liberal education as creatively as this one does."—Johann N. Neem, author of What's the Point of College? Seeking Purpose in an Age of Reform
"Ranging widely from the classics right up to the present with apt quotations, all in service of ideas we lose at our peril, How to Think like Shakespeare winningly blends respect for tradition with thoughtful steps toward a more equitable society. It is the work of a Renaissance man in both senses."—Robert N. Watson, author of Cultural Evolution and Its Discontents: Cognitive Overload, Parasitic Cultures, and the Humanistic Cure
"Hugely illuminating and insightful. It should be obligatory reading for all involved in education.”—David Crystal, coauthor of Shakespeare's Words
“There are few recent books I can think of that make for more encouraging and salutary reading as a reminder of all that remains to be gained from literary studies, and conversely of all that might be lost from allowing it simply to fall by the wayside.”—Jeffrey Alan Miller, MacArthur Fellow
“A little gem of a book. It offers the pleasures of a modern commonplace book, brimming with so many choice thoughts that you feel the urge to scribble them down. The book is written with elegance and wit; the last chapter in particular is a tour de force.”—Indira Ghose, University of Fribourg, Switzerland
