Indispensable Books--

[Hamlet]

http://www.amazon.com/Oxford-Guide-P...3747823&sr=8-1

OXFORD GUIDE TO PLAYS

An indispensable book must have two criteria imho , the obvious, you can't do without it, and heavy-referencing, if the spine isn't cracked to sh--, it's questionable, or a set-piece. You may even be a poser.

I really enjoyed the descriptions of plot + crticism in this little guide, unpretentious, excellent what happens first/what happens next capsule reviews. Key dramatists/eras at the front and much else.

Ideal, I guess, esp. for theatre folk seeking out a new play.

[JTolle]

An "indispensable" book is one that eludes your apparatus for grappling with it. And we are sometimes destined to outgrow books because of this. Our skills, our perceptions, our depths of emotion continually expand and are enriched - at least if we do not cease to push ourselves. But I cannot imagine that Ecclesiastes or King Lear or The Trial will ever break open under my attention - they are works of art that resist taming, that are ungraspable and yet suffocating; they asphyxiate us until we can't help but breath in accordance with the pressures of their grooves and accents. And all great art is an attempt to reconcile oneself with this smothering.

[Hamlet]

Thank you for redefining my 'categorization', JTolle, I deliberately set up the thread to provoke a response such as yours. My mere referencing approach is perhaps more of a 'books you can't do without' or even 'books you turn to time and again, reference, because of their usefulness. They become indispensable, but not in the artistic sense. As a way into art, as a way of finding new art. . .