Garber, Crews and Tarzi, Lacey

I read Marjorie Garber's Shakespeare and Modern Culture. I learned for the first time about actresses playing Hamlet or Shylock, for example, but otherwise I found some of the parallels -- Coriolanus and Il Duce's execution? -- a little forced. However, I have no doubt that the Bard's influence is as broad or broader in language that she proposes. I also read Crews and Tarzi's The Taliban and the Crisis in Afghanistan, for professional reasons, as I am reading Jim Lacey's edited A Terrorist's Call to Global Jihad. This last volume is quite a difficult read, and I'm glad that I'm not reading the 1600-page version. I also read an issue of The Economist.