Steve-I teach high school juniors and seniors, though the two AP courses are college-level English courses. Many schools will let students who take them exempt their freshmen level English courses if they score well.

And Tim, the entire point of that book is to break down that widespread (and sometimes accurate) perception of a literary elite and make classic literature more easily accessible to "lay readers." And as for Shakespeare, many of his plays were re-workings of old myths and classical themes. Romeo and Juliet was a reworking of the old Greek myth "Pyramus and Thisbe." All those archetypes keep showing up not only in Shakespeare, but in literature and the movies, and many of them go back to Genesis: the fall from grace, the 1st murder, man trying to be like the gods, etc. And having taught a good number of Shakespeare's plays, he has a template that he writes from that makes many of his plays more alike than they are different. And then of course just about every writer since makes allusions to him in some way. Two of my favorite quotes along those lines: "There is nothing new under the sun," and "All art is either plagiarism or revolution."

All that said, I love a good "beach read" that I don't have to think about too much as much as anybody. My guilty pleasure when I need a break from my work-related "reading list" is anything by James Lee Burke, particularly his Dave Robicheaux detective novels. I just devour them.