★ 比爾蓋茲推薦書單


NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The bestselling author of The Marriage Portrait delivers a luminous portrait of a marriage, a family ravaged by grief, and a boy whose name was given to one of the most celebrated plays of all time. • “Of all the stories that argue and speculate about Shakespeare’s life ... here is a novel ... so gorgeously written that it transports you." —The Boston Globe  

England, 1580: The Black Death creeps across the land, an ever-present threat, infecting the healthy, the sick, the old and the young alike. The end of days is near, but life always goes on.

A young Latin tutor—penniless and bullied by a violent father—falls in love with an extraordinary, eccentric young woman. Agnes is a wild creature who walks her family’s land with a falcon on her glove and is known throughout the countryside for her unusual gifts as a healer, understanding plants and potions better than she does people. Once she settles with her husband on Henley Street in Stratford-upon-Avon, she becomes a fiercely protective mother and a steadfast, centrifugal force in the life of her young husband, whose career on the London stage is just taking off when his beloved young son succumbs to sudden fever.


一五八零年的英格蘭：黑死病蔓延全境，這是每天都得面對的威脅，健康的生病的、老的少的都染病了。即使生命快要終結了，但生活總得繼續下去。

一位年輕的拉丁文私人教師--身無分文，受到暴力的父親欺凌--愛上了一個很特別、古怪的女孩。艾格妮絲個性狂野，她帶著手套上的獵鷹，漫步在自家的土地上，鄉村的人都知道她有神奇的天賦能幫人靈療，她對植物和魔藥的了解要比對人還多。她和丈夫在埃文河畔史特拉福的亨利街安頓下來後，成了一個強烈保護孩子的母親，也把年輕丈夫的生活搞得雞犬不寧，此時她丈夫在倫敦舞台上的事業剛剛起步，而摯愛的兒子卻突然發高燒。

（文字整理/文謙益）