Review of "Shakespeare" by Bill Bryson

Pleasant, slightly boring (but in a nice read-last-thing-at-night) sort of way, I can't help wondering if this book was really necessary. It's a popularisation of Shakespeare scholarship - what order were the plays written in, what do we really know about his life (very little), and some gentle fun at the expense of Shakespeare-didn't-really-write-them conspiraloons. But did we really need it? Probably not.