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We at Quirk love a good board game almost as much as we love a good book. (Okay, maybe not quite as much as a good book.) So naturally, why can't we have both? Each month, we're going to reimagine a classic board game with a literary and pop culture twist! This month, inspired by our childhood Paul Bunyan version, we decided we wanted to re-imagine Pick-Up Sticks: but with a Shakespearen twist! 

The FINAL round of voting for the Goodreads Choice Awards 2015 is happening and two Quirky titles need your support! Everything gets tallied on November 23rd, so get those votes in! 

The semifinal round of the Goodreads Choice Awards 2015 are underway, and as a citizen of Quirk Nation, we need you to do your civic duty! Some of Quirk's very own are in the running, and we need YOUR support!  Now why should you vote for these books? We'll let the books speak for themselves. This round ends on November 15th, so get those votes in! 

What a long, strange trip it’s been.

Normally I’d turn that lyric into a line of iambic pentameter. Today, I think it’s fine the way it is. With a few short words, the Grateful Dead pretty much summed up my last two years or so — from the first moments of rewriting a Carly Rae Jepsen song as Shakespeare to putting the finishing touches on the book. The entire process has been extraordinary in both senses of the word: wonderful and kinda far out, man.  It’s also been educational. At the outset, I didn’t know “thee” from “thou,” or when a word like “make” should become “makest.” But there are less obvious things I’ve picked up while translating pop songs into sonnets — things I can’t pass on in the sonnets themselves. Here are some of the more entertaining ones:

Over the last few days, Twitter has been alight with the hashtag #15SecondShakespeare, where actors recite song lyrics as if they were Elizabethan soliloquies. Not only are they hilarious, they're raising money and awareness for the Red Cross. Here are some of our favorite highlights — paired with a matching Pop Sonnets to take it one step further!

We've collected all our Shakespearean versions of summer's greatest hits and put them in one convenient spot: Right here! So take a dip in the pool or pop a cold one, and don't forget to share these with a good sir or madame who could do with a reminder to enjoy the summertime. 

"Summer Girls" – LFO  
"Dancing In the Street" – Martha and the Vandellas

"Summertime" – DJ Jazzy Jeff & Fresh Prince
 "Margaritaville" – Jimmy Buffett