A book on the experience of reading Shakespeare's 'dark plays'. As part of the My Reading series, King Lear is a personal meditation on a great literary work. Arthur W. Frank brings a career of studying illness and suffering to consider how King Lear can aid people whose lives need help. Reading King Lear leads Frank to an encounter with his own old age and provides a source of consolation and companionship. This book does not try to minimize vulnerabilities, but it shows what is fully human, and thus shared, in suffering. The book introduces readers to King Lear and it invites those who know the play to a new consideration for its ability to affect people's lives.