Shakespeare: The World as Stage by Bill Bryson, part of the Eminent Lives series

I love Bill Bryson.  I love Shakespeare.  It would make sense, then, that this should be one of my favorite books.  It is not.  Bryson's brief biography of the most famous writer of all time lacks the flair and wit of all of Bryson's previous work (excepting, perhaps, his first travel book that was written like a real travel book). 
To my knowledge, I have read all of Bryson's published works, and thoroughly enjoyed them.   Even in a Short History of Nearly Everything, a book about-- well, everything-- Bryson was able to take a mountain of facts and find a great deal of humor.  Bryson's approach in this book is to look specifically at what we know for sure about Shakespeare and skip over all of the conjecture.  Anyone who has read many Shakespeare biographies knows that nearly everything we think we know about the bard is mostly conjecture-- which makes short work for Bryson's biography.  I do like the fact that Bryson's writing is terse and to the point, and that he dismisses outright everything other than what can be historically documented about Shakespeare.  This book is part of a series of biographies written by others, and I suspect that has a great deal to do with the flat feel of this volume.  I have read a lot of things about Shakespeare that were much less interesting, but coming from one of my favorite humor/travel writers, I was expecting so much more from Shakespeare: The World as Stage.