Book Advent Calendar: Day 17: SurLaLune giveaway for fairy tale lovers

Ok, for all the fairy tale lovers out there, and I know there are many of us, here is a fabulous holiday giveaway on SurLaLune blog, open to everyone!!! You have until Dec 22/14 to enter.  The prizes are a must for any fairy tale library: 

"Register for the chance to win a set of 3 SurLaLune Library Titles: Bluebeard Tales From Around the World, Cinderella Tales From Around the World, and Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World. Go to the SurLaLune Fairy Tales Giveaway to enter for a chance to win.
To make it more interesting for us all, I am also asking "What fairy tale item is on your holiday wish list?" I will share the answers during this week and and next with the SurLaLune readers, so be sure to give me an "online name" to use when you enter for me to share on the blog. "

I want especially the Beauty and the Beast Tales From Around the World, and Bluebeard Tales From Around The World. 
                                                     

I  enjoy comparing how the tales change from country to country and century to century.  All the little tweaks and changes give clues to what is changing in that society. What concerns are new?  Are the stories being changed for the audience?  How are adult versions different from children's versions, if there are any? So yes.  This is a lovely giveaway for the holidays. 

The handless maiden, or how a fairy tale comes alive

               I don't usually get deeply personal on my blog.  However, this year I have had a deep experience with a fairy tale, which is still moving through my life.  I have been thinking on this for a while, and wanted to share with you one example I have found of a fairy tale being true.  I don't have all the answers for what it means for me, as it's a work in progress currently.  As we go through this Once Upon a Time challenge with Carl, I thought it would be fun to share how powerful fairy tales and myths can be.

 As many of you know, Terri Windling has an amazing blog over at Myth and Moor.  She writes about everything from the daily walks she takes with her family's dog Tilly over the moors near her home, to folk music every Monday, to writing and art, to exploring fairy tales and their meaning.  Last spring, she posted about the fairy tale The Handless Maiden, which I read at some point.  I don't really remember being moved at all, or particularly drawn to this fairy tale, even then.

Then, later last spring, I had a dream. In my dream, Angelina Jolie was cutting my hands off, and I had to have another woman's arms attached.  My family - husband and children, the real ones I live with, not dream ones - were waiting for the new hands to go on.  I was okay with it.  I woke up as the knife cut through my hands.  I wrote it down, which I do when I can remember my dreams, and wondered why Angelina Jolie was in it.   Beauty? She is beautiful.  Intelligent, interesting, yes. I don't watch movie stars though I see all the headlines at the checkout at the grocery store.  Then about a month later, I was thinking about the dream on and off, and something about it finally pinged in me.  Something about my hands.   I went back to reread it. And suddenly I thought, my hands were cut off!  The Armless Maiden!  and I ran back to Terri's blog to read what she had written about it in her post.  This time I went through it more carefully, and I was able to see what my dream was telling me:  my arms were being removed because I need to find a new way to care for myself.  In my dream, another woman's hands (anonymous woman, no one I knew) were being attached.  What I realized in the summer that I needed to do, was to grow my own, again.

For me, this has meant looking at how I care for myself, in almost all aspects of my life.  From getting enough sleep (do I?  don't I?  why or why not?) to how I eat (and I am overweight, I'll be honest here), and why do I eat so much?  When do I eat?  To how I care for myself in other ways: how often do I do things for other people because I should?  What do I really want to do?  Why do I struggle to know what is really true for me?  And almost all of it comes down to me living through other people's rules, which we pick up as we grow up.  It's easy to adopt ways of doing things because that's how they are done.  The real purpose of growing up is to choose a way and a life that is true to me, so that living every day is a reflection of me, and what I value most.

In the fairy tale, the handless maiden wanders until she comes to a dark wood, where she finds an orchard and the trees which bear pears, which she is able to eat off the branch.  I have been eating pears for months now.  Every time I eat one, I think to myself, I am the handless maiden.  What do I need to learn?  How am I caring for myself?  Is this me, or someone else I am doing this for, in my life?  And as I eat the pear, I think of taking its nourishment, which represents the feminine strength, according to Marie-Louise von Franz in the Handless Maiden post.

I am middle-aged, and I would think too old for fairy tales, except fairy tales don't work in our ordinary time.  They come when we are ready for them in our souls.  Being 50 is nothing in fairy tale time.   When I went to Clarissa Pinkola Estes' book Women Who Run With the Wolves, which is like my bible for when it comes to understanding how fairy tales reveal women's souls to us, she says the Handless Maiden tale is for women of all ages.  That the fairy tale is about a voyage undertaken several times during a woman's life, for as she ages and changes, so does how she needs to live  changes. 

Particularly relevant to me in that same post is this passage quoted in the post, from Midori Snyder:
"To follow the example of the armless maiden is an invitation to sever old identities and crippling habits by journeying again and again into the forest. There we may once more encounter emergent selves waiting for us. In the narrative, the Armless Maiden sits on the bank of a rejuvenating lake and learns to caress and care for her child, the physical manifestation of her creative power. Each time we follow the Armless Maiden she brings us face to face with our own creative selves."
As many of you know, I am a writer, and a poet, and have struggled with balancing my family, working full-time, with finding energy to create anything, for most of my adult life.  What this fairy tale is bringing me is the opportunity to create my own life, with writing more central to it.  One of the questions I have also been asking myself this year is, what supports my writing? 

Out of this, I am learning things about myself I didn't know.  I'm looking at how I value my creativity, and what place I give it in my life.  Questions I was afraid of asking before, I'm asking now, because I feel a re-awakening of the pull to write, the call to be conscious that I am a writer, and I write poems, and I need to make a real space for this in my life now.  If I am going to be true to myself, and live a life that fully satisfies me every day, then I need to incorporate space and time to be creative every day.  It sounds simple, and it's a sign of how far I have been from myself, that I have to undo so much unnecessary other things I do that keep me from writing.  Most of these are demands that I place on myself, not other people, though much earlier in my life they were placed on me by others.  Or just rules that I assumed for everyone, or really underneath, the fear of being different, which has haunted me every since grade school, when I didn't want to be different from others, even though I was.  I am still learning how to undo that one!

Fairy tales are real, in a way that our souls recognize, some deep wordless place inside us that is connected to the soul of the world around us.  When I think of my dream, I say to myself," no I don't want another woman's hands, I want to grow my own now."  It's not easy, though it is interesting, and fun, and mysterious.  I don't always like what I find, though I do like that I can be more freer in my life, and recognize what I need to create my art (a little bit, at least, now).  The things I craved - silence, being still, listening, solitude - I am beginning to give to myself more.  I am happy to say that my family are very supportive in this also.  If I'm happy, they are happy!  Just so long as I want to be with them, which I do, and it bothered me that I was always waiting to get some time to myself.  It's tricky, learning to balance everyone's needs, and along the way I put mine lower, at the end of the day, or not at all if we were busy.   I am able to be with them in a truer sense now, not always longing  for the time to be quiet, because I know I already have it.  It's not perfect, I still wrestle with when the best time is to be creative, and long for more time to dream, and wander in nature, and let things come to me. 

Have you ever had a dream that had fairy tale elements in it?  Do you recognize themes in your life that resemble any fairy tale in particular?  Has any fairy tale really resonated with you? 

For Once Upon a Time: a bit of fairy lore

                                                       

  The Lore of Scotland, by Jennifer Westwood and  Sophia Kingshill, is a collection which I am reading in bits and pieces for the Once Upon a Time Challenge, for fairy tales and folk tales sections of the challenge. This book is so interesting - it has all kinds of Scottish legends, myths, fairy tales, and folk tales, collected from all over Scotland.
                                                          

For your folk tale and fairy reading pleasure on this late Sunday night, here is a folk tale about a brownie:

Boghall Farm, Near Dollar, Clackmannanshire

The Brownie was very like a man in shape.  His entire body was covered with brown hairs, hence his name. He slept all day and worked all night, when the whole farmhhouse was hushed in slumber. Although possessed of great strength he was harmless, and had more of a forgiving than a revengeful turn of mind. His food was sowans (oats steeped in water) and sweet milk, while his bed consisted of straw made up in some cosy corner of the barn.  To the farm of Boghall, near Dollar, Brownie rendered essential services; but it happened one very severe winter, when the snow lay deep upon the ground, and the frost was so intense as to freeze every running stream and well,that the woman of the house, afraid that her friendly Brownie would die, laid down some warm blankets on his heap of straw.  Seeing this, he immediately left the place saying:
    To leave my old haunts, oh! my heart is
         sair,
   But the wife gave me blankets - she'll see
     me nae mair;
  I've worked in her barn, frae evening till
     day,
  My curse on the blankets that drove me
    away.
   All the boon that I asked were my
     sowans and strae,
  But success to Bhoga' although
     Brownie's away.

Although he wished well to his former home, Boghall was never the same again.  'At the present day, it is little better than a wilderness', ends this account of the Boghall Brownie printed in The Scottish Journal of Topography in 1848.
                                      p56-57

Once Upon a Time VII

It's finally here!  This the 7th year of Carl at Stainless Steel Droppings' annual spring challenge. Once Upon a Time.....the chance to read all the fairy tales, myths, fantasy books, and folk tales that we collect, to read 'one day'.  One day is here.  I love how he describes it: 

"Over the voice of wind and cold I can still here that voice telling us that it is indeed time to once more “come away”.
It is that voice that beckons us to Middle-earth and Newford, that calls out from the gap in the village of Wall and from the world of London Below. It is the voice that packs so much promise into four little words…

“Once upon a time…”

Perhaps you too have heard that voice whispering on the spring wind, or perhaps Old Man Winter continues to drown out the sound; either way that time has come: Once Upon a Time is here!"

                                                    

I am doing my usual, signing up for everything! I can't resist.  Just pulling books from my shelves, books I've wanted and/or been saving for this challenge, I have too many to read in the next 3 months.  Part of the fun is selecting books, and then seeing what I do get read.  I am doing Quest the Third, which is to
   "Fulfill the requirements for The Journey or Quest the First or Quest the Second AND top it off with a June reading of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream OR a viewing of one of the many theatrical versions of the play. Love the story, love the films, love the idea of that magical night of the year and so this is my chance to promote the enjoyment of this farcical love story."
       I am planning to complete the Quest the Second, which is: 
     "Read at least one book from each of the four categories. In this quest you will be reading 4 books total: one fantasy, one folklore, one fairy tale, and one mythology. This proves to be one of the more difficult quests each year merely because of the need to classify each read and determine which books fit into which category. I am not a stickler, fear not, but I am endlessly fascinated watching how folks work to find books for each category."

Here are some of the books I think I might read over the next four months:

Fairy Tales
- Some Kind of Fairy Tale - Graham Joyce
- Beauty - Robin McKinley
 - The Uncertain Places - LIsa Goldstein
 - Of Blood and Honey - Stina Leicht
 - Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland - WB Yeats

Fantasy:
- First Rider's Call - Kristen Britain
 - A Midsummer Tempest - Poul Anderson
 - Ship of Magic - Robin Hobb
 - The Bards of Bone Plain - Patricia McKillip
- The Hobbit - J.R.R Tolkien

Myth:
- The Kingdom of Gods - N.K. Jemison
- A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness
 - Hide Me Among the Graves - Tim Powers

Folk Tales 
 - Fairy and Folk Tales of Ireland - W.B. Yeats
 - Songs of the Earth - Elspeth Cooper
- The Lore of Scotland - Jennifer Westwood and Sophia Kingshill (**added as soon as I wandered over the  folk and fairy tale shelf to see what I forgot.  I bought this last year, this looks like a fascinating compendium of Scottish lore and legends.)

Carl also has a Short story section to the challenge, where he encourages us to seek out short stories: "This quest involves the reading of one or more short stories that fit within at least one of the four genres during the course of any weekend, or weekends, during the challenge."




Short stories:
 - something from The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (this would be a re-read for me, but I feel her collection calling to me, and until I can get my hands on her fairy tale book, this will be just as good)
 - something from Wizards ed by Martin Greenberg
 - Muse and Reverie - Charles de Lint
 - some ghost stories from various anthologies
- something from the Terri Windling and Ellen Datlow fairy tale anthologies (I always think I will read the whole anthology and get distracted, so it's easier to read a short story or two or three....)

And finally, there is fantasy on film and tv:

 

"Stories are not just limited to the printed page. Many entertaining, moving, profound or simply fun stories are told in the realm of television and film. To participate in this quest simply let us know about the films and/or television shows that you feel fit into the definitions of fantasy, fairy tales, folklore or mythology that you are enjoying during the challenge."

Screen:
- The Hobbit ***watched last night, for Earth Hour (and beyond).  Reviewed already here.  Love this movie as much the second time around.  The dragon is still impressive even on my tiny tv screen.  My daughter is so anxious to see more of the dragon!!  We all enjoyed it, even the 8 year old who has difficulty sitting through longer movies.  I think this will become a regular movie viewing for my family.
- I am planning to see a version of A Midsummer Night's Dream, during these three months.
 - we have various Narnia movies, Golden Compass, Penelope, Enchanted, possibly some Grimm or Once Upon a Time, The Company of Wolves.........many more too.
 - I also have Game of Thrones from season 1 to finish, then S2 to catch up on.

Just remember:  This is only a partial "these look interesting today" list.  I'm hoping to add a few more, and leave this open for new books to find their way in. I am really excited that this is here.  I really wish I could find a copy of Boneland by Alan Garner over here.  That would fit in beautifully with this challenge.

Short Story Special event:
A special treat: Neil Gaiman has a short story published on the Guardian site this weekend. "Down To a Sunless Sea". Click on the link to go to it.  It's a wonderful sad and creepy short story.  The perfect way to begin Once Upon a Time!

Long Awaited Reads Month - Spindle's End

                                            


 January is Ana's and Iris' Long Awaited Reads Month.  I was perusing my shelves, wondering how far back some books had been on it waiting to read, when this book fell into my hands:  Spindle's End, by Robin McKinley. 

I am a huge fan of Robin McKinley, and I'm not sure why I hadn't read Spindle's End before.  I know I had tried at least twice, but the beginning is a little dry, with not a lot of action until chapter 2, when we meet Katriona, a girl of 15 who is picked from her village to represent it at the christening of the long-awaited princess who had finally been born to the king and queen.  You know how the story begins: king and queen long for a baby, it's finally born after many years, and at the christening day, fairies are invited, and one is left out, Pernicia,  and she ruins the party by putting a curse on the baby that on her 21st birthday, the princess will touch a spindle and fall into a poisoned sleep from which none can wake her. In this story, the evil fairy then changes it to: it could happen at any time up to her 21st birthday.   And from there, the novel takes off on it's own wonderful course.

    Spindle's End is the retelling of Sleeping Beauty, thus the name of the novel.  It is one of the best retellings of this particular fairy tale I have read, and indeed, I think how the story is reworked so that the princess - called Rosie, nickname of  the last of the 19 names she is given (they had been waiting a long time to have a baby), Briar Rose - Rosie herself plays a starring role in this novel.  She is hidden away by Katriona, far from the palace and  the seeking eyes of  the wicked fairy .  So Rosie grows up far away from anywhere, really, loved by two fairies, one of whom , Katriona, accidentally gives her small fairy talent to Rosie when she first sees her, because she wants to give her something (she is a tiny 3 month old princess after all) and because she wants to save her from the curse. The whole kingdom wants to.  And for 20 years, Rosie is raised in relative safety.  And then the year of the 21st birthday arrives.....

I love how the fairies are worked into this story: humans share the world with fairies, in this unnamed land, and the fairies are used to corral magic and try to keep it under control, because magic exists in this world.  Fairies look like humans, so they are mostly identified by what happens around them, what they cause to happen, or what they can do. 

Part of the spell this novel had me under is that Rosie grows up being able to talk to animals.  It was at this point in reading the novel that I discovered  - I remembered- that I  had loved this part of fairy tales when I read them.  I absolutely love animals that help characters, especially talking animals.  That to me was pure magic, and I love that in Spindle's End this is worked in to the story in such a beautiful way.  Rosie is not your archetypal princess, she is clumsy, large, not beautiful - but she is kind, and funny, and loves animals fiercely. 

This was a funny magical fairy tale.  It's been a long time since I read something that was so sweet, and well-written, and true to the spirit of fairy tales. 

What I love most though, is that Rosie mostly saves herself.  I think  it says a lot for today, and our envisioning of female power, that the prince doesn't rescue Rosie.  She decides to fight for the kingdom, for her people, for all she loves, to free them from the evil fairy.  She doesn't fall into a slumber that only one kiss will awaken her, she doesn't lie in state in the castle waiting for a prince to hack his way through to her.  She works with the land, the way a real princess (and King) do, close to it in the way that living in nature (they are far from any large city, or even small town) can give to people. That's what I mean by a marvelous true story.  Some of the questions that have bothered me for years about Sleeping Beauty are: Should Briar Rose do something, anything, to stop her curse?  Why is she so passive - hasn't she heard for all those years what the evil fairy wished on her?  Shouldn't she flee at the sight of a spindle?  Why is she so passive? Shouldn't she seek some way to avoid her fate, rather than let her father just banish spindles, as if that could stop an evil fairy?  This retelling answers those questions I long held in a deeply satisfying way.

 This one is rich in myth, and legend, and talking animals, good and evil, and a princess who is helped by those she is kind to.  It's filled with lots of love too, brimming over with love and romance.  At it's core, it's about being true to yourself.  There are two big heroines in this book - Katriona, who rescues the princess and then helps to raise her, and Rosie, the princess. I love that they are the center of this story of Sleeping Beauty.  They take action, they are the story.  This is a wonderful re-imagining.

So that was my first book for long awaited reads month.   I have had it on my shelves for several years now. Thank you, Ana and Iris, for creating this challenge! 

Angela Carter, and Alan Garner - fantasy and fairy tale reading for a Saturday night

  I was saving a post for tomorrow on another mystery I read and was enthralled by.  I still plan it, but I just had to share this link with you.  It comes by way of Terri Windling's blog, The Drawing Board, a quick post here about an article on Angela Carter.  She provides the link to The Paris Review, and an astonishing article on Angela Carter and her legacy. It's a wonderful post, by Marina Warner, who is a specialist in writing about fairy tales herself.   Most of the post is about The Bloody Chamber, which I read a few years ago, and to which I also responded to in a deep, subterranean way.  Some of the images and the feel of the stories linger in me, a sign that they (and Carter) have touched a deep place in me.  Imagine if there had been no Angela Carter - what would have happened to fairy tales, which were languishing in the abandoned corner of children's literature?  Scorned as old and after Disney got through with them, sickly sweet? She revolutionized and modernized the fairy tale by re-imagining them, writing in a voice that as Warner says, makes the tales real - using physical location and senses, light, dark, using all the dark and bloody things fairy tales are really about, so something deep in us does sit up and take notice. Fairy tales are alive today, and the article argues that it is mostly because of Angela Carter and The Bloody Chamber. 

Go read the article, and I hope it is as illuminating for you as it was for me.  Then go back to Terri Windling's blog, where she has a very short post about Alan Garner's new book Boneland, and some links to some interesting articles about it and him. 

Fantasy and fairy tale and myth reading for Saturday night.  Enjoy!!

Fables: Rose Red

                                                           
I have fallen in love with the Fables series of graphic novels.  How could anyone not love the fairy tale twisted subversive dark delightful funny stories that Fables tells?  Imagine all your favourite fairy tale characters together, along with mythic creatures, witches, ogres, gods and goddesses, and then imagine worlds upon worlds of fairy tale tellings to plunder.  There is something so marvellous about this series, it's got so much going on in it, and it's fun and scary and funny.  Beauty is married to Bigby, otherwise known as the Beast.  Rose Red and Snow White, Prince Charming, King Cole, Pinocchio.....and these are adult fairy tales, mind.  So naked fairies abound, plus dark sorcery, spells and enchantments.  And the funniest look at politics and trying to hold a city, a haven and a farm together.  I love the mix of the stories, of all these characters together. 

Rose Red is about - Rose Red.  Remember the fairy tale Rose Red and Snow White?  Well, Snow is happily married to her Prince, but Rose Red is lying in misery on her bed, sulking because she has never forgiven Snow White for disappearing and marrying the Big Bad Wolf (Bigby).  We get the full story of Rose Red and Snow White growing up in their cottage, of the bear who comes to stay in winter nights, of the dwarf who Snow White saves three times, only to discover that he is a thief and is stealing magical items.  To evade his curse she is sent away, and so we get to see the real story of the 7 dwarves, and how Rose Red copes with her sister's death, and then discovery it was faked.  Rose Red is about Rose discovering the full truth at long last, because Fable Town is in danger from Death.  See?  I told you it was dark and magical and good.

I had borrowed this copy from the library, and last month I had borrowed a copy of Witches, the book in the series preceeding Rose Red. My original review is here.
                                         

Witches is the story of how Death was once captured, as the great mythic powers are wreaking havoc on many different worlds, slaying and laying waste to people in such great numbers (just because they can), that a group of monks decide to devote their lives to capturing them.  Witches features Buffkin the talking monkey, who along with a group of fairies, saves the day.  They stop Baba Yaga, the witch of the title, who complete with her walking house, has a plan to get out of the central land she is in, and make her way through all the worlds. The other great power causing havoc is Death. He is creepy and scary, very reminiscent of the gentleman from Buffy the Vampire episode from Season 4.  He makes people turn into zombies just by being near him.  He is a creature of nightmare.  And so powerful that even in the box he was captured in, his power leaked out and tainted whoever came near him.  Witches ends with the end of Baba Yaga, and Death moving into New York City.

The artwork in these graphic novels is stunning.  I'd like to frame so many of the pages!  The dialogue is uncanny, in that each character is captured in speech rhythms and use of words.  The characters are true to their original sources,even if the stories they find themselves in are adult now.  It's like a continuation of their original stories, told for grown-ups.  I can't rate this series highly enough.  If you haven't tried Fables yet, try one.

I think of all the ones I've read so far, Rose Red might be my favourite.  It could be that it features the bear in the woods, the dwarf with the stolen treasure - I loved seeing that fairy tale again here;  it could be that we see what realistically happens between Rose Red and Snow White, and how they finally come together again as sisters, or just that we see Rose Red finally get out of her bed and reclaim her place as mayor of  the Farm.  I think it might be all of those, and the love story that is in the background too.  Oh, and Beauty and the Beast's baby - you have go to see what happens!!

I read Rose Red for Carl's Once Upon a Time Challenge.  I think I will be looking for a copy for myself, for my upcoming birthday.  I like it that much.

Random notes on a Monday

I should be reviewing any of the books I've read this year so far and loved, or writing pithy comments about writing, or about my new sidebar for chocolate quotes.  I'm in a blue funk today, so here are some fun and random things from the internet that I found. 

Via The New Yorker, here is a link to some fabulous minimalist fairy tale covers.

Again via The New Yorker, here is a link to the collection of letters between Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning, online.  A word of warning, these are the scanned copies of the actual letters they wrote, and Robert's handwriting is not easy to read (though some might say his easier than mine to read!)

The Hobbit! news:  Here is a link to a post about The Hobbit film currently in production, with links to Peter Jackson's Facebook production blog.  I'm sure I'm the last person on the planet to know about this, but just in case I'm not, I've linked you to both.  I'll be following the production page!  I am just about to start crossing off the days until The Hobbit is released.  I do believe that I will be going on the opening day (because I can't wait any longer!) and will be bringing my daughter with me.  It's a bit more kid friendly than the long Lord of the Rings, which she has seen most of through the past few years.

Karen Davis at Moonlight and Hares has some wonderful new art up on her blog.  Sometimes there are no words, only images will do, and her art is whimsical and magical. I love all the hares she draws, too. I really like these pendants, above, from her blog. Her etsy shop is filled with wonderful artwork. Just looking at it makes me feel better.  And that is the wonder and power of art, isn't it?

I am bit late on linking this, but over at Katharine Langrish's blog Seven Miles of Steel Thistles, she had a recent post on Briar Rose, which is one of my favourite fairy tales.  Some of the different illustrations are beautiful. 

And in case you haven't seen this wonderful link yet, here, via Sam at The Book Chase, is his post on Saturday which has the marvellous, magical, beautiful recent Academy Award winning short film, The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris Lessmore on it.  See if you don't have tears in your eyes at the end.  It's a perfect film to show what we see when we see books.

RIP VI round-up - 4 novels of thrills and chills, and one fairy tale

Happy late blogversary to me!!
I am dismayed to see that it has been two weeks since I last posted.  I am chagrined, since I meant to post more often these past few weeks, and get back into some semblance of regular writing here.  However, my life is beyond topsy-turvy this year, it is whirlwind of change. And somehow, I have passed my anniversary again!  Every September I get ready to celebrate blog cake and drink with you, and every mid-October I suddenly realize it's gone past, slipped by in the annual frenzy that is October for us.   For today, happy late 4th anniversary to me!  October 1, 2007, was my very first blog post, here.  I've come a long way since then, and not so far, either.  I've made some very good friends, I've learned about Christmas customs around the world thanks to Kailana and Marg's annual Christmas Advent Tour, and most of all, I've discovered that the love of books is indeed the world over. This love of reading, and sharing the books we love, talking about and discussing ideas that books hold, is what I cherish the most - our book blog community.  So even if my posts are a bit far between, it's not because I love you any less, my dear book community, it's that so much is occurring in my personal life that I am not able to come here to talk about books as often as I would like right now. 

RIP reviews:  books I really enjoyed
So, because despite my wish to talk about each book I read in its own post, in order to get these reviewed in this last week of Carl's RIP VI challenge, here are five more books I have read for RIP this year:
Winter House - Carol O'Connell            
   Long-time readers of this blog will know of my love for Detective Kathy Mallory, fictional police detective in the ongoing Mallory series by Carol O'Connell.  Mallory is a detective unlike any other.  She was kidnapped as a child and sold to a child snuff video maker.  She escapes, but what this has done to her, has made her into a beautiful, feral person, completely amoral, and yet with her own sense of right and wrong.  She is also highly intelligent, and the way O'Connell writes about her, surprisingly vulnerable as well as loyal.

Now onto the book - Winter House is a gothic mystery.  Winter House is the name of the house where a most famous massacre in NYC history took place.   The Winter family, whom of most were massacred nearly 60 years ago, consisted of   9 children and  2 adults, plus two servants (a cook and nanny).  Only 4 children survived, two of whom disappeared shortly after.  They were all killed by an ice pick stabbed in the heart.  The case is unsolved though generally believed that one of the surviving children, Nedda Winter, who was 12 at the time, and one of the ones who disappeared, is the killer.  Winter House opens with the discovery of a burglar who is dead in Winter House, stabbed through the heart with an ice pick, and the discovery that Nedda Winter has been found and brought home secretly by her niece, for a reconciliation with her two surviving siblings. Kathy Mallory picks up on the case because it is set in such an infamous locale, unsuspecting that Winter House is more than just a house darkened by its tragic past.  This is a case that will threaten her and her friend Charles Butler's sanity.  Is Winter House haunted?  Maybe.  It's a house where nothing is what it seems, where no one appears as they are, where murder is only the worst of the crimes committed on and by the Winter Family.  It's a very good mystery, though a bit convoluted in how Nedda Winter goes undiscovered for so many years.  Tarot cards play a part, as does jazz, and a bird.  Very very gothic mystery, and perfect for RIP. 4.5/5

Tricks - Ed McBain
 I just finished this mystery last night.  I am really glad I read it, after putting it on my RIP list for the past 2 years.  This is a pure police procedural.  It is set in New York City also, like Winter House, and is one of many books in the 87th Precinct series by Ed McBain.  It takes place in a 12 hour period, on Hallowe'en night,  covering  the different crimes that take place for the evening shift of the 87th precinct.  There's a cut-up corpse whose body parts are found in different locations of the city; there's the police set-up to try to catch a serial rapist/murderer, and there's a gang of children raiding liquor stores and shooting the owners.  I really enjoyed this mystery.  I liked the blunt cop talk, the realism of policing the streets, of working with partners, of talking with civilians, of trying to solve crimes in the midst of facing dangers, and of the risks and payouts men and women of the badge take and face every night.  There are several deaths in this novel, most by gun, and a chilling cat-and-mouse game between the policewoman set up as a decoy for the serial rapist, and the rapist.  Good plain policeman's work, and little bit of luck: very enjoyable novel to read, and sets the mood for Hallowe'en next week.  4.5/5 
Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror - Chris Priestley    
I have been on a reading spree this weekend, as I suddenly realized October was almost over and I was nowhere close to my goal of 80 books read by the end of this month.  That will leave me 10 books each for November and December to make my 100 books read in a year.  Luckily it's a break in between birthdays and seasonal events, and cloudy enough outside that I don't feel guilty AT ALL staying to read as much as I can.

Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror is absolutely delightful.  It is a young adult novel of ghostly terror tales, told by Uncle Montague to his great-nephew (or great-great, or even further back, no one knows for sure) Edgar, in his great old dark house all by itself in a corner by some woods.  Edgar goes to visit him when he is home from school, to hear these ghostly tales of eerie horror, even though the woods slightly frighten him, even though his Uncle lives only with the mysterious Franz who Edgar has never ever seen, even though the house is so dark and so cold, that Edgar goes - and has seen only - the study, where they spend all their time in front of the fire drinking tea and eating biscuits, and the lavatory for when Edgar has had too much tea. In this darkly thrilling house - because I don't know about you, Gentle Reader, but I would love to see this house, and go into it, because of the ghostly presences we become aware haunt it.  The tales themselves are everything good ghost stories are:  filled with all kinds of children who never quite fit in with their surroundings, who find mysterious girls and boys appearing to them, who lead them to danger, to horror, and sometimes to death.  Haunted trees, paintings, macabre items, and terrifying glimpses of madness and horror - these stories have them all, told delightfully by Uncle Montague to lonely Edgar.  When we finally reach the ending, as Edgar starts his walk home through the same forest that still makes him uneasy, Uncle Montague reveals his terrible secret, and it is so satisfying.  This is one of the best ghost story novels I have read in a long time. I can hardly wait to read it to my children.  The illustrations are eerie and fabulous, reminiscent of Edward Gorey - down to the pen and ink black lines and off-kilter subjects - and I am totally in love with both. 5/5

Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs - retold by Randall Jarrell from the Brothers Grimm, illustrations by Nancy Ekholm Burkert                
I put all that down for the author/illustator, because they are both important for why this retelling of Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs is so enjoyable.  Many of you know that while I read the Disney versions of many Grimm tales as a child, I am not a big fan of Disney.  I discovered this edition of Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs sometime this year, in a second-hand bookstore.  I picked it up because the illustrations are lovely.  I really just grabbed it without looking at it closely, because of the pictures.  I didn't know that Randall Jarrell was a poet, and I didn't know that he kept the original ending of this fairy tale. I was shocked, thrilled and a bit disturbed by the ending which is what a fairy tale is really supposed to do to us. The Evil Queen Stepmother is made to put on a red-hot iron pair of dancing shoes and dance until she dies. I was disturbed in part because I think of this ending as the ending to the Red Shoes, and shocked because I still think it is too good a death for the wicked stepmother.  That got me thinking to what Snow-White and the Seven Dwarfs might really be about: beauty.  In some versions of Snow White, she is kind, so kind and soft-hearted and sweet that the Huntsman spares her life, that the animals love her, that the dwarves love her, etc.  What this retelling - and I have to go back and reread the original Grimm, too - makes clear, is that it is Snow White's beauty that affects how everyone treats her.  Several things occur to me here:  where is Snow White's father, the king?  Nowhere. This isn't a story about parents and children (because he doesn't look for her either, does he?  Does he even notice she's gone? what kind of father is he?); it's a story about women and beauty.  From the opening lines when her mother asks for a daughter as beautiful as the red blood on the snow when she pricks her finger:  "a daughter as white as snow, as red as blood, as black as the wood in her window frame."
Nothing about her character, her personality, nothing about being good or pure or kind or loving.  It's about looks.   Snow-White - named because she looks as pure as white snow, another image of purity and beauty-  is shaped by her looks, from her name, to why she is cast out (jealousy), to why the huntsman saved her , to why the prince falls in love with her, to why the dwarves don't stone her or drive her out: her beauty. It is the making of her doom, and also her future happiness, with the making of her place in the world beside the prince, because she is beautiful.  As an illustration of how we judge others by how they look, this book is perfect.  As a book about how Snow White's goodness outshines her beauty, we see this by how the animals don't eat her, and how she bargains with the dwarves for her livelihood : not through sex, but through keeping house. It is fortunate for her that she is a child, and not a teenager, when she is cast out!  It is why I love fairy tales too, and having read this version, I am reminded that the best fairy tales are dark, and about the good and the bad in the human heart. I loved this version, and can see myself rereading it many times in the future.

The illustrations are superb.  The dwarves, wonderfully, magically, are not rendered boyish or non-sexual, but are true dwarves, each with their own face and body, short men. Each with their own personality and character clearly designated - not happy, or sleepy, or another stupid name like that, but real people.  I wonder if the dwarves serve a deeper purpose in this tale than I ever suspected, in that once they get over her beauty, they tell her she must do - she must earn her keep.  It is this that makes this fairy tale so magical for me, not just that the animals love her so, but that she makes her way willingly in the world and earns her way not through her beauty, but by working.  I love the fact that in this version, the dwarves are there at the end, making music in the castle as the prince and princess (because Snow-White is a princess after all) marry.  The other picture I absolutely love, is the one of Snow White fleeing in the forest:  all the animals have come to watch her, drawn to her beauty, and they are partially hidden in the drawing, so it draws your eye in to the scene. It's a lot of fun picking out all the animals, all rendered true to their forms, too.  Wonderful. 5/5

Poltergeist - Kat Richardson
The final book I have read for RIP VI so far - because I am reading two more this week, I hope - is the second in the Greywalker series.   My review for the first in the series, Greywalker, is here.  I read it last year for RIP 5.  (and look, I missed blogging about my anniversary last year too!) Poltergeist is about just that, a poltergeist.  It's not so simple though, as it is also the result of collecting a group of assorted people for a psychological project on what happens when you gather a group to see how far the group will go when they believe they have created something for which they are not responsible for the subsequent actions of.  In this case, paranormal research:  if you create an entity from scratch, a personality, will it begin to have a life of it's own?  What if someone in the group does have latent psi skill of some kind?  And all the members are carefully chosen for their strength of will or suggestibility? What if they do pool their collective mental and emotional energy, who is responsible for the entity?  It's a fascinating premise.  PI Harper Blaine is recommended to come examine if there is something 'fishy' with the experiment, as there is more poltergeist energy than the coordinator things there should be, and he is wondering if someone is sabotaging the experiment.  One person involved in the experiment dies shortly after.  PI Blaine is not your usual private investigator, though.  She died for two minutes, and ever since she can see spirits, talk to ghosts, and walk in the world between this world and the next; the gray world where vampires, zombies, the undead, the ghosts, hang out. She's also smart, and wary, and soon comes to the conclusion that she is being set up to take the fall for the experiment if it fails or more people die.
I really like Harper.  She is still coming to terms with being able to see the dead, the undead, and everything else, and what it means for her life. The series is set in Seattle, and the author, Kat Richardson, uses some real settings - houses, streets, events - to ground this series in the here and now.  I love how the supernatural affects - intersects - with reality, with how Harper has to learn how to ignore the supernatural around her, because they are everywhere.  This novel also involves theories about what causes poltergeists, and hauntings, and how people can be the agents allowing them in, and how this would work. There is a groundedness to this series that makes it viable - she has a ferret names Chaos, who when is let loose in the house, creates pandemonium and chaos much like a poltergeist would. She has a few friends, who give her space and who also have their own unique talents - like calling to like, as it were. I really enjoyed the theory about how ghosts can seem to walk through walls - its because for them, they are stuck in their time period when they lived, where most likely there wasn't a wall or door there. In other words, ghosts walk and see what they know from their lifetime, not from what exists in the now.  I enjoyed this book a bit more than the first, as I like the supernatural  a bit more than sorcery which the first book featured.  Highly recommended, a lot of fun, and very good. 4.7/5

This is also an eerie series, with encounters with the undead, the supernatural, evil, filling both books in the series so far.  I've run out and bought the next two, Underground and Vanished. I hope to catch up soon, as Labyrinth, the one from last year, has a lot of good reviews.

So how is your RIP VI reading coming?  Have you been enjoying this challenge?  Are you in a mood for Hallowe'en in a week's time?  I can't believe it's only one week away.......

The "Where I've Been" Post

Happy 2011 to you all, Gentle Readers!!!  I hope you had a merry holiday season, and time for reading.

Where have I been, you are wondering.  How could I go the past month without posting, where is my year-end book special, and most of all, what happened to me during the Advent Calendar Tour?

It was a season I could never have predicted, my book-loving friends.  It began with a slip on the ice three days after I wrote my last post.  I fell twice, the second time falling backwards and hitting my head.  I ended up with a very minor concussion, and it has been the stress from the fall, the memory of falling, that has been haunting me from the beginning of the holiday season.  I was well looked after, friends and family took care of me and I was back at work a few days later, but the shock of the fall has reverbrated through my holidays.  It threw me off, and I couldn't seem to settle down into thinking again. I was able to read, thankfully.  And then family came.

This is the second year that family has unexpectedly come to stay and turned our holidays upside down.  This turned into a very traumatic visit for me, family secrets and drama, and we are still recovering.  So merry?  Sometimes, when it was just us.  It was a lovely holiday at times, and through it all I've been very happy that I am still here.  I know how serious my fall could have been.

It does mean that I have thought long and hard about my blog, which hasn't been sadly neglected but definitely suffered from lack of regular posting this past year.  I've wondered if I've run out of things to say about books, or if I need to say them publicly any more.  I've come to the understanding with myself that of course, duh Susan!  I love discussing books, reading your ideas about them, Gentle Readers,  as well as talking about what I love (or don't) about what I'm reading.  Books are my main passion in life.  And this blog is nothing if not my own labour of love about my love of books.  So, I do apologize for missing the Advent Blog Tour.  Happy late holiday wishes to all of you (and I really hope you all had a much better holiday season over all!!) It's still the New Year, so I can squeeze in Happy New Year, blessings and happiness to each of you, my Gentle Readers, for this coming year.  I am especially happy because the coming Chinese New Year is the Year of the Rabbit, and that's what I am.

Books of the year - not yet
I am going to do my book of the year in my next post (which Goddess willing will be tomorrow), mostly because I still haven't chosen my book of the year.  I discovered two wonderful mystery series - Martin Edwards' Lake District series featuring Daniel Kind and Hannah Scarlett, and Jo Nesbo's Harry Hole series, which I can't choose among either series for my favourite books because they are all so good.  Maybe I should do mystery series of the year?

Other stand-outs are Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day - I loved this book, and it made me laugh out loud so many times. What a lovely magical whimsical fun book, delightful for the soul and the possibility that today, or any day, could be the day when everything changes.  Persephone Books were reprinting this before the holidays, or I would have been able to give this as my present of the year to several people.  Next year..... 

Book of Lost Tales by John Connolly was not what I expected, a magical fairy tale book that lingers long after it is all over - highly recommended.   

The Darkest Room  by Johan Theorin - a gripping mystery that really could not be put down, filled with echoes from earlier tragedies and people coping as best they can with loss and their own dark family secrets.  Very very good, and one I did give for Christmas.   

The Crossing Places by Elly Griffiths was another standout book for me. A mystery featuring archaeologist Ruth Galloway, it bridges time and space in a haunting poetic mystery about loss and death and children.  Another one given for Christmas (and read already by the recipient!).

One of the first books I read last year, Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason, never left me.  It raised questions about immigration and race and crime within the family that set as it was in the midst of children, made this book much larger than its Icelandic setting would suggest.  The best mysteries do this, I find, take the story of a crime or a mystery and cast it into the world so it becomes a comment on today's society, wherever we find ourselves.  This is a writer who gets better and better with each Erlendur mystery.   

The Good Fairies of New York by Martin Millar was so delightful and funny, I laughed out loud so often reading this hilarious account of two runaway Scottish fairies in New York City and the havoc they wreak on everyone and everything.  Also the first book to give a true account of what it is like to have Crohn's Disease (which a friend and a family member suffer from).  I'm beginning to think Martin Millar is one of those undiscovered writers that are like secrets in fantasy or historical communities.  I loved his Lonely Werewolf Girl, and now I thoroughly recommend this book by him. 

To Dream of the Dead by Phil Rickman is another in an ongoing series that I highly recommend.  I love Merrily Watkins, the exorcist  Anglican reverend, her daughter Jane, and the cast of characters in their village Borderlands setting along the edge of Wales.  This is a place of supernatural events, hauntings and old myths and folk tales that have ancient bases in reality, and it's up to Merrily to uncover what is human in origin, and what is other-worldly.  Whether places affect people, or people affect places, is one of those intriguing questions this series deals with in every book.  To Dream of the Dead is about just that, how the dead echo through time and how their legacy of religion can still have meaning, if we let it.  Against this is set the rising of the river running through Ledwardine, the village Merrily lives in, and the fear of nature unleashed. This mystery novel also uncovers some ancient roots of Ledwardine as well as more of the standing stones Jane discovered in earlier books in the series.  This is a mystery series unlike any other out there, about people and place and the senses of mind that we know on some level exists, even if we don't understand why and can't explain it. 

In the Shadow of the Glacier by Vicki Delany is the first in an ongoing Canadian mystery series that I discovered thanks to a book blogger late last year.  It took me a little while to hunt this book down in my library, and I really enjoyed the setting in the Rockies.  I've lived in Vernon in British Columbia twice, and the feel of living amongst the mountains of BC is perfectly captured in this book.  I kept looking for Trafalgar on the map, even though it doesn't exist it feels like a real place!  Molly Smith is the rookie cop who is promoted to the detective squad temporarily.  I enjoyed the mystery and the Canadian context - a memorial to the America draft resistors to Vietnam War.  Very Canadian!  Very enjoyable and I'm off to find the next in the series, The Valley of the Lost.

The True Story of Hansel and Gretel by Louise Murphy was a terrific fairy tale retelling of Hansel and Gretel, set in Poland during WW2.  This is the second book I've read using the horrors of war - of what people do, did, have done to one another under the guise of war, and retelling them in fairy tale settings to help understand these horrors.  Briar Rose by Jane Yolen was the first one I read, last year.  They both are true fairy tale retellings, scary and sad, filled with hope when all is lost, and the will to survive.  It isn't pretty, but then true fairy tales, the really nasty ones like Hansel and Gretel, tell it like it really is, too.  And we as children know this, as well as all children anywhere and everywhere.  This may be the best way to begin to heal from this war, the first stirrings of healing tissue.  We have to imagine our way through the horror so we can begin to understand, and then to forgive.  The only way we can prevent this from happening is through forgiveness.  It would be very interesting to know if the Germans or Russians are beginning to write any fairy tales too, to try to explain to themselves also what happened.  In the meantime, both of these are worth seeking out, and when you are ready, to take a trip through the forest to meet the darkness that is part of our civilization.


 Tooth and Claw by Jo Walton round out my books that made a deep impression on me this year. Who can forget a dragon society where the dead parents are eaten by their children, and the rules of courtship and marriage?  And what a dragon blush really means?  An original fantasy novel that brings dragons to life, in a wonderful Victorian society setting.  Funny, too.

Reading Goals
So those are some of the books I read this year that have moved me and marked me.  I will do a final round-up of what I read, tomorrow.  I am too depressed that not only did I not get to 100 books read this year, but I didn't get to my 50 mysteries either as my reading in December fell to 3 books. However this just makes me more determined to succeed this year in both these goals!

Fairy Tales
To honour fairy tales and the place I want them to have in my house, I bought Maria Tatar's latest collection, The Annotated Brothers Grimm.
This volume is translated by Tatar, and includes over 150 illustrations from all kinds of editions over the years, and Tatar's annotations on the texts.

I bought this because I, for one, love fairy tales when they come illustrated and especially, when the text is child-friendly.  I mean, we have one edition bought by a friend that is written in Victorian text, so it's wordy and unfamiliar in meaning to my kids.  The idea of fairy tales isn't that they are old, but that they are accessible immediately to that wordless part of the brain that knows these stories already.  With this book I hope to have my children move into the heart of the fairy tale world and be enriched by it, so the next time Rapunzel comes out as a Disney movie, I don't have to rush to find a copy of Rapunzel for my daughter to hear so she knows what Tangled is really about!  This is our nighttime reading, which I had started in the autumn with the two youngest children,  but had to stop when the Victorian retelling got hard on me just in the telling!

Happy 2011 to all you, my Gentle Readers.  I wish for all of you, as well as myself, time to read during this coming year, as well as joy and beauty and creativity all through the year. 

For those who are looking for inspiration, I can think of no better way than to go to Terri Windling's blog, where for the past month she has been posting some beautiful photos of the winter scenes they have in Doret, as well as - my favourite - photos of creative people's desks, from writers, sculptors, and painters.  Some of my favourite writers, like Terri herself, Charles de Lint and Jane Yolen, are there.

Once Upon a Time 4 Challenge and a book review!!

It's here, it's here, it's finally here: Carl's spring challenge, Once Upon a Time IV, is here. I was piling up the books I'd been gathering for the challenge, on Sunday, and one book just fell into my hands and I opened up the first page and started reading......now that's magic! So I've already finished a book for this challenge! Like Carl, I also have a large list of books that I want to read for this challenge. I plan to do Quest the Third : Quest 2 Read at least one book from each of the four categories. In this quest you will be reading 4 books total: one fantasy, one folklore, one fairy tale, and one mythology, combined with Read a Midsummer Nights' Dream in June.

The novels I plan to read: (or at least dream over)
Tooth and Claw - Jo Walton (fantasy)
Tam Lin - Pamela Dean (folktale)
Little, Big - John Crowley (fantasy)
The Book of Lost Things - John Connolly (fairy tales)
The Court of the Air - Stephen Hunt (fantasy)
The Sea of Trolls - Nancy Farmer (myth)
Lament - The Faerie Queen's Lament - Maggie Stiefvater (faerie)
Unshapely Things - Mark del Franco (fantasy)
First Among Sequels - Jasper Fforde (fantasy)
Forests of the Heart - Charles de Lint (myth, fantasy)
Bone Crossed - Patricia Briggs (faerie)
Urban Shaman - C.E. Murphy (fantasy)
GreyWalker - Kat Richardson (fantasy)
Jack the Giant Killer - Charles de Lint (folk and faerie) - DONE!!
Drawing Down the Moon - Charles de Lint (faerie)
Blood and Iron - Elizabeth Bear (faerie)
Fool Moon - Jim Butcher (fantasy)
The Time Travelers - Bk One of The Gideon Trilogy - Linda Buckley-Archer (fantasy)
Riddlemaster (Riddlemaster of Hed trilogy) - Patricia McKillip (fantasy)

Short Story Collections for the Short Story Weekends:
We Have Never Talked about My Brother - Peter S. Beagle
Black Heart, Ivory Bones - Datlow and Windling, eds.
Harrowing the Dragon - Patricia McKillip

Assorted others:
The Complete Fairy Tales of the Brother's Grimm ed by Jack Zipes
Transformations - Anne Sexton (collection of fairy tale poems)
A Midsummer Night's Dream - William Shakespeare + possibly viewing a movie or better yet, finding a BBC production of the play

I have to say a word about the artwork chosen to head the banner for this year's challenge. I love it. It's perfect, dark and scary and mythic, and fairy tale looking and just - everything.



So, on to my first review!!:
Jack the Giant Killer - Charles de Lint

This was one of the first books written in the Fairy Tale series edited by Terry Windling. They are comprised of fairy and folk tales rewritten by contemporary fantasy writers. Most of them are excellent. I had never read Jack the Giant Killer before, although I had owned a copy at one time. Sometime in the last year I have made the decision to read, and re-read, all of Charles de Lint's books again over the next several years. I had come across Jack the Giant Killer sometime the past year again and bought it. So when I was looking over my books and it fell into my hands, I opened it up, and immediately I was swept away and I knew it was time to read it.

What a wonderful folktale retelling!! Who doesn't know the story of Jack and the Beanstalk? Only this time, Jack is a girl (Jacky Rowan), and she is drawn into the world of faerie one night when she is out wandering in a park upset over being dumped by her boyfriend. She sees a small man getting hurt, and when she goes over to help him, she is too late, but she picks up his red cap without thinking. Red caps allow you to see the fairies around us, and into their world. She doesn't have much time, for by trying to help the little man, she has drawn the attention of the Hunt - wonderfully imagined as bikers!

I'll let you guess how she lives up to her name of giant killer, though I will say there are no magic beans, no cows or donkeys, no mad mother. I was caught up in this fairy tale retelling, delighting in the combining of modern Ottawa with the fairies living among us, just out of sight, in the world. Jacky is a fun and brave heroine, very charming and courageous, and in true fairy tale spirit, she gathers a small band of helpers as she seeks to rescue the faerie princess from sure death at the hands of the Unseelie Court. Jack the Giant Killer is delightful and a wild romp through faerie at a breathtaking speed - really, everything occurs over a matter of 4 days and nights, I think. And it's fun. I think it might be among the best of Charles' books, and I am so glad I finally discovered it. I can't recommend this highly enough. It has everything you want in a fairy tale. It was a real surprise also at how well it has held up - like the best fairy tales, this one is timeless. The book might be over 20 years old now, but the story - ageless.

A note on the edition I have - I have the paperback edition called Jack of Kinrowan, which combines in one volume Jack the Giant Killer and Drink Down the Moon, which were published separately. It features a lovely Thomas Canty cover.

I know some of you have noted that I picked this as both folktale and faerie tale. It has both elements, is based on a folktale, and definitely has faeries! Since I plan to read more for this challenge, I'm making this count for my folktale reading for the challenge. And as always, my list can change and be added to at any time!

Happy Challenge reading, my Gentle Readers! I hope you have lovely piles of fantasy and fairy tale books calling to you to read them now, too.

Fantasy and Science Fiction Book Day

To begin with, Nymeth wrote a most amazing post about why she reads fantasy, here. It really is worth reading. It explains a lot about what I believe about fantasy reading and writing, and why it is worthy to be called literature.

It led me to wonder why we still feel a need to defend ourselves for reading fantasy. It's been 50 years since Lord of the Rings was published, and people who read fantasy are still looked down upon. Why is that? Why do I feel that reading a book with elves on the cover is somehow less than reading an English classic? Because sometimes I do. And I don't like it. Is it the idea that it's escapist literature, as Nymeth says, and so it can't be taken seriously as representing the truth about us? Why do we need fantasy literature?

I believe that we do need fantasy in our lives. I have mentioned on past posts that I think fantasy is retelling myths for us in the modern world. A sub-group of fairy tales and myths, if you like. Those original myths we all grew up on, the world over, how the world was created, Sleeping Beauty, Beauty and the Beast, dragons - at its core, fantasy is about how we imagine the world, and our place in the world. We have always needed fantasy, even if we don't know how to respect it. I think that is because somewhere deep inside we also fear fantasy because it seeks to tell the truth about our lives, about human beings and their potential, no matter what circumstances they find themselves in. Fantasy offers us in all our good and bad in every world possibly imagined. That is part of it's power. We hold a mirror up to ourselves, through fantasy. I think people who are afraid of fantasy, are afraid of imagining how things could be different. As Nymeth says, we are not hobbits, but hobbits are us as they experience war for the first time. The power to imagine ourselves differently, and imagine our lives differently, is the power that any who seek to control a person and society, fears the most.

Also as Nymeth also points out, not all fantasy is good. She says, and I agree, not all books in any type of literature are good, either! Every kind of fiction has its strengths and its weaknesses. One of the worst weaknesses of fantasy is when the writer fails to imagine anything unique to themselves. So they write what's gone before, and the fantasy falls flat. This could be said of every book ever written, of course: if something of the writer finds its way into the book, then it has a seed of genuinesss about it that makes it worth seeking out, even if it's not very good. Fantasy gives us so many hundreds of ways of bringing that genuiness out - all that's needed other than writing talent, is the power to imagine.

So all that being said, maybe next time I'm reading a book with elves on the front cover, I'll think back to their fairy tale origins and when someone rolls their eyes at me for wasting my time over a book like 'that', I'll reply: "This is storytelling at its best! You don't know what you're missing!"

Now, Nymeth didn't cover science fiction and I'd like to say a few words in its defense. Why read science fiction? What does gravity have to do with being human? Well, for one thing, if we didn't have gravity, we'd all be floating in the universe......scratch that, because none of this - life on earth - would exist. That doesn't mean science fiction is as necessary as gravity! Though it makes a fun analogy.....what it does mean is that science fiction is about us in space. "Ooh, boring", the woman clerk, or the neighbor who doesn't read, might say. "Why do you read that stuff?" Well, I read science fiction because I'm curious about the universe, and I really think that one day we can get a ship up long enough to explore the stars. I think we have to, because the earth isn't big enough to contain all that humans can be.

The same ability is needed to imagine us in space, as is needed to imagine alternate worlds as we do in fantasy. Only space is all around us, we can see the stars with our own eyes. Haven't you looked up in the night sky, and just wondered: What's up there? What's it like? How would it be to be able to travel from star to star? Now I know that will lead to somewhat technical discussions about the distance involved and the speed of light and other things that I can't get my mind to grasp. So I confess that I usually skip over the techno stuff. What I like, is imagining us on the space ships, and what happens to us there, because all our problems and all our beliefs and all our good qualities come with us there, too. I like science fiction because it offers us a possible future, many possible futures, as many futures as we can imagine them.

I know fantasy and science fiction isn't everyone's choice of books. But for those of us who love them, I would wish that the rest of the literary world would stop looking down at us, and greet us as equals. Because once we have tamed the earth (and that would learning how to live on here in a way that keeps the earth alive and healthy), the stars will still be waiting to be explored. And where will we look for the ideas on how to get there? You're right. Science fiction. Many of the writers of science fiction have science degrees. So the next time someone sniffs at your rocket-ship covered book, you can tell them, "This is serious well-thought-out science." Or something like that.

And I can't, and I won't, imagine a world without Star Trek!

I do prefer fantasy to science fiction, and I think that both are necessary forms of literature. As necessary as breathing, in fact.

Why do you read fantasy and/or science fiction? How do you celebrate it in your life?

Sunday Salon - Christmas Wish List - mostly books..

I am absolutely delighted. Yesterday I met my eldest son at Collected Works, where I was picking up a book I had ordered (Robin McKinley's Rose Daughter,). And my 20 year old said there was a book he was wanting to read. A book!!! Well, the bookstore didn't have it, so I ordered it for him and said, "Merry Christmas, you know what one of your presents is", and it should be in by next week so he'll get it before we go, AND the clerk said he'd read it and loved it! World War Z by Max Brooks. I was so happy I practically floated out of the store, because my son seldom asks for books, and to get him one that he wants!! I also took the opportunity to order The Wood Wife by Terri Windling. So far, Nymeth,
Rhinoa , Carl, Deslily,
Chris,
Dark Orpheus, and Robin, a new to me blogger at A Fondness for Reading, have reviewed The Wood Wife, and all thoroughly enjoyed it. This will be my airplane book, at least it's the book of the moment. I keep changing my mind about what I'm bringing, however I will save that post until closer to leaving.

On this quiet Sunday, as our city prepares for either snow or snow pellets or rain tonight and tomorrow, I am dreaming of books to buy. On my Christmas wish list this year, which will sadly have to wait until late winter because our Christmas present is really going overseas to England in 15 days! FIFTEEN!!! A girl can dream anyway, and my husband brought home the newspaper which, he said to me, I would be happy to know, contained this years' Best Books to Buy for Christmas Gifts! There is one title in particular that I have wanted since I read a review about it last spring: Champlain's Dream, by David Hackett Fischer. You can find it on Amazon here.

I lived in Quebec City for 3 years as a teenager, the city that Champlain founded in 1608. For me, history is made real when I can see the places and imagine the events as I stand on the ground. I loved York for that reason, because wherever I went, there were layers upon layers of events and history and it enchanted me. Here in Canada we don't have as much physical remnants of history as Europe does, as the Aboriginal peoples lived for 30,000 years and left little trace. It's in their stories and traditions only, and the occasional encampment discovered in by accident in an excavation. What we understand as physical 'history' began with the first explorers and settlers. I love imagining how the land first was, how it was when the settlers first came, what Champlain would have seen. I am interested in the early history of Canada, and our relations with the native peoples, and how the land looked - the enormous dark forests, the rivers and lakes filled with fish, the wildlife. When I lived in York for a year in 2000, one of the things I was so surprised to find I missed about Canada was the feeling of the landscape. Anyone who reads Canadian fiction knows that the landscape is always present. The hard rock face of the Canadian Shield, the forests, even some of our Canadian words like moose, I discovered I missed hearing. Anyway, I am interested in how the explorers came to Canada and what they first found, and how they helped to shape our country. I really want this book!

Also on my Christmas wish list this year is: Shelley Duvall's Faerie Tale Theatre. It's NOT a book, but it's on my wishlist, high up! This is a new release, with all 26 Faerie Tales she produced for PBS in the US, finally together in one collection. I have long been looking for the individual versions, which was only way it was available until now, and it wasn't available. So this is a dream come true! (I've already shown my husband the Amazon site and dropped a very large hint.) They are retellings of the fairy tales using well-known (usually) American actors and actresses, with high and very charming production standards, and witty, funny, and somtimes dark retellings. Here is a link if you are interested in knowing more. Here is also an excerpt of the description (just because I love reading this over and over!): "From the Brothers Grimm to Hans Christian Andersen, twenty-six of the most beloved stories of all time are brought to life by A-list actors (in some of their most unique and memorable roles) as well as master directors including Tim Burton and Francis Ford Coppola among them --- You'll in seeing Robin Williams as the Frog Prince,Eric Idle as the Pied Piper, Billy Crystal as one of the Three Little Pigs,Jennifer Beals and Matthew Broderick as Cinderella and her prince, Bernadette Peters and Christopher Reeve as Sleeping Beauty and Prince Charming, Susan Sarandon and Klaus Kinski as Beauty and the Beast, Paul Reubens as Pinocchio, James Earl Jones as the Genie inside Aladdin's lamp, and Carrie Fisher as Thumbelina.

Each one of these stories is literally hand crafted by the directors (some of them famous directors like Francis Ford Coppella) and Shelley Duvall to reflect a certain style --- An example being the Sleeping Beauty tale was set in Russia with the sets and costumes designed to look like scenes from classic Russian motifs, the music from the Russian ballet --- Another being the direct rip off of the classic Jean Cocteau film "Beauty and the Beast".

All of these were designed with the intent of entertaining not only children but adults --- Some of the best moments in these are only things that adults will understand --- Christopher Reeve does a fantastic job in his multi-role part in "Sleeping Beauty" as does Malcolm McDowell as the Wolf in "Little Red Riding Hood" --- McDowell infuses the character with a subtle dark sensuality --- His chemistry with his then wife Mary Steenburgen is strong.

Probably the best one of all is the "Three Little Pigs" with Jeff Goldblum (as the Big Bad Wolf), Valerie Perrine (as a ravishing piglette), and Billy Crystal(as one of the three little pigs) --- The writing in this one is completely off the wall as well as it should be --- So enjoy with a loving heart and the mind of an innocent child. *sigh* Pure magic.

Also at the top of my list is Nigella Lawson's new book, Nigella's Christmas. I had a chance to peek at the book yesterday at Collected Works, and I confess, I do want this book too! Maybe it's a good idea if I stay out of bookstores for the next 15 days, at least until we get to England! Then, it will be another story!!! Yes, a really bad pun, sorry...

And that is what is at the top of my list. I haven't really looked this year because we are going to England, and because, I confess, I keep bringing home books anyway! And if we don't go soon, Nigella will come home with me.

What's on your Christmas wish list this year?

PS Middlemarch Update: ON page 171, Chapter 17. And I have a confession to make: Will Ladislaw has just paid a visit to Dorothea in Rome, where she is on her honeymoon with Causabon. Well, to my surprise Eliot was writing Ladislaw as if he was falling in love with her. What? I gasped. Wasn't it Lydgate? So, I did a very rare thing, but I went to the back of the book and read part of the ending. I had it wrong from my memory of the BBC production. Dorothea never gets together with Lydgate - it's Will, her husband's second cousin, that she ends up with!!! To all my Gentle readers who kindly didn't tell me I had it wrong, I apologize! And I still don't know the full ending, so I don't feel too guilty. I hate reading the ending of a book I am enjoying, but I had to know! Now I can relax and watch the real romance unfolding. Already there are terrible cracks in Dorothea's and Causabon's marriage, but that was more due to them innocently not knowing that they had never really talked to eachother - a lovely comment by Eliot on how bad marriages everywhere are made!