Mythopoeic Awards

The Mythopoeic nominations for this year's awards have been nominated:

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature

* Theodora Goss, In the Forest of Forgetting (Prime Books)
* Nalo Hopkinson, The New Moon’s Arms (Grand Central Publishing)
* Guy Gavriel Kay, Ysabel (Roc)
* Catherynne M. Valente, Orphan’s Tales, consisting of In the Night Garden (Spectra) and In the Cities of Coin and Spice (Spectra)
* John C. Wright, Chronicles of Chaos, consisting of Orphans of Chaos (Tor); Fugitives of Chaos (Tor), and Titans of Chaos (Tor)

Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Children’s Literature

* Holly Black, Tithe: A Modern Faerie Tale (Simon & Schuster); Valiant: A Modern Tale of Faerie (Simon & Schuster); Ironside: A Modern Faery’s Tale (Margaret K. McElderry)
* Derek Landy, Skulduggery Pleasant (HarperCollins)
* J.K. Rowling, The Harry Potter series, consisting of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s [Sorcerer’s] Stone (Bloomsbury); Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (Bloomsbury); Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Bloomsbury); Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire (Bloomsbury); Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (Bloomsbury); Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Bloomsbury); and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Bloomsbury)
* Nancy Springer, Dusssie (Walker Books for Young Readers)
* Kate Thompson, The New Policeman (HarperTeen)

You can go here for all details. I am excited to see that I have read one of them! Ysabel, by Canadian fantasy writer Guy Gavriel Kay. And two more are on my list of books to get - Theordora Goss's In the Forest of Forgetting, and Catherynne M. Valente's books. Plus for the children's books nominated, I've read all the Harry Potter, and I've been hearing good things about Kate Thompson's The New Policeman. I know some bloggers have read Holly Black's Tithe.

So, in honour of today, I thought I would announce that I have decided to read all the Mythopoeic Award winners and nominees, from when it first began in 1971. Go here for the award winners list, and here for the lists of all the nominees.

I have read a surprising number of books, and I am counting ones I've read already! This is an open-ended challenge for myself, to be completed whenever. Mostly this is my way of reading some of what has been considered the best in mythic fantasy written since Lord of the Rings was published. I am not making this a general challenge to all you only because I can't figure out how to do one of those darn cool buttoms!!! So if you are interested, just drop me a line and we'll keep in touch. Oh, for those who need some encouragement, Neil Gaiman is well-represented on this list!!!

The same goes for the World Fantasy Awards. Go here for the complete list of past World Fantasy award winners and nominees. I have not read quite so many on this list, but still, I am currently reading a nominee for 2006, Paul Park's A Princess of Roumania, and Jonathan Strange and Dr Norrell by Susanna Clarke is on many of my challenges for this year and it won the previous year. Again, this is open-ended for me, like on-going current challenges in the book blogging world to read all of the the Pulitzer Prize and Booker Prize winners. Only mine is to read all the winners and nominees for the World Fantasy Award.

I am very excited about setting myself these challenges. Some day I may join the ongoing Newbery and Pulitzer Prize winner challenges, but for now, I want to read what I already love to read. Don't be surprised if a few mystery award challenges creep in to my on-going list too! Then, I can see what challenges I can join next year, based in part on these that I've set for myself. The Canadian Book Challenge 2 (set to start in 16 days!!) fits in as Charles de Lint has been nominated on both World Fantasy and the Mythopoeic lists.

So what do you think? Is anyone out there interested in reading the best books in the fantasy world over the space of the next several years?