Into the Forest discussion

Aya wrote: "I just finished Marissa Meyer's Fairest and really enjoyed it. I loved how she went into so much detail about Levana (the main villain in the Lunar Chronicles) and how it sets up th..."

Oh good. The reviews are mixed so I haven't picked it up to read yet. I've liked the others in the series so far.

Leah wrote: "I'm about halfway through the new book by Kazuo Ishiguro, The Buried Giant....So not really sure where this one's going or where it will end up. Feels like mythic fiction to me, though..."

Just remember, Ishiguro says it's not fantasy lol

Michele wrote: "Just remember, Ishiguro says it's not fantasy lol "

Labels, genres, etc. sometimes go against creative works, I think.

One could certainly say, "For the love of Merlin, there's a dragon and orgres and Sir Gawain - it's definitely fantasy."

I don't think Ishiguro meant he was insulted The Buried Giant might be labeled as fantasy, like Ursula K Le Guin chose to interpret his statement. After reading the source article (NY Times) in addition to the one you linked, I think he's going through some stuff personally (with his own memory as he's getting older) and writing this novel was one way of working through his own experiences (as many writers do). Having known and/or worked with seniors, I can attest to their worry, fear, frustration, sadness over losing their memory as they age.

I think Ishiguro's more concerned with his audience, which probably aren't your typical fantasy readers, not even taking a chance on The Buried Giant because it is being labeled as Fantasy. He's explored some interesting terrain as far as aging, marriage, collective memories, individual memory, etc. It'd be a shame for people not to pick it up because they don't like "Fantasy."

Here's my "review". If I had to label it I would put it in mythic fiction. However, high fantasy readers may not find it fantasy enough for their tastes. And literary types would probably find it too fantastical. Or, maybe like the above article suggested, they might discover they want to explore "Fantasy" further - The Buried Giant could end up being a gateway book in that situation.

Situations like these are when I'm glad I don't depend on the label/genre to decide what I'm gonna read. What I've heard is that all his books are similar only in their themes and his voice. The actual stories are so different from one another that it's hard to slap an overarching label on his work. It's more like on book by book thing. *shrugs* Again, personally, I like an expected voice/themes inside an unexpected genre. I also like an unexpected voice/themes in an expected genre.

Labels, schmabels. Good stories are good stories, right?

O for the days before genre labels, eh?

Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day blew me away and I really liked Never Let Me Go as well, so will give this one a try. My mom's already promised to send me her copy :)

Yes, I hate those genre labels! In UKL's defense, usually it's the lit folks disparaging fantasy and sci-fi. I feel like I read an article a month where a realism writer decides to denigrate speculative fiction, and I wonder why? What's the point? Why not write what you want to write, and let others write what they want to write?

While I put The Buried Giant on my TBR list when I first heard about it, I was less enthusiastic about reading it when the whole genre debate got thrown into the mix--I love to read anything with any kind of mythic or speculative qualities, and I don't like to see those qualities deemed "bad fiction"--but your review Leah makes me enthusiastic to read it once more. Good stories are definitely good stories, regardless of category!

I read the original article as well, and all the criticism seems to be a bit out of proportion to what was said.

IMO Ishiguro wasn't insulting sci fi and fantasy so much as acknowledging that a decent chunk of his normal audience won't even give it a chance - and that's a valid concern in my mind. I've lost count of the number of reviews I've seen of more literary type fiction with fantasy elements who quit once the fantasy elements get started.


I kinda like genre labels - as long as you realize that many books fit into multiple genres to different degrees and not all books from the same genre are going to be similar. But it's a good starting point to know what to expect in a book.

Margaret wrote: "I feel like I read an article a month where a realism writer decides to denigrate speculative fiction, and I wonder why? What's the point? Why not write what you want to write, and let others write what they want to write?"

Margaret, I agree a gazillion percent! In art of any form so much of the experience is subjective anyway.

Melanti wrote: "I read the original article as well, and all the criticism seems to be a bit out of proportion to what was said."

Melanti, I thought the same thing, and I was reminded that if others are looking for something to criticize, they'll always find it.

As for genres, labels, etc. I guess they're not "bad" by nature. It's just how some people use what is essentially content categories to denote quality and/or use labels to disparage writers/works within certain categories.

For example, someone who won't read Literary because that means pretentious and boring. Or, someone who won't read Fantasy because they see all fantasy as empty entertainment. Or people who read nothing but Literary because they think that makes them smarter than the people who read only Graphic Novels. Or (and I hear this a lot from adults and kids) people who won't even attempt "Classic" or "Literary" books because they don't think themselves smart enough to read within those genres.

And those are just the easy mainstream genres. I wonder the true effect of labels such as "Feminist Fiction" or "LGBTQ"? Do labels truly help a book find its audience? Or do they merely ensure people already willing to read certain content, read it, and others who might not even know they're open to read such content, never do? Everyone herded into their conveniently labeled pens. How do you coax a reader to cross genre lines?

Anything that might stop someone from reading a book really makes me anxious. While many of us use genres like they were probably intended, I wonder how many other people would pick up a "Classic, Literary, Fantasy" if it simply had a different label attached?

I don't want to hijack our "currently reading" thread, but those are open-ended questions I ask myself quite often and the debate over Ishiguro's comment about The Buried Giant just brought it all to the surface again.

I can see it both ways, though.

I know that I don't like Christian Fiction, in general, so if I see that in the genre list, or if I see a book has been published by a publisher that generally caters to the Christian market, that's a book I'll avoid.

Or, since I'm not into overt romances, I won't read anything published by Harlequin or any of its subsidiaries - including its Fantasy imprints (Luna and Mira). I'll even pass on authors entirely if I know the majority of their work is through one of these publishers even if the particular book I'm looking at isn't.

And I guess if I can actively avoid Christian fic, Harlequin romances, poetry and post-modern stuff, then I can't really gripe too much when other people avoid the books that I enjoy. It's all entertainment, anyway, so as long as no one is actively insulting another's choices, then who cares what you choose to entertain yourself with?

There's just so many books I want to read in my lifetime that I'm not going to waste my time reading stuff that there's a good chance I'll dislike unless I get a REALLY REALLY enthusiastic rec from a friend with good taste, or if I've had previous experience with an author.

As far as how to get people to branch out?

Books like Ishiguro's book is a good starting point, since he already has a huge non-genre fan base that might give it a try. Things that reside in the grey areas between genres also work...

Great reviews work, too. I was persuaded to read Gone With the Wind despite its romance reputation because of a review from a sci-fi fan that compared it to a post-apocalyptic novel and I ended up loving it.

One of my jobs is at a bookstore, and there's often debate about where a book should be shelved. I understand the need to have a place for a book. If you walk into a bookstore with millions of books, you need some kind of categorization! But sometimes books can't be categorized--The Golem and the Jinni is a good example. Right now, my bookstore shelves it in General Fiction, but it could certainly be shelved in Fantasy or Modern Lit. I think I mind less this kind of categorization, even though some books might be lost in the mix, but it's when critics or authors say one genre is better than another, or when publishers force writers to target a certain audience, that I think there's a problem. I also think it's important to branch out--I try to read across a lot of genres--but like Melanti I always avoid Christian Fiction and those historical romances with the bodice ripping covers.

And genre labeling does influence things, even when you do try to read across genres. I honestly think the reason why Pratchett was never nominated for the Booker or the Nobel wasn't the fact that he claimed to write books that weren't literature, but because people on those committess by and large didn't see fantasy (or something labelled as fantasy) as literature. I mean, Nation, best book ever about belief or lack there of.

And I think of Robert Elmer whose Wildflowers of Terzin I asbolutely love, even though it is Christian fiction (it is published by a Christian press, and there is a bit about God, but it's not preachy at all). I can say that the only reason I read it was it was offered free on Amazon.

'Literature' award committees seem a lot more genre biased than genre awards. It was only a few years ago, after a petition started by Kate Bernheimer, that the National Book Award deleted their stipulation that no books inspired by fairy tales or myths could be considered for the award. And while books marketed by non-genre presses get nominated for the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards all the time--like The Golem and the Jinni, and probably, well deserved, Station Eleven--you never see any books published by TOR or Del Rey nominated for the Booker or Nobel!

I've actually heard several author interviews where the authors said they intentionally tried to find a non-genre press for their genre novel because they didn't want to be labeled.

I haven't read Nation yet! After reading A Slip of the Keyboard: Collected Non-Fiction I really want to. I'll have to see if my library has it.

Genre labelling has both pros and cons. I agree with Melanti that it can be a good way to avoid literature that you absolutely don't want to read. At the same time it can be limiting. Many of my favorites don't fit in an exact catagory.
Some examples would be:
Charles de Lint is often labelled Urban Fantasy. He's often credited as being one of the first in the genre, but the idea of Urban Fantasy has changed since the 80s and many people who are expecting something like the Dresden Files might not like De Lint at all. De Lint himself prefers to call what he does Mythic fiction.
However if you have a look at Terri Wendlings Mythic fiction list there is a wide variety of literature on it with many books in it that would be categorized as Magical Realism, for example another favourite of mine, Isabel Allende. Her works often get labeled as Magical Realism and while that's true for House of the Spirits ( there's a ghost and a girl with green hair) many of her works are fairly realistic.
Often works from authors from Latin America automatically get labeled as Magical Realism and as it was mentioned in the bookstore scene in Sacred Wilderness, the same for First Nation Authors.
Then there is Rudolfo Anaya who wrote Bless me Ultima before the term Magical Realism was commonly known. Many of his books do fit the description and his crime thriller Sonny Baca series could fit both MR and Urban Fantasy, but the only place you'll find Anaya's books are in the Chicano-Mexican American Studies section!

Oh and I forgot to ask, does anyone want to buddy read The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse?

Jalilah wrote: "Oh and I forgot to ask, does anyone want to buddy read The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse?"

I was going to read Love Medicine by her after I finish Nation. Last Report sounds good too, but I already own Love Medicine and I'm trying to make a dent in the books I have but haven't read yet!

After The Girl Who Married the Moon: Tales from Native North America I read a historical novel Granada: Trilogia about a family living in Granda at the time of the Christian takeover late 1400s. It's the first part of a trilogy and the other two books have not been translated into English yet, too bad for me! Feeling like staying in Moorish Spain, I started a non fiction book about the era, The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews, and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain
and also read the delightful stories in Mermaids and Medicine Women: Native Myths and Legends.

My inter- library loan of Bird Girl & the Man Who Followed the Sun: An Athabaskan Indian Legend from Alaska has finally arrived!

Well I'm still pretty bummed I could only get 1 of 3 Apr/May group reads. I did read The Girl Who Married the Moon and loved it (shared my thoughts here). So I went ahead and borrowed its companion Flying with the Eagle, Racing the Great Bear which I plan to read in a couple weeks along with the one group read I could get (Bird Girl & the Man Who Followed the Sun) and a collection of Trickster tales.

I also recently read and really enjoyed:

- The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom which cracked me up several times as well as impressed me with how it flipped the retellings to the princes' perspectives and did so without disempowering the princesses. I think my nieces and nephew would love this series!

- UnEnchanted which, as I mentioned in my review, felt like a fun mash-up of / influenced by Inkheart, The Sisters Grimm and the Once Upon a Time TV series.

In an effort to break up my fairy tale / fantasy / myths type reading spree (and relax after the U.S. tax deadline), today I'm starting The Girl on the Train which is being publicized as the Gone Girl of 2015. Every once in a while I hop on the bandwagon to see if the hype is deserved. ;) I requested a copy back on January 15th and did not get it until April 8th. There was something like 2,000 people in line.

Leah wrote: " The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom which cracked me up several times as well as impressed me with how it flipped the retellings to the princes' perspectives and did so without disempowering the princesses. ..."

I agree! The whole trilogy is a lot of fun.

Let's see... I recently read Karen Armstrong's bio Buddha and enjoyed it- it was really interesting. So thanks, Margret, for pointing me in that direction!

I also read How a Mother Weaned Her Girl from Fairy Tales: and Other Stories, which I'm kind of torn about. It's really well written, but VERY short. It's only 150ish pages to begin with, but it's printed by a small press and for some reason they decided to only print one paragraph per page. They didn't do anything creative with all the blank space - no arranging of text, no extra pictures or doodles, nada. A slightly larger font size than normal, but that's it.

So it ends up feeling like they were just padding out the book to make it seem longer... If it'd been formatted normally, the collection would only be 50-75 pages long at most.

There's 9 stories, and 7 of them are 10-15 pages long - so that means 10-15 paragraphs long - and some of the paragraphs are only a single sentence!

Just finished Michael Crichton's Next. Meh. I liked the central theme of the book but it could have been executed. Too many characters, too frenetic, too heavy-handed. Although the idea of (view spoiler)[a bounty hunter after the cells in your own body as stolen property (hide spoiler)] is pretty striking.

Yesterday I finished Bird Girl & the Man Who Followed the Sun: An Athabaskan Indian Legend from Alaska (I gave it 4 stars) and started Manitous: The Spiritual World Of The Ojibway by Basil Johnston.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who is seriously interested in First Nations Mythology. I recognized some names that I've read about it in De Lint novels!

Melanti wrote: "Leah wrote: " The Hero's Guide to Saving Your Kingdom which cracked me up several times as well as impressed me with how it flipped the retellings to the princes' perspectives and did so without di..."

Kate Bernheimer's Horse, Flower, Bird is similar. It is a collection of short stories, and each short story is broken up into very brief chapters--most of them only a paragraph or less per page. I had the impression this was done to emphasis the absurdity of the tales, but since these were little bits that made up a larger short story it might work better. I also knew they were going to be like that, so I wasn't taken aback by the brevity.

Bernheimer tries to emphasize the absurdity of fairy tales in her retellings rather than trying to have them make sense. It's a bit jarring, and sometimes I like it and sometimes I don't. I felt that way when I read her Complete Tales trilogy--I liked them, but at the same time I didn't.

Just started Fairy Tale and Film: Old Tales with a New Spin. Very interesting.

Michele wrote: "Just started Fairy Tale and Film: Old Tales with a New Spin. Very interesting."

Looks interesting!

Margaret wrote: "Kate Bernheimer's Horse, Flower, Bird is similar. It is a collection of short stories, and each short story is broken up into very brief chapters--most of them only a paragraph or less per page..."

Added - thank you! *sigh* It looks like I'll be breaking my promise to myself NOT to borrow anything else (except for group reads) from the library until I read at least 10 of my owned books. :D

Michele wrote: "Just started Fairy Tale and Film: Old Tales with a New Spin. Very interesting."

Michele, are you reading that on Kindle? I can't seem to find a copy of hardcover cheaper than $50.

Leah wrote: "Michele, are you reading that on Kindle? I can't seem to find a copy of hardcover cheaper than $50..."

Library copy therefore free :) If your library doesn't have it, ask about interlibrary loan (also free!).

Leah wrote: "Michele wrote: "Just started Fairy Tale and Film: Old Tales with a New Spin. Very interesting."

Michele, are you reading that on Kindle? I can't seem to find a copy of hardcover cheaper than $50. ..."

Wow. That's an absurdly expensive book!

Margaret wrote: "I felt that way when I read her Complete Tales trilogy--I liked them, but at the same time I didn't. .."
I've picked up the Ketzia Gold book a couple of times but have only read a page or so. I just wasn't in the mood for that style of writing at the time.


I've started reading The Red Magician by Lisa Goldstein which is a historical fiction about a Jewish family leading up to WWII. According to a couple of my friend's reviews, it incorporates the Wandering Jew figure and, to a lesser extent, the golem. I'm not too far into it yet but it's good so far.

Melanti wrote: "Wow. That's an absurdly expensive book!"

Scholarly works often are. Very small sales numbers so they have to keep the price up to recoup costs. This is why interlibrary loan is so awesome :)

Michele wrote: "Scholarly works often are. Very small sales numbers so they have to keep the price up to recoup costs. This is why interlibrary loan is so awesome"

Agreed! Now I have to decide between splurging on Fairy Tale and Film or on this compilation by Ruth Sanderson. Decisions, decisions.

Michele wrote: "Melanti wrote: "Wow. That's an absurdly expensive book!"

Scholarly works often are. Very small sales numbers so they have to keep the price up to recoup costs. This is why interlibrary loan is s..."

Well, yes. But usually they're in the $40-$50 range, not in the $80-$90 range. I can't get this one through ILL. IT looks like it's mostly University libraries that have it (according to WorldCat) and they don't generally participate in the normal ILL programs (at least, not here in Texas).

Melanti wrote: "I can't get this one through ILL. IT looks like it's mostly University libraries that have it (according to WorldCat) and they don't generally participate in the normal ILL programs (at least, not here in Texas)..."

That's too bad :( I don't know if it helps, but WorldCat says SMU, TCU, Texas A&M, and Texas Tech have copies. If you have a university in your town, a lot of times you can get a guest borrower card?

Worldcat also says there is an ebook version http://www.worldcat.org/title/fairy-t...

Michele wrote: "If you have a university in your town, a lot of times you can get a guest borrower card? Good luck! ..."

Nope, the closest one to me that you've mentioned is still 100 miles away. But I appreciate the thought!

One local university is pretty easy to borrow from - you just have to have a statewide library card which is easy to get. The other local university charges $100/year for borrowing privileges - so if they're the only ones that have something, I just go there and read it at the library - works fine if it's a shorter book you can read in a few hours. (That's how I read Mermaids & Medicine Women this month.)

There's 3 or 4 more small universities here in town, but I don't think I've ever seen them in World Cat. I'm not sure if that's because they don't share records or if they just don't have big catalogs. Either is possible.

Oh well. It's a pretty recent publication, so there's still hope of some other library buying a copy at some point. And since I probably have't seen most of the films it cites, I'm nto sure I'd get that much out of it anyway - though it does sound interesting.

Leah wrote: "Michele wrote: "Scholarly works often are. Very small sales numbers so they have to keep the price up to recoup costs. This is why interlibrary loan is so awesome"

Agreed! Now I have to decide b..."

Wow, that Ruth Sanderson book just went promptly on to my wishlist. I grew up on her fairy tales -- LOVED her illustrations.

Lacey wrote: "Wow, that Ruth Sanderson book just went promptly on to my wishlist. I grew up on her fairy tales -- LOVED her illustrations."

Lacey, I have you to thank (or blame lol, depending on one's POV) for reminding me about Ruth Sanderson, and my finding that compilation of hers. It all started when I saw your review of A Castle Full of Cats then discovered that she illustrated one of my favorite books from when I was a little girl, The Store-Bought Doll. So thank you! :)

Leah wrote: "Lacey wrote: "Wow, that Ruth Sanderson book just went promptly on to my wishlist. I grew up on her fairy tales -- LOVED her illustrations."

Lacey, I have you to thank (or blame lol, depending on o..."

Oh gosh, I had "The Store Bought Doll," too, and never realized she illustrated it. My favorite was her illustration of "The 12 Dancing Princesses," which I read when I was a little older -- old enough to remember the names of illustrators. How cool that she also illustrated a story I loved as a very little girl. Makes me want the compilation even more. :)

For the last few weeks, I've been poking away at Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States which were collected by Zora Neale Hurston.

I'm not sure exactly what I was expecting, but not this!

It's a mix of everything from folktales to retellings of HCA's Little Claus and Big Claus (where Little Claus is the slave and Big Claus is the plantation owner) to one-liners and a good chunk of them have to do with race relations or slavery. Some stories play up the racial stereotypes of the era and others use them against the other characters.

There's a TON of very dark humor in them. Like this:
"In Mississippi a black horse run away with a white lady. When they caught the horse they lynched him, and they hung the harness and burnt the buggy."

Awful and horrible when you take into account the history of the era, but morbidly amusing.

Melanti wrote: "For the last few weeks, I've been poking away at Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States which were collected by Zora Neale Hurston.

I'm not sure exactly wh..."
It actually sounds quite interesting.
I just looked the autor, Zora Neale Hurston, was a folklorist as well as an author. I'd never read about her before.

I've been reading The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse.

Jalilah wrote: "It actually sounds quite interesting.
I just looked the autor, Zora Neale Hurston, was a folklorist as well as an author. I'd never read about her before. ..."

It is interesting - though I can only read it in small doses. It's a great book to use to fill in extra minutes of my day since most of the stories are only a page or two long.

She's most famous for her Their Eyes Were Watching God but, yes, she had an anthropology degree and actually wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God while she was in Haiti doing some work as a folklorist. The intro talks a little about her folkloric work. She's a very interesting woman!

I've got The Last Report... sitting here on the shelf beside me. I just need to make the time to read it!

Melanti wrote: "Jalilah wrote: "It actually sounds quite interesting.
I just looked the autor, Zora Neale Hurston, was a folklorist as well as an author. I'd never read about her before. ..."

It is interesting - ..."

Their Eyes Were Watching God is now on my to read list!

I hope you enjoy The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. I really loved it!

I was reading Manitous: The Spiritual World Of The Ojibway at the same time as The Last Report and found them very complimentary. Because Louise Erdrich makes many referances to Ojebwe legends, without a lot of explainations, many of my questions were answered in Basil Johnston book. ( he's also the author of Mermaids and Medicine Women: Native Myths and Legends).
At the moment I feel like I could read First Nations-Native American themed books, both legends and novels, indefinitely. In Particular I'd like to read more books by Louise Erdrich and Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival.

For now I have 2 books that I got though inter-library loans, meaning I can't extend them, so I probably won't be able to read both.
One is Zel and the other is The Priest Fainted: A Novel, both due in a few days so I have to decide which one!

Jalilah wrote: "Their Eyes Were Watching God is now on my to read list!

I hope you enjoy The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. I really loved it! ..."
I hope you like it!

I just finished up Journey to the End of the Night and My Real Children. LOVED My Real Children, but wasn't a huge fan of Journey to the End of the Night. So now I just have to finish The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (a group read for LAST month and I'm a bit behind) then I can get started on the Erdrich book.


Oh, I forgot to mention! I found another good Donkeyskin/Allerleirauh retelling. Pelzmantel and Other Tales of Medieval Magic

The Allerleirauh portion was actually about 90% of the book. The "and other stories" was about 5%, and the last 5% was an essay on how magic was seen in the medieval era. I really enjoyed this version. Not as much as I enjoyed Deerskin, of course, but it was lovely. I liked that the princess wasn't just fleeing FROM her father, but was fleeing TO the neighboring kingdom specifically to get help.

(Shame on me, I need to write a good review for this one - especially since it's from an indie publisher with almost no reviews yet!)

Melanti wrote: "Jalilah wrote: "Their Eyes Were Watching God is now on my to read list!
I hope you enjoy The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse. I really loved it! ..."
I hope you like it! I just ..."

I know how it is! Louis-Ferdinand Céline is one of those authors I always felt like I should read and should like, but I couldn't get into him at all!
Did not know that Jo Walton had a new book out! I loved Among Others, so I'll have to read this one!
Pelzmantel and Other Tales of Magic looks good too.

I've been reading The Priest Fainted: A Novel by Catherine Temma Davidson and really enjoying it. It was the Endicott Fiction Group group read for last month. I'd skipped a lot of their recent group reads, but am really happy I decided to try this one.

Jalilah wrote: "Did not know that Jo Walton had a new book out! I loved Among Others, so I'll have to read this one! ..."

It's closer to her other alternate histories like Farthing than it is to Among Others, but I hope you like it anyway.

Celine was ... interesting? Academically, at least. I like knowing where and how various literary trends start. But I'll most likely never read another one by him. Just not my thing.

Jalilah wrote: "I've been reading The Priest Fainted: A Novel by Catherine Temma Davidson and really enjoying it. ..."

Unfortunately, my library doesn't have that one either. That's been happening a lot lately. My wonderful library is slacking off!

Melanti wrote: "Jalilah wrote: "Did not know that Jo Walton had a new book out! I loved Among Others, so I'll have to read this one! ..."

It's closer to her other alternate histories like Farthing t..."

I had to order The Priest Fainted: A Novel as an inter-library loan. Unfortunately the Endicot list really does have a lot of books on it that are not widely read and therefore difficult to find!

A few days ago I finished Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances by Neil Gaiman, which I really liked.

I also enjoyed Emma: A Modern Retelling by Alexander McCall Smith. He updates Jane Austen's story and characters into the present.

I'm currently reading Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson.

After reading The Last Report on the Miracles at Little No Horse I was in the mood for more by Louise Erdrich. So when I was at the library picking up my copy of our May/June group read, Bound there just happened to be a copy of The Round House and I could not resist checking it out as well.
I am absolutely loving it. I feel like I could just go on forever reading Erdrich's books! I am almost finished so will start the Endicot group read The Cure For Death By Lightning. It's going to be hard to read anything after Round House. I was hoping I could read a few of the tales from Italian Folktales Italo Calvino but it has not arrived yet.

I'm so happy you are enjoying Louise Erdrich's books, Jalilah! She is one of my favorites too.

The Golem and the Jinni and The Last Report On The Miracles At Little No Horse are still my current reads. Both are wonderful, I've just been short on free time. I often sort through suggestions here for more TBRs, Italo Calvino is on that list!

I'm currently reading . It has been on my TBR for six or seven years now and I think it's the perfect time to tackle it. It's pouring rain here; there is nothing better than a good fantasy on a rainy day :)

I've just started Bound for the group read, and it's good so far. I'm also about 40 tales into Italian Folktales and I can already tell it will be one of my favorite collections of folktales. So many good ones.

I'm also voting for the Hugo awards this year--my first year as a voting member--so I'm reading The Goblin Emperor for that, and it's excellent! It's about a half goblin, half elf becoming emperor of the elves, and combines political intrigue with class, race, and gender issues in a really fun way. It's hard to put down.

I'm definitely going to return to more Native American fiction when I finish reading for the hugos. I have several novels on my bookshelves that want to be read!

I finally finished up Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States today, so hopefully now I can dedicate those spare free minutes to Italian Folktales.

I also read Thorn by Intisar Khanani, which is a retelling of "The Goose Girl". I really enjoyed this! It's a little dark and it's got hints of a Middle Eastern (or possibly Indian/Asian?) flavor here and there. Overall, it's very well-written and does excellent justice to the original tale.

Thank you, Aya, for mentioning it! I never would have heard of it otherwise!

Jalilah wrote: "I started The Cure For Death By Lightning and am really liking it! It's the current read for the Endicott group. I know some of you in this group are also in it. I can highly recommend this book. ..."

Sigh. Once again my library doesn't have it!

Margaret wrote: "I'm also voting for the Hugo awards this year--my first year as a voting member..."

Some years I've been tempted to buy a vote just so I can get the voting packet! But this year, the only one I really want to read is The Goblin Emperor so it's not cost effective. I'm glad to hear you're liking it too. It seems everyone's been enjoying that book the last few months.

Melanti wrote: "Some years I've been tempted to buy a vote just so I can get the voting packet! But this year, the only one I really want to read is The Goblin Emperor so it's not cost effective. I'm glad to hear you're liking it too. It seems everyone's been enjoying that book the last few months. ."

With the voting packet, I think it's worth it. I also wanted to read The Three-Body Problem. I'll probably continue doing it.

Melanti wrote: " so hopefully now I can dedicate those spare free minutes to [book:Italian Folktales|9807..."I also read Thorn by Intisar Khanani, which is a retelling of "The Goose Girl". I really enjoyed this! It's a little dark and it's got hints of a Middle Eastern (or possibly Indian/Asian?) flavor here and there. Overall, it's very well-written and does excellent justice to the original tale."

I can't believe that my copy of Italian Folktales still has not arrived from the library! I ordered it as soon as it was apparent that it was going to win and there were no other hold! Sometimes that means the book is lost. I hope not!

I am curious by Thorn, but not sure if it's too much straight fantasy for my taste. I usually prefer either the original tales or fiction that's based in our world with the myths or tales incorporated in them. That's probably why I usually end up loving the books on the Endicot Mythic fiction list for that reason.