The Next Best Book Club discussion

I just finished a great book, Hook and Jill by Andrea Jones, which is a retelling of the tale of Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie and it got me thinking, what other retellings or sequels to great classics would be good to read?

Some other examples of what I am looking for is Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire which is a retelling of Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum and The Third Jungle Book by Pamela Jekel which is a sequel to The Jungle Books byRudyard Kipling

What other books like these, retellings or extensions of the tales told by the original authors but written by someone else, would you suggest?

I recently read The Independence of Miss Mary Bennet: A Novel by Colleen McCullough. McC happens to be one of my favorite authors anyway, but I loved what she did with the characters Austen created.

I really loved The Mists of Avalon, Arthurian legend from the women's point of view.

And there's a GR list with tons of them that you might find interesting. I have my eye on a few of them to try out. http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/96...

I am currently reading Rhett Butler's People by Donald McCaig, which goes along with Gone With the Wind.

I am looking for a Canadian author who writes about Knights of the round table and the King Arthur legend in a unique style as though it was actual recorded history. Read him years ago and cannot remember his name or the novels. I only remember he was Canadian. Ring a bell?

j

Maybe Jack Whyte's The Skystone?

BINGO! Thanks. The best perspective on the Arthurian legend I've read. Very well written, smooth style that keeps the story moving. No matter how many versions one's read, Whyte's is hard to put down.
Now if I can find him in eBook. Ordering hard copy books is not practical where I live. What you call pony express, here is called fed express.

Thanks.. another reason to be on goodreads.

j

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No luck. Published before eBooks were even heard of. oh well, maybe I can contact him and convince to put it on bookbuzz'r.

Cute! There's a task called Deja Vu for the Seasonal Reading Challenge. We've posted a ton of recommendations!

Many you wouldn't have expected to have "sequels".

http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/2...

Bernard Cornwell wrote a trilogy that had a unique approach to the Arthurian legend as well; the name of the trilogy escapes me at the moment (edit: okay, apparently his official website lists it as "the Arthur books" but I could've sworn it had a specific title) but the books in it were The Winter King, Enemy of God and Excalibur.

John Connelly's The Book of Lost Things was another book that came to mind when I read this post; it retells a number of fairy tales in a very intriguing way =)

Scarlett by Alexandra Ripley is the sequel to Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell. I haven't read it though, I thought the original ending was perfect.