The Lunar Chronicles: A YA Fantasy Series Worth Reading

I had first heard about Marissa Meyer’s series through a former colleague. My colleague said to me (and this is actually true) that Meyer got her start through a writing contest. I think that it’s great that Meyer went from winning a writing contest to being a best-selling author.

This series is what I’d call fairy tales with a science fiction twist. The first book, Cinder, is about a girl named Cinder who is what I’d technically call a mechanic even though she doesn’t fix cars—she’s a cyborg. She ends up doing work for Kai, the prince of New Beijing. She tries to warn him about the evil plan from the series’ main villain Lunar Queen Levana’s to start a war with Earth. Cinder, whether she wants to admit it or not, ends up developing feelings for Prince Kai in the process, despite her not telling Kai that she’s a cyborg.

In the second book, Scarlet, the title character is on a journey to find her grandmother when she crosses paths with Cinder, who’s trying to escape from prison.

In the third novel, Cress, Cinder and her crew need help from Cress, an expert hacker working for the bad guys against her own will. Cinder wants Cress to help her try to stop something catastrophic from occurring. I won’t give you any spoilers—just know that it’s not good.

What I like about this series is that even though each book centers around a different character, they’re all connected. The next book in the series, Winter, comes out on November 10th. In the meantime all of the previous novels are available in our catalog as well as Fairest, which is Meyer’s prequel novel about Queen Levana.

Happy reading!

~Kayla

Into the Woods We Go Again

I’m gearing up to see the Hollywood adaptation of Stephen Sondheim’s Into the Woods. I’m excited for this. I like musicals. I like that one in particular, ever since my college theater troupe put it on while I was living with half the cast. And even though I know they’ve made changes (they even announced a lot of the changes being made, unusual for Hollywood), I’m still going to enjoy it. I like a good fairy tale with a twist.

Given that this isn’t a movie I’m likely to see with a dozen friends in costume at midnight (ahem, Harry Potter, ahem, The Avengers, ahem, my friends are really nerdy), what does it mean to gear up to see a movie? For me, it’s all about those fairy tales. Because Into the Woods involves an array of fairy tale characters, with a few original inventions to move the story along, I’ve been focusing on just one—Cinderella. Sondheim’s Cinderella follows the Grimm version of the tale rather than the familiar Perrault/Disney, so she is aided by forest creatures and the spirit of her dead mother inhabiting a hazel tree rather than a fairy godmother. This Cinderella is more self-aware than most—even after catching the attention of the prince, she recognizes that escaping her life of drudgery by attaching her fate to a complete stranger won’t necessarily lead to a happily-ever-after ending.

The classic cover of Ella Enchanted, before the movie release went and spoiled everything.

Some of my favorite stories are these clever Cinderellas who direct their own lives. First and highest on my list is the children’s novel Ella Enchanted, by Gail Carson Levine. The character list is what you’d expect—Ella, dead mother, unattractive stepfamily, fairy godmother, charming prince. But Ella isn’t just a comfort-to-rags-to-riches girl. She has a knack for foreign languages, a sense of humor, and a tendency to trip over her own feet. Her prince is not a distant stranger, but a confidante and pen pal. The story elapses over years, allowing for real character development. As the title implies, Ella has been under a spell since birth, and her great moral struggle comes from understanding and fighting this spell. If you want a fast read with fairies, friendship, and banister-sliding, I’d recommend picking this up.*

A rear view of Danielle in her ball gown, with massive fairy wings.

The second recommendation is the film Ever After, starring Drew Barrymore. Our heroine is Danielle, living in an entirely non-magical 16^th century France. She reads Thomas More and befriends Leonardo da Vinci. She is aggressive, crafty, and—like Ella—a defender of the weak and disenfranchised. The prince is an elitist, burdened by the demands of his station. The stepmother (played by Anjelica Huston) is conniving and self-serving, and gets some great dialogue. As a costume drama lacking in fight scenes and special effects, the movie ages well.

The final recommendation is Marissa Meyer’s Cinder. It’s more of a soft science fiction story than the usual fantasy, and our eponymous leading lady is actually a cyborg, who leaves an entire prosthetic leg behind at the prince’s ball. The setting is New Beijing, in a world with android servants, mysterious plagues, and hostile alien forces. Linh Cinder was adopted as a child after a hovercraft accident destroyed two of her limbs and all memories of her birth family. She works as a mechanic for hire, enslaved by her adoptive family and the limited rights granted to cyborgs. She is independent, sarcastic, and dreams of freedom rather than love. Cinder is actually the first book in an in-progress series, currently including Scarlet (Red Riding Hood) and Cress (Rapunzel), with Fairest due out next month.

Cinder and the first two sequels, with references to the classic tales on which they are based.

If you’re interested in more non-traditional Cinderella stories, here are some worth looking up:

Just Ella by Margaret Peterson Haddix, a children’s novel exploring life in the aftermath of the ball

Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister by Gregory Maguire gives us a kind stepfamily to a bratty girl who chooses the kitchen hearth, set in Holland during the tulip craze

Ash by Malinda Lo is a dark teen romance with a servant girl torn between the powerful magic she’s dreamed of saving her and the real world friendship/romance that allows her true freedom

Bella at Midnight is another teen adventure, with prince as childhood friend and heroine who refuses to be a damsel in distress

Fables is a graphic series wherein the stars of fairy tales are exiled from their magical world into modern day New York City, full of espionage, intrigue, and well-developed female characters.

Once Upon a Time is a television series with a suspiciously similar premise to Fables. Now in the middle of its fourth season, it borrows from not only the “Disney Princess” canon but also Mark Twain, L. Frank Baum, Lewis Carroll, and Mary Shelley.

*I don’t recommend the film version of Ella Enchanted, however. The plot has been changed enough to be almost unrecognizable, and it lacks most of the charm of the original.

– Bonnie T.

Outside Activities

I wasn’t very good at summer as a kid. I have fair Irish skin (I have ALL of the freckles and wear SPF 50 sunblock marketed to babies). Getting dirty was not my idea of a good time. My neighborhood was the typical super hilly affair found all over our region, so riding bikes was more of a chore than fun. My idea of playing outside was reading on the back porch. I was outdoors, what more did those people want?

An accurate depiction of my childhood. Photo via Historic Pittsburgh.

Little has changed. You’re very surprised, I’m sure. Here’s a few of the books that will be keeping me company on the back porch for the rest of the summer:

Girls at the Kingfisher Club – A spin on the Twelve Dancing Princesses tale, set in Jazz-Age Manhattan. Need I say more?

We Were Liars – This is a pick from my book club, but I’m excited to dive into E. Lockhart‘s new one (I really loved The Disreputable History of Frankie Laundau Banks). Two generations of families who vacation together. A mysterious accident. Supposedly a doozy of an ending. I can’t wait.

Hidden – What happens when the wife and the “work wife” finally meet? In the hands of Catherine McKenzie, I’m sure it’ll be good.

Sous Chef: 24 Hours on the Line – My non-fiction selection. I like being able to peek behind the curtain and check out jobs I’ll never hold. Chef in a fancy restaurant is certainly one.

– Jess

 

Snow White, Master Swordswoman?!

Happy National Library Week 2014! Help us celebrate by visiting any Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh location this week to tell us about the books that changed your life.

Like most any kid, Disney animated films figured hugely into my childhood. My favorite one changed, depending on which villain scared my little brother more at the time. For a while I’d demand we watch The Little Mermaid over and over until, I guess, sheer exposure desensitized him to the terror of Ursula. Then I moved on to torturing him with Beauty and the Beast. When I was feeling magnanimous, we watched The Lion King, which we both enjoyed.

One Disney movie neither of us could get into, either to enjoy or be scared of, was Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. We thought it was boring. And that the songs were meh. And maybe that the dwarfs were a little creepy.

So in high school, when I discovered Bill Willingham’s comic Fables, the story of basically every fairy tale character you’ve ever heard of living undercover in modern Manhattan, the character of Snow White did not interest me. I wanted to know more about Bigby Wolf, the chain-smoking, trenchcoat-wearing sheriff of Fabletown, who in his previous life went by the Big Bad Wolf and can transform into wolf form any time the situation calls for it.

Willingham’s portrayal of this fairy tale princess drew me in, though. Snow is the deputy mayor of Fabletown, the neighborhood of Manhattan the “Fables” created for themselves when they fled their homelands in front of an invading army led by a tyrant dictator known only as the Adversary. When we meet her, she’s already divorced Prince Charming for being a womanizer and all around terrible husband, and she just might be attracted to Bigby.

And then you find out that those dwarfs were definitely NOT helping Snow when she was lost in the woods, and that she forced Prince Charming to teach her sword fighting shortly after they got married so she could enact her revenge. She does so. Bloodily.

The latest trade paperback volume to come out, volume nineteen, is aptly titled Snow White and highlights all of this character’s strengths: She’s intelligent, she’s a fierce mother, she’s a loyal and loving wife, and she keeps those physical fighting skills sharp in order to protect her family.

But most of all, she is willing to make hard choices. In this volume, characters who are physically much stronger than Snow fail, and it is she who must save the day, using not only her master sword fighting skills, but her wit and strength of will.

No meek, pale princess, this, but a modern warrior woman.

Snow White has gotten makeovers in other media as well. In ABC’s Once Upon A Time, the fairy tale characters don’t know who they are because of a curse. In this version, pre-curse Snow White is a wiley woods woman who would do anything for true love. Her cursed alter ego Mary Margaret, though, does start out rather meek.

Mary Margaret doesn’t stay meek for long. Even before she recovers her memories, and therefore her true identity, she begins to stand up for herself and the things she wants. When her daughter Emma breaks the curse and Mary Margaret recovers her memory, her ferocity comes out full force.

Although I can’t help but look at the similarities between Once Upon A Time and Fables and think, a little possessively, “Fables did this first!” (I have been reading this series for ten years, so I’m just a little bit attached), I’m exceedingly glad that Disney’s version of Snow White is no longer the only visible version in our culture.

Excellent, woman-empowering retellings of Snow White and other fairy tales give us role models we can look up to, examples we can hope to follow. Willingham’s Snow and ABC’s Mary Margaret are much closer to real women than their fairy tale princess counterparts; they just have a few extra powers. But they have problems, they make decisions, they take actions, and they deal with the consequences themselves instead of always relying on others to protect them.

And when the situation requires, they pull out their swords and fight.

–Kelly

Fairytales and Footnotes

I get caught up in kids books like some people get caught up in Facebook posts. I get angry and flustered, I sympathize and obsess. It can be intense and I should probably see someone about this issue.  Right now I am stuck on The Sisters’ Grimm. Two young, seemingly orphaned sisters are sent to live with a supposedly dead grandmother they have never met in a town in upstate New York populated by fairy tale characters. If that run-on sentence didn’t pique your interest in these books, I don’t know what would.

Written for elementary school readers, the books cover the basics: introducing new words, handling sibling squabbles, crushes and rivalries. But like the actual Grimm tales they also help readers navigate some of the darker themes we find in humanity; jealousy, feelings of not belonging, fear and even death.

These books got me wondering about the resurgence we have seen of fairytales in general and the Grimm legacy specifically¹. I may or may not have spent an entire two days glued to the tv watching the first season of Grimm, tossing cereal and hot dogs at my starving family. I am patiently waiting (my family not so much) for the library to send me my hold on season two, but now I wanted to know about the actual men.

Some of the biographies and histories I found were a little dated but gave a good understanding of the history of the Grimms, but my favorite has to be Clever  Maids: The Secret History of the Grimm Fairy Tales. Our own cultural understanding of Jacob and Wilhelm, as Clever Maids author Valerie Paradiz points out, is displayed in movies like Ever After and The Brothers Grimm. Two adventurous men roaming the countryside in order to collect folk tales from peasants and commoners.

Turns out, not so much². Most of the brothers’ tales were supplied to them by the friends of their sister and several other women in their own circle of the educated middle class. Many were stories the women had heard as girls, lessons on how to be a good woman and respectful wives, told to them by their elders and household maids and the nannies who raised them³. During a time of war and French occupation the intellectual and learned men of Prussia and the German states were looking to idealize the history of the volk as a way to create a sense of unity.⁴ Many of these stories were collected and transcribed by Jacob and Wilhelm as a tribute to the sensible, pious, hard-working German way of life, regardless of where the stories actually came from. Clever Maids gives us insight to the collection of what we know as Grimm’s Fairytales through their origins and history as well as insight on to the very human trait of needing a shared history. So pick up some books about kid detectives, histories on folktales or a supernatural TV series this week, you might be surprised by what you find!

–Natalie

^{1. At this point I have a whole scatterbrained (My husband’s term for most of my ideas, and yes this is a parenthetical in a footnote, so what?) theory about how the political atmosphere in the collection of German states at the time mirrors our own political atmosphere, a society looking for something to pull us together, yearning for simpler times hoping to influence the future and politics with that national pride…look I said scatterbrained, okay! Why are you reading a footnote in a blog anyway?}

^{2. Believe me this killed the Margaret Mead wanna-be in me. As a student of Anthropology there is nothing I wanted more than to cling to the romantic idea that Jacob and Wilhelm traveled through the black forest, pen and ink bottle in hand, to collect stories from withered widows smoking pipes outside little thatch roofed cottages.}

^{3. Read Clever Maids. Seriously, you suddenly realize how the fairytales you thought you knew had different meaning in a different time and place.}

^{4. I know, right? I would have never guessed that Napoleon had anything to do with Little Red Riding Hood.}

Once Upon A Fairy Tale

To close out our blogging week, say hello to Abbey, our third new team member. Once a month you’ll get Abbey’s perspective on books, reading, libraries, and other pertinent things.

I have what I would call a healthy obsession with fairy tales; I find the ways in which authors interpret traditional tales fascinating. Some rewrites are completely different and some are very similar to the original story. Fairy tales have also always fascinated me because of the purpose for which they were first written. Many were originally written as warnings for the children who heard the stories, but as time has gone on, the fairy tales have more often come to be fun and fantastical tales for children.

While I was wandering around Main library I happened upon the Once Upon a Time series in the Teen section, and I fell in love with the books. Here are some that I particularly enjoyed.

Snow, by Tracy Lynn, which is a retelling of Snow White.

The Diamond Secret, by Suzanne Weyn, which is the story of Anastasia.

The World Above, by Cameron Dokey, which is a retelling of Jack and the Beanstalk.

There are many others in the series, but these three were my favorites. If you like one, though, you could easily like them all!

–Abbey

Best Books N’At: 2012 Edition

Can you handle one more “best of” list this holiday season? We think you can!

The Eleventh Stack tally of favorites differs from other “best” lists in that we don’t limit ourselves to books published in 2012. “New to us” books are welcome on our list because an excellent book doesn’t stop being excellent just because it’s no longer in the public eye (after a certain amount of time has passed, we call those books “classics”). We also don’t limit our format choices, either; while many of us chose to write about books, you will also find movies and music on this list. We can tell from our stats dashboard that you enjoy our music and film reviews as much as you do our literary explorations, so consider their inclusion here a holiday bonus.

Here’s what your favorite lit-savvy pop culture Pittsburgh library mavens appreciated most in 2012:

Aisha

My head turned into a smiley face because I was so happy.

In my music world, the Kills have my body, Wild Flag has my spirit, and Kathleen Edwards has my soul. Kathleen is the only one who put out an album this year (the Kills’ newest, Blood Pressures, came out in 2011; so did Wild Flag’s eponymous album. They were both excellent and I highly recommend them.) Kathleen’s music is in that hard-to-define alt-country-pop-rock world and while Voyageur, her 2012 release, is less alt-country and more pop, but you won’t mistake it for a Katy Perry or Pink album. Even though it’s musically a bit of a departure from her previous albums (Failer, Back to Me, and Asking for Flowers), lyrically, it’s the same Kathleen. She is not one for dancing around an emotion. She writes songs that make you want to jump and yell and curl up on the couch and cry. She divorced in 2011 and many of the songs on Voyageur deal with that in a very honest way that can leave you heartbroken, but also hopeful. She’ll be playing here in February and she’s worth seeing live. I saw her earlier this year (that’s me and her in the photo) and it was one of the best nights of my life.

Picking my favorite book of the year was a tough thing to do because I read a lot of excellent ones. It came down to the graphic novel, Building Stories by Chris Ware and Trail of the Spellmans by Lisa Lutz. In the end, I went with Lisa Lutz (though, please read Building Stories. It made me worry about a bee; that’s how good it is.) Trail of the Spellmans is the fifth in Lutz’s Spellman books so you should read the first four (The Spellman Files, Curse of the Spellmans, Revenge of the Spellmans, The Spellmans Strike Again) before you read this one. The series is about a family of private investigators who sometimes use their investigative skills against each other. What I adore about this series is that while it’s funny, it also has heart. Lutz has created a family who clearly loves each other, but doesn’t always show it in appropriate ways.

Photo source: imdb.com

The movies Netflix usually recommends for me fall into categories like “Critically-acclaimed Quirky Independent Movies” or “Visually-striking Emotional French-Language Movies” or “Understated Comedies” so it might be surprising to them (it?) that my favorite movie of 2012 was Warrior. This came out in 2011, but I saw it this year and cried; for some reason, sports movies reduce me to a sobbing mess. Rudy, Rocky IV, Redbelt, Whip It, and now Warrior. If you haven’t seen it, it’s about two estranged brothers, one a former Marine, the other a schoolteacher, who for differing reasons, take part in a mixed-martial arts tournament and end up battling each other for the top prize. It stars Tom Hardy, Joel Edgerton, and Nick Nolte and is worth your time and Kleenex.

Amy

Kristen Iversen’s memoir, Full Body Burden: Growing up in the Nuclear Shadow of Rocky Flats (also available as a book on CD), is really two stories in one. On a personal level, it’s the tale of a crazy dysfunctional family headed by an alcoholic father that goes through an awful lot of pets (and cars – drunk father even causes an accident that breaks young Kristen’s neck, something she doesn’t learn about until years later). On the nuclear side of things, there’s the history of Rocky Flats, a plant that used to manufacture plutonium triggers for atomic bombs (they somehow managed to lose a few TONS of plutonium in the air ducts and survive a few fires that should have destroyed large portions of Colorado). So yeah, disturbing and illuminating. (If you want to learn more about Rocky Flats, check out the documentary Dark Circle.)

Holly

Frank Ocean is an R&B/Soul genius, who came from seemingly out of nowhere and blew my mind in 2012 with Channel Orange.  His huge, weird, gorgeous, Wizard-of-Oz-referencing single, “Thinkin Bout You” shows vocal range, song-writing talent and the rare ability to bring a tear to Beyonce’s eye.  I think I listened to this song 100 times in a row.  Channel Orange contains many songs worth more than one spin.   “Pink Matter” and “Bad Religion” are also must listens.  And to be fair,  Frank Ocean didn’t really come from out of nowhere, he came from New Orleans by way of Odd Future.  He’s nominated for 6 grammys, so get a hold of the CD now, before he wins them all and the holds list goes through the roof.

Irene

I love fairy tales: not the happily ever after, princesses being saved by princes type, but the darker stories that the Grimm brothers immortalized.  Graham Joyce’s novel Some Kind of Fairy Tale is about a woman who appears on her family’s doorstep twenty years after her mysterious disappearance and appears not to have aged at all in the interim.  Her perplexing explanation– that she was spirited away to fairy land– would seem delusional, but as the story unfolds details emerge that make it hard for even her fiercest critics to continue doubting her.  The story itself is dark and intriguing, and the writing is wonderfully done.

Another book in a similar vein is almost too obvious to mention, but I will anyway because I loved this one too: Philip Pullman’s Fairy Tales From the Brothers Grimm: A New English Version.  I love Pullman, I love the Brothers Grimm, and this book is a great marriage of both.  The simple retellings are gruesome enough to win the Grimm brothers’ approval, and the notes at the end of each tale about its origins are a great addition for those of us who like that kind of thing.

Jess

 Grave Mercy may best be explained as “Alias set in the Middle Ages…”  But instead of the great Sidney Bristow, we have Ismae, an assassin trained at the convent (yes, convent) of Saint Mortain – otherwise known as the god of death. Set in the French duchy of Brittany, Ismae escapes her awful father and even worse arranged marriage after her husband-to-be discovers the red scar across her back, a sign that she had been sired by Saint Mortain himself. She soon finds herself settling in with the sisters of the convent, learning to kill those who have been marked for death by her patron saint. A few training montages and a successful field test later, Ismae is assigned to help the very handsome and very mysterious Gavriel Duval protect his half-sister, the duchess. There’s lots of court intrigue, questions about Ismae’s own beliefs, and ultimately, the future of a kingdom hangs in the balance.

This is a young adult novel that manages to successfully flirt with the notion of being an adult book, especially in how author Robin LaFevers handles the historical aspects. The convent of Saint Mortain was likely based – at least the location – on the Abbaye Blanche, in Mortain, France. She incorporates a number of real people, such as Anne of Brittany and her court, while balancing the myths and legends of these “daughters of Death.” The second book in this series is out in the spring and I can’t wait.

Leigh Anne

I have a teensy–and by “teensy” I mean “massive”–authorcrush on Cheryl Strayed, and I am not ashamed.

It started with Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, which I picked up solely because Oprah chose it for her book club, only to be blown away by talent and surprise. Wild is a sucker-punch to the soul by way of the gut, a wrenching memoir about the excruciating grief of losing a parent, and the hard-fought recovery from that grief, by way of an extremely long walk. Vision quests and pilgrimages have been rites of passage for many cultures for ages, and Strayed shows you how that theme is still relevant to the 21st-century heroine’s journey. Enthusiastically recommended for anyone coping with great loss, or who has survived it (and really, that’s everybody, no?).

Wild certainly could have stood alone as my favorite book of the year, but then I found out that Strayed is also the genius behind Dear Sugar, the internet advice column that reads like Dan Savage and Anne Lamott’s  literary love child. Tiny Beautiful Things, a selective collection of various Dear Sugar columns, is an instruction manual on how to be a fearless, compassionate bad-ass, and is guaranteed to knock you on your behind, then extend a loving hand to pick you back up again. No topic is taboo in Sugar’s world, and her willingness to share her own mistakes and character flaws gives her advice heft and weight: you know you should do what Strayed tells you to do, because she’s not just preaching it–she’s lived it. And yet, her advice is always delivered in such a way that you believe she has your best interests at heart, and really cares about whether or not you succeed. That’s no mean feat; you can’t fake that. After you read the library copy, buy this book. In fact, buy two: one for yourself, and one for somebody you love enough to give the gift of radical honesty.

Maria

Detroit: A Biography, Scott Martelle. As a Motown girl born and bred, I snatched this one right up. I knew it wasn’t going to be pretty, but it was entertaining and enlightening (and still managed to make me feel homesick). From the history of the Motor City as a French trading post to Indian warfare and through the explosive growth of the auto industry to its nasty and tragic race history, this book is the story of a city’s failures, hopes, and dreams, and of the resilient spirit of its people. Of local interest: the last chapter (“Pittsburgh: A Different Case”) is all about Pittsburgh’s resurgence after its decline, and the lessons learned that Detroit can hopefully implement.

Melissa

My hands-down favorite book I read this year was Rules of Civility, by Amor Towles. You know how every year you read one book that you recommend to everyone you see? This is mine. If I haven’t told you about this wonderful piece of fiction yet, it’s because you haven’t seen me or my staff picks. So I’m sorry to be redundant, but I still think about this book almost daily. The prose was vivid. The dialog, witty and sharp. I found myself picturing the whole novel in my head as I was reading it. It was like my own personal moving picture. Rules of Civility was everything I want a book to be.

Suzy

This kid will kill you.

Little Star, John Ajvide Lindqvist. There is something alarming going on in Sweden. Lack of sunlight, possibly? Too much salted herring? Frostbite? Whatever is going on, every single book I’ve read from the Land of the Midnight Sun has been unbelievably dark and twisted. And awesome. In fact, my favorite book in 2012 is from heir apparent to Stephen King, John Ajvide Lindqvist. Lindqvist , best known as the author of Let the Right One In (Swedish movie and U.S. movie,) is redefining the horror genre. Yet the book I love best is his first “non-supernatural” novel. Little Star, released in English in October, definitely has elements of the supernatural, but ultimately it’s about alienation, bullying, fame and teenage angst. Because nothing says Happy Holidays like a gang of murderous teen girls.

Left for dead in the woods, Theres is rescued (if you can call it that) by D-List musician and wife beater Lennart Cederström.  Upon discovering her perfect pitch, Cederström makes the (odd) decision to hide her in his basement and raise a perfect singing machine. By the time Theres is a teenager, she is eerily beautiful with a spooky stare, and clearly has no concept of right or wrong. When events takes a gruesome turn (with a drill) she ends up in Stockholm with her “brother” Jerry, one of the many adults in her life who treat her like a commodity. After appearing on the Swedish American Idol, Theres hooks up with the overweight, bullied Theresa and together they make a chilling duo. They create a gang of alienated, disenfranchised teenage girls who are fiercely devoted only to one another, to the point of torture and murder. Twisted and grisly, Little Star is a compelling and horrifying tale of the suffering of modern living with an equally compelling and horrifying cast of characters.

Oh, and you’ll never listen to ABBA the same again.

Tara

My Heart is an Idiot by Davy Rothbart
This was one of the most enjoyable essay collections I’ve read in a while. Mr. Rothbart is something of a good-hearted raconteur, willing to try anything at least once for the sake of a good story. I dare you to read the second essay in this collection, entitled “Human Snowball,” and not walk away grinning from ear-to-ear—which is quite an accomplishment when you consider that it’s a story about riding around wintery Buffalo, NY in a stolen van.

The Last Policeman by Ben H. Winters
This is something of a genre mash-up. At its heart it’s a mystery novel, shaded with classic noir hues, but there’s an intriguing twist–the world is about to end in approximately six months. With an asteroid plummeting towards earth’s surface, Detective Hank Palace has to wrestle with the ultimate existential dilemma: what’s the point in solving a murder if everyone is going to end up dead anyways? This is a quick, fun read (and hopefully the first in a trilogy), with many uncanny speculations about what a pre-apocalyptic USA might look like.

Have you tried any of these? Have favorites of your own? Get the conversational ball rolling in the comments below.

The Eleventh Stack bloggers wish you a holiday season filled with harmony, good food, and safe travel conditions. After a short posting break, we will resume our regular publishing schedule on December 26th.

Not All Who Wander Are Lost: A (Short) 1,001 Movies Update

Previously, on the 1,001 movies project, I decided that maybe I was pushing myself a little too hard, and that I should slow down on my frantic film-watching pace. This decision, for better or worse, meshed with an extremely busy month in my life, in which I bought and moved into my first home. As a result, I haven’t watched a whole lot of movies since my last project-related blog post. And while part of me hangs its head in shame for not making more progress toward my goal, a larger part of me is having so much fun picking out carpet and curtains that it’s completely forgotten to feel guilty.

Enter Frodo Baggins.  Literally and metaphorically.

When my own personal Scooby Gang learned that I had never watched the Lord of the Rings trilogy, despite being a lifelong fan of the books, they took matters into their own hands. Graciously opening up their home to a posse of wise-cracking MST3K wannabes, my dear friends planned a series of get-togethers so that I could at least cross three movies off my list during an extremely busy time in my life. And if you stop and think about it, that’s an awful lot like Sam stepping up to the plate and helping Frodo when he started to droop under his extremely heavy burden.

Okay, okay, perhaps I exaggerate. But struggling to achieve this goal, and having my pals come to my rescue, has me thinking about Tolkien, his good friend Mr. Lewis, Joseph Campbell, and the wealth of fairy and folk tales passed down through the ages.  A common thread they share is that of the hero/ine who passes through a period of despair before s/he triumphs.  Said hero/ine is frequently aided by a friend, human or animal, who provides some sort of aid and comfort to the hero/ine so that s/he has the strength to go on.  I like that, after thousands of years, we are all still living , reading, and watching the same kind of story.  Our obstacles may be spreadsheets, deadlines and overly busy schedules instead of witches and dragons, but the song remains the same, no?

So, after tonight’s planned shenanigans, we’ll be able to log this leg of the movie-watching journey as follows:

1. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers
2. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King

for a total of 232 movies.

Any encouraging words you have at this point are welcome, constant readers. Now that we’ve exhausted the Peter Jackson trilogy, I fear I may need some verbal dynamite to bust out of my rut and get back on track…

–Leigh Anne

who gets by with a little help from her friends

Hermann Hesse: The Fairytales

Hermann Hesse has all the earmarks of a neglected master.  His books, with the occasional exception of Demian and Siddhartha, are rarely assigned.  Steppenwolf and Siddhartha are read outside the well-manicured groves of academe by the errant, bleary-eyed follower of Kerouac or the clear-eyed seeker of esoteric knowledge, often the same person at different places on the never-ending path.

Yet, master he is, evinced by this simple test: when you meet a follower of Hesse, ask which is her/his favorite book.  Invariably, you will get a broad spectrum of replies: Narcissus and Goldmund, Steppenwolf, The Glass Bead Game, Strange News from Another Star and Other Tales, Demian, Wandering.

Mine is The Journey to the East.

As part of my New Year’s resolution from last year, I was going to dip into some of the lesser-known works of Hesse.  As all but one of those reading resolutions went unrealized, I decided this year I would do some catching up, at least in this case.

Which brings us to The Fairytales of Hermann Hesse, translated by Jack Zipes and published in 1995. And what a wonderful, as in full of wonder, collection it is.  Zipes is one of the most famous authorities on fairy tales alive today and has collected, translated, and annotated some of the classic fairy tales from many cultures, including the complete Brothers Grimm, the unexpurgated Arabian Nights, Aesop’s Fables, as well as French, German, feminist, and Victorian fairytales.  He has also penned a number of groundbreaking non-fiction studies on the subject.

“Märchen” is the German word for fairytale (and roughly translates as “tales of wonder”); this particular type of tale has a romantic tinge,  and it is in this genre that Hesse was experimenting with these stories. In fact, the original German publication of many of these stories were collected together in a volume entitled Märchen.  They contain many fantastical, wondrous elements which at once give them a universal, slightly surreal quality when filtered through Hesse’s consciousness.   The spellbinding influence of 19th century German fantasy writer E. T. A. Hoffmann, the author of The Mouse King and the Nutcracker from which the famous Nutcracker ballet was adapted, may be felt at different times throughout the volume.

For Hesse, Zipes provides a unifying voice and a context into which the tales have been collected.  Previously, 16 of the 22 tales in this book have been translated into English by 3 different translators in 4 different volumes: Strange News from Another Star and Other Tales,  Stories of Five Decades, Pictor’s Metamorphoses and Other Fantasies, and If The War Goes On.  By extracting the stories with fairytale elements and collecting them together, Zipes has given Hesse fans a whole new way of looking at him, an extra dimension that adds depth and understanding not only to these particular stories, but to the whole of Hesse’s output.

The tales themselves are quite marvelous, ranging from traditional style folk/fairytales to fantasy, with varying elements of fable, science fiction, dream, proverb, and allegory.  Among my favorites is the Kafkaesque story, “A Man Named Ziegler,” about a young man who comes to a new town and decides to spend his off day at a museum and zoo; without thinking, he swallows a “tiny globule” from a medieval exhibit, heads off to the zoo and is suddenly able to understand and communicate with the animals.  As one might expect, they are naturally none too happy with human beings.  The brief fable, “A City,” is the tale of the rise, fall, and imminent rise again of a town, told from an omnipotent, god-like perspective and is quite well-done.  Hesse has a bit of fun at the expense of “militant” vegetarians, a  group similar to which he himself had joined briefly in 1907, in the story “Dr. Knoegle’s End.” “Augustus” is a tale stylistically reminiscent of Hans Christian Anderson and yet a perfect example of how Hesse made the form his own.   “The Poet,” too, is also in the style of folklore yet focussed on such familiar Hesse themes as creativity and the quest for self-knowledge.

Dreams, nature, and the consequences of war are recurrent themes, sometimes treated from an apocalyptic perspective and at other times allegorically: “If the War Continues” and “Empire” are prime examples. Like “The Poet,” “The Fairy Tale of the Wicker Chair,” and “The Painter,” the stories examine various aspects of the artistic life.  The volume concludes with perhaps the best story of all, entitled “Iris,” about the secret life of a very young boy in his garden, how he grows up and away from what was most important to him, eventually attempting to recapture the lost magic of his childhood dreams.

David Frampton woodcut

And as if all this was not enough, the book is charmingly illustrated with 13 woodcuts, including the cover, by David Frampton, which somehow exhibit a classic tone yet have a strangely contemporary feel.

These insightful little tales make for perfect reading during snowbound mid-winter days.  Whether you are a lifelong Hesse fan, interested in fairytales, or looking for something at once meatier yet engaging in a volume of short fiction, this book might be just the ticket.  Who knows, perhaps you too might recapture some of the forgotten magic of an earlier time when a story meant more than a quick read and its resonance might last a lifetime, and beyond.

–Don

Once Upon a Time…

An illustration by Henry J. Ford from Andrew Lang's Blue Fairy Book

I’ve often wondered if my love of soap operas stems from my love of fairy tales.  Evil parents, conniving bad guys, quests for wealth and property, and star-crossed love feature liberally in both genres.  Some of the fairy tale villains I’ve read about have nothing on JR, and several soaps use the supernatural to move the plot along, just like fairy tales. 

Recently as I spent a snowy afternoon reading through The Crimson Fairy Book I was reminded of just how great fairy tales are.  Here’s a short list for the fairy tale neophyte, as well as some picks for those of you already well-versed in once upon a time and happily ever after.

• The Crimson Fairy Book, edited by Andrew Lang: This just happens to be the book I’m reading at the moment, but all of Andrew Lang’s Fairy Books are wonderful.  Lang collected fairy tales and folk tales from around the world, and published 12 illustrated volumes.  In these collections you’ll find variations on familiar stories (like Sleeping Beauty and Snow White), as well as folk tales unique to their country. 
• Smoke and Mirrors, by Neil Gaiman: In this short story collection, Gaiman revisits the fairy tale in stories like Troll Ridge and Snow, Glass, Apples. If traditional fairy tales just haven’t done it for you or you’re looking for a twist on the genre, this might be your book.
• Don’t Bet on the Prince: Contemporary Feminist Fairy Tales In North America and England: Gory violence doesn’t bother me, but the gendered violence and heavy-handed gender roles that feature prominently in many traditional fairy and folk tales makes me squeamish. This collection offers some contemporary fairy tales that feature strong women and non-traditional gender roles, and also includes a section of essays about feminism and fairy tales.   
• Grimm’s Grimmest: A short collection of the most violent, horrifying tales in the Grimm Brothers’ oevre, before they were revised to be suitable as bedtime stories.  These stories will make you wonder how fairy tales ever became associated with children. 
• The Arthur Rackham Treasury: Many of Arthur Rackham’s beautiful portrayals of fairy tales can be found in this book.  If, like me, you like fairy tale illustrations almost as much as the stories themselves, you might also want to look at Dulac’s Fairy Tale Illustrations in Full Color or The Unknown Paintings of Kay Nielsen.

An illustration by Arthur Rackham from The Romance of King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table, by Alfred W. Pollard

For those of you who still need more, there are many, many other books in the library. Check out some of our collections of the Brothers Grimm, the stories of Hans Christian Anderson, folk tales from all over the world, or stories retold by Italo Calvino in Italian Folk Tales. 

Happily ever after,

Irene