Mum2, Stacia and anyone else, I am in for the January Murakami read. Judging by what I see on Goodreads, maybe none of us has read Norwegian Wood? Of course, if we all read a different book, that's fun too. Just throwing it out there. I use cookbooks, the Internet, Clean Eating magazine, sometimes eMeals. Cookbooks I have and like are The Just Bento Cookbook (We don't have bento boxes; we just like some of the recipes.) Twelve Months of Monastery Soups And after checking it out from the library and making the brownie recipe, I'm sure the next cookbook I'll buy is Baked: New Frontiers in Baking. On the Internet, I often just type in what I'm looking for and see what pops up. Sometimes it's from allrecipes.com. Sometimes it's some blog I've never heard of. I don't subscribe to or frequent any food blogs except A Spicy Perspective,though I'm sure there are a lot of great ones. But dh and my kids and I all love to watch the Tasty videos. In fact, my middle ds and I were just watching some and planning what to bake for Christmas goodies.

Well, shucks. But thanks.

I finished Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce - about a girl who shows up at her parents' house on Christmas day after having disappeared twenty years earlier and saying she was gone for only six months, living with what her family calls "fairies," though she says they would never go by that term. The prose is simple, so it's a relaxing book, but it's very sad, so not necessarily comforting. I also read The Magician's Nephew and started The Last Battle, the only two Narnia books I haven't/hadn't read, and I started in on Christmas reading with E.T.A. Hoffmann's The Nutcracker. Has anyone read Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto? Does that count as a food book?

I love it too. It's so good, I'm afraid to read any other magic/food book because I'm afraid I'll spend the whole time thinking, Well, it's not as good as Like Water for Chocolate. This looks great! So glad you mentioned it. I wonder if I could get my youngest to do a read-along with me of one of the books from that list. He loved The Egypt Game, so he might go for The Velvet Room. I got a couple from that list: Anatomies: A Cultural History of the Human Body for dh (He's loving it.) and Breakfast of Champions for me.

Thanks for posting this Kareni. I skimmed through the responses. It's nice to see how books have helped young adults through issues and feel better about themselves. I also see how out of it I am. I have only heard of two of those books. (The Giver and Eleanor and Park.)

That is pretty cool! Thanks for sharing. Happy birthday, Robin!

Great to know Joyce's other books are good too! I was looking at them on Goodreads, already thinking I'd like to try more of his books and surprised by how many there are. I started out just going to look into The Silent Land, which is mentioned on the cover of SKoFT, saw the list of books he's written and thought, When is Christmas break? I'm another who enjoyed The Elegance of the Hedgehog. I'm interested in The Life of Elves, but I read in some reviews that there will be a sequel, so I thought I'd wait until the second book was out. I'm interested in hearing what you think of it.

I finished listening to Haruki Murakami's What I Talk About When I Talk About Running. As one would assume from the title and the author, this is a good book for anyone who likes running, writing, and Murakami. I enjoyed it, but it's not for everyone. This isn't one of those books that spends so much time on universal themes that most people will like it whether or not they have an interest in the surface topic. Then I listened to Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates. I appreciated seeing how the author's worldview changed and grew as he studied, observed, met new people, traveled, etc. ETA: And the ways in which it remained the same - what things stuck with him and may stick with him forever (and, of course, some of those things are positive). I just started listening to Fairy Tale as Myth/Myth as Fairy Tale by Jack Zipes, and I've been reading Some Kind of Fairy Tale by Graham Joyce. I found SKoFT on this list of books to read around Christmas time. I like it so far. It's easy to read, has a nice setting, has magical elements without necessarily belonging in the SF/F section of the library.

That goes right along with the book I read on the history of fairy tales. Thanks! Congrats, Stacia!

:grouphug:

Boy, Stacia. We are just going to disagree on this one. I thought it was the perfect pairing, a nice set of books to live and die beside. As for Flufferton, I definitely don't read enough of it. Austen is the only author I've read off that list. The Susan Branch looks lovely, and I do intend to read Anne of Green Gables sometime.

I finished Once Upon a Time: A Short History of Fairy Tale by Marina Warner. This started rough. The content of the first couple of chapters didn't seem interesting enough to match the density of the text. Like, All those words and you were just saying fairy tales have magic? No kidding. And too often stories were used as examples without a summary or excerpt of them, so if I hadn't read the story the example was useless. It got much better, imo, after that. As I perceive it, the history it gave is less one of how fairy tales have evolved or changed (though there is some of that in there) and more one of how our use and interpretation of them has changed or gone in different ways: nationalistic, political propaganda, Freudian interpretations, Jungian interpretations, feminist revisionings, uses of magical realism. I enjoyed it and found it interesting. There is a long list of further reading recommendations at the back of the book. I read Dante's Paradiso, and with that one, I'm just glad I did it and it's done. On my middle ds's urging I started the Explorer series - a set of three graphic short story anthologies. I read the first two and am waiting for the third to get transferred from one library branch to the one I go to. These are shelved in the children's section at my library, but my ds is almost 13, and he still likes them. I also read Neil Gaiman's The Sleeper and the Spindle. Thank you, Rose, for suggesting the hard copy. The artwork really is gorgeous, and for me, kept the book from a two-star rating. Information was given in unnatural dialogue that should have been told by a narrator. And the ending didn't work for me. I felt he forced the character to do the currently PC thing without setting her up with the proper motivation to make that decision. I'm not against the decision she made or against revisioning a fairy tale into a form that is today's PC; I just didn't see how the decision fit the character as I had seen her so far. Can't really say more without spoilers. I am currently reading lit. mags. and listening to Haruki Murakami's short memoir What I Talk About When I Talk About Running.

Dh and I watched the movie of Tuck Everlasting on a plane once and thought it was boring, then middle DS read the book a couple years ago and he thought that was boring, but I still have hope that it's a book I'd enjoy and intend to read it at some point. Maybe I'll listen to it.

My favorite literary magazine is Zoetrope. It contains only visual art and short stories. In each issue, one of the short stories has been turned into a movie. I could send you an issue. For poetry, I subscribe to Rattle, and I think I could send an issue of this one, too. One magazine that might have all you're looking for is Carve. In addition to short stories, nonfiction and poetry, they have some sections that might interest a writer: +What We Talk About: In-depth interviews with each author +Story Statshot: Surprising facts on each story's journey to publication +Decline/Accept: We declined it; another publication accepted it +One to Watch: Discover what's up and coming in the literary world Asimov's might be a good genre option. There are a bazillion literary magazines, and you might look through some of the magazines listed on the Pushcart Rankings to find what you're looking for. I could also send copies of Black Warrior Review (assuming I ever get around to reading the copy on my desk) and Blue Monday Review (though this one just went on hiatus, and we'll just have to wait and see if they ever come back from it, and with this one as with the last - I still need to read the issue I would send). Let me know if you want any of these!

A hero goes on a quest. Dictionary.com says: noting or pertaining to a long poetic composition, usually centered upona hero, in which a series of great achievements or events is narrated in elevated style: Homer's Iliad is an epic poem. and resembling or suggesting such poetry: an epic novel on the founding of the country. I read The Lord of the Rings, but there must be something shorter. There are many trilogies and series but on an epic fantasies list, Goodreads lists some standalone books too, such as The Princess Bride, The Hobbit, Good Omens, The Neverending Story and The Once and Future King (if you want to call that one book). Another list has Beowulf and The Epic of Gilgamesh.

Oh! Thank you. My library has a print version too, so that's what I'll get. I imagine you've saved me at least from disappointment, maybe confusion.

I loved her book of short stories, At the Mouth of the River of Bees. You (or your dh) can read or listen to some of her stories for free online. "The Man Who Bridged the Mist" (<<This is a download.) was probably my favorite from the book.

Today I finished listening to The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which was lovely to listen to. Neil Gaiman narrates it himself and does a great job, imo. The story is both sweet and sad and reminded me a bit of Coraline. I don't feel like there's a lot to say about this one. It's pretty typical and isn't really thought provoking or truly interesting in either content or structure, just a well-told story - a comfort read, despite mild scariness. My library also has The Sleeper and the Spindle on Overdrive, so I'll probably listen to that one soon.

Skimming through the sample on Amazon, this illustration grabbed me.

Thank you, Stacia. I do have Oyeyemi on my to-read list because you brought her books to my attention. I feel certain I'll love Mr. Fox if I can get myself to read it (and the only reason I haven't is that I must have been reading something else). That reading list has a lot of books I've never heard of, which is awesome if they're good, since it gets old having the same books recommended on every list, and just weird if they're not good. My fingers are crossed for awesome.

The Killing is the last show I remember that kept me up all night, unable to sleep or tear myself away from the show.

That was great, thanks!

I finished The Body by Stephen King, which completes a blackout on my BINGO card. Here's my list of BINGO books, by column. B Female Author - Gutshot by Amelia Gray Historical - The Book Thief by Markus Zusak Pick Based on the Cover - Driving Without a License by Janine Joseph Translated - Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami Epic - The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien I Published 2016 - The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home by Catherynne M. Valente Revisit an Old Friend - Howl and Other Poems by Allen Ginsberg Over 500 Pages - Dune by Frank Herbert Banned - A Separate Peace by John Knowles Nautical - The Island of Last Truth by Flavia Company N Number in the Title - 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff Fairy Tale Adaptation - The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter Library Free Space - We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson Mystery - Clash of Civilizations Over an Elevator in Piazza Vittorio by Amara Lakhous 18th Century - The Sorrows of Young Werther by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe G Dusty - Salt Water Amnesia by Jeffrey Skinner Written in Birth Year - The Body by Stephen King Classic - The Turn of the Screw by Henry James Color in the Title - The Blue Fox by Sjon Aurthurian - The Book of Merlyn by T.H. White O Picked by a Friend - Distant Light by Antonio Moresco Play - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard Nonfiction - Born Standing Up by Steve Martin Nobel Prize Winner - Demian by Hermann Hesse Set in Another Country - A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway I'm curious about the fairy tale adaptations others chose. What did you read and what did you think of it?

The Sorrows of Young Werther Madame Bovary Inferno :laugh: (Not the main character, just all the others.) Fight Club sort of How about books where the character's flaw brings him success? (Here one might also put "Fight Club sort of.")

Sadie, :grouphug: to you and your dd. I had a similar "education." We listened to the Beastie Boys in class one year, another year we "wrote" diamante poems. When I was in high school, I loved A Night Without Armor by Jewel. I re-read it as an adult and liked it. I could see why I loved it as a teen. My favorite poem in the book as an adult was different from my favorite poem in the book as a teen, and none of the poems would be in my top ten or twenty or ? (not sure how far down it would be) today, but I have read far more poetry now than I had then, so all that means is that the more you read, the more poems you will find that stick with you. That was lovely, and I had just recently been wishing for more good examples of ekphrastic poetry (other than "Ode to a Grecian Urn"). Thank you for sharing. I listened to Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother. I felt like I agreed with her on some general level (things worth doing are difficult), but not completely (and I'd rather not elaborate and start some sort of conversation about parenting styles and beliefs). I also wished she would acknowledge the financial and geographical barriers that many (most?) families have that she did not and explain what her POV would be if she could not afford to get better and better instructors for her daughters as they improved (or if she could not afford music lessons, or any private lessons, at all) and if she could not work with her daughters nights and weekends (due to working two jobs, or perhaps due to some other family obligation, or?) since she says her method only works if the child continues to experience success (defined by her (it seems) as always being the best or at least amazing, not defined as being happy or pretty darn good). (Not wanting to hear her speak on this matter so that I can employ her methods, and not looking for how others have used or adapted her methods, only pointing out what I consider an issue with her book.) I listened to two hours (1/5) of The Lost City of Z, then abandoned it. It was too meandering for me. Next I'll try listening to The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and I am currently reading Stephen King's The Body, which will be my BaW BINGO book for published in birth year.