Once Upon a Time There was a Book Club

[Josephine]

Okay, I need some recommendations for summer reading.  I’m usually a voracious reader, but lately nothing seems to interest me outside of fanfiction.  I’m trying to resist the temptation to reread “Pride and Prejudice” for the gazillionth time by telling myself I have to expand my literary horizons.

So I’m asking what is everyone else reading this summer?  Fiction, non-fiction, even kiddie picture books.  I don’t care.  The last things I read that I enjoyed was “The Giant Jam Sandwich” to the kids at preschool and my latest knitting magazine (channeling my inner Dumbledore).

My ereader is having feelings of loneliness and abandonment.  It needs to be fed.  Please list any and all recommendations.

 

[RumplesGirl]

Anything by Neil Gaiman (but start with American Gods)

The Mortal Instrument Series by Cassandra Clare

Anything by John Green (especially The Fault in Our Stars and Looking for Alaska)

Divergent series by Veronica Roth

The Book Thief by Mark Zusak

 

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[angiebelle]

There are lots of great fairytale themed books out there!  I recommend the Peter and the Starcatchers series- vastly creative!

There’s a new book out I want to read called Rump- the True Story of Rumpelstiltskin.

 

 

 

[kfchimera]

I’ll have to check out some of those series!

Here are a random collection of ones I’ve read that might interest someone who enjoys OUAT:

Mercedes Lackey has a series called the 500 Kingdoms that is about a world where Fairytale tradition is a force that tries to push the inhabitants lives around.  She has another series set in the historic real world that is less romance novely as well, one of which The Fire Rose is a Beauty and the Beast tale.  Both series feature separate stand alone stories set in the same universe with occasional overlap rather than straight sequels.

Dennis Mckieran has a series retelling some fairytales, starting with Once Upon A Winter’s Night–a take on East of the Sun, West of the Moon.

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova–not fairytale, but a well written take on the Gothic legend of Dracula.   She also wrote “The Swan Thieves” though that isn’t magical but does have a similar feel in some ways of how the story unfolds.  If you like that, you might also like Possession by AS Byatt, which sounds like a horror novel but absolutely isn’t.

I don’t like horror as a genre, but I do like suspense, so if you like Gothic novels, there are of course the classic tales of Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, Frankenstein by Mary Shelley.     In the same genre, there’s the short story,  The Turn of the Screw by Henry James.  I’d just throw in anything by Henry James though they aren’t all Gothic Tales and definitely NOT a fairytale, but apparently, they are filming “What Maisie Knew”.

From gothic suspense to romantic suspense, I wandered into Mary Stewart who wrote a ton of that genre of novels that are stand-alone stories set in more modern real world settings of the 60’s as that is when she wrote).   One of her novels, The Moon Spinners, was actually turned into a Disney live action movie, but it sort of butchered the plot and characters.   Her most famous series though is a take on the Arthurian Legend, starting with the Crystal Cave.

If you have kids to read Fairy Tales too (or just want to read them yourself ) there are a ton of clever reinventions of those tales or stories in the same genre.

For Picture Books two that I recall off hand are:

Waking Beauty by Leah Wilcox (a funny take on sleeping beauty, there’s another one on Rapunzel)

The Princess Knight by Cornelia Funke (who wrote Inkheart, which was filmed but I haven’t read it or seen it).

For older readers ready for chapter books, there is a  series that Disney commissioned for the Disney Fairies brand for life in Pixie Hollow, by Gail Carson Levine, who also wrote Ella Enchanted (that Disney also filmed).

The Chronicles of Prydain is another chapter book series, that inspired The Black Cauldron animated film of Disney.  I didn’t like Disney’s movie as much as the book version.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[Josephine]

I don’t know what’s wrong with me but I just can’t make it through Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre.  I admit I tried Wuthering Heights in high school and it might be better as an adult, but I just don’t get the Jane Eyre love.  I see it everywhere, especially if you’re a Rumple fan as they keep comparing him to Mr. Rochester.  But then I disliked the movie Labyrinth, too, and most of Rumbelle fandom is in alt of that movie.  I didn’t lke it as a child and I don’t like it as an adult.

If you want epic tragic romance, you can’t do better than The Thorn Birds, a story about girl who falls in love with a priest in Australia.  Thinking back to high school, my sister was obsessed with the tv miniseries The Thorn Birds in the 80s.  I remember watching it when I was little and it was long and okay, but then when I got to high school in the 90s I saw the book in the library.  It’s a massive tomb and utterly fantastic and tragic that covers the lives of these characters from birth to death.  The RumplePriest! faction of Rumbelle fandom has nothing on The Thorn Bird.  As a non-Catholic who sometimes couldn’t understand the choices made in the novel, I always wondered how Catholics felt about the book.

Off to look at some of the choices on the list….

Keeper of Rumplestiltskin's and Neal's spears and war paint and crystal ball.

[maryrose d.]

As a Once fan I read the book Once: Reawakened this summer, it is pretty much the first season told through Snow’s and Emma’s point of view, its not a hard read and took me only a couple of hours to get through. It isn’t as good as the show but it serves as a good recap for the first season.

Also I’ve read Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, which also only took me an afternoon. My version was only 100 hundred pages with big font and pics, but for Once in Wonderland it seemed like a good idea, also I’m going to read the sequel when I get time.

I’m going to read the Infernal Devices which is a prequel series to the Mortal instruments, since Mortal Instruments was so good and with the movie coming out in August Im reading that

Also looking for the Castor Chronicles, which first book is Beautiful Creatures, and Heroes of Olympus, which is the sequel series to Percy Jackson, but it is darker and longer than Percy. I’m trying to finish the Hobbit, maybe read Lord of the Rings, 1984, and reread Gallageher girls series, (is made for teens).

Keeper of Swanfire's dream catcher, the Blue Fairy Plot Device, the contact name "Her", the lanyards, the trigger, the Netherworld room and necklace, Charming's quote on Thanksgiving, and PP's pic of Henry

[RumplesGirl]

The Infernal Devices trilogy is EXCELLENT.

I read the Caster Chronicles. It’s…decent. It wasn’t my favorite.

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[kfchimera]

I have to confess that thought I mentioned them, I definitely wasn’t that into Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but Gothic novels are  a classic genre that includes Frankenstein so seemed to fit. I do think those stories hold up better when read as adults, but I still like more hope and fairytale wish fufillment,  and in a book, even better if mixed in with an undercurrent of a bit more substance and social commentary (like Pride and Prejudice).  To me, one of the best things about Jane Eyre is that it inspired Wide Sargasso Sea (think of it if Jane is Belle, then the heroine in Sargasso is Cora….).  Neither are  happy-feel-good reads at all, and definitely  for more mature readers.

I just recalled another story with a fairy-tale angle–“Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister” by Gregory Maguire.  He is the guy who wrote the novel Wicked, the basis for the musical about OZ.  I haven’t seen that or read Wicked, so maybe I should put that on my list, but Confessions was really good and is a take on Cinderella set in historical Holland.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?” -- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

[RumplesGirl]

Wide Sargasso Sea made me rethink all of Jane Eyre, which is one of my all time favorite novels along with Wuthering Heights.

Both Wicked and Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister are great! Especially Wicked.

 

"He was a lot of things to me" "The only conclusion was love"

[Josephine]

I’ve the first part of Wicked and it is wild.  Really strange and wild.  I admit to only getting part way through and then skipping to the end, but I have read a detailed summary of the parts I missed.  They sure cut a lot of stuff out of the musical from that book.

I was just reading a review of Wild Sargasso Sea yesterday and its connection to Jane Eyre.

Want to talk about depressing books.  I read a few of my sister’s Danielle Steele novels as a teenager and, boy, are those things filled with melodrama.  Those poor women go through everything under the sun.  No wonder they’re made into Lifetime movies.   The worst books, though, are Harlequin romances.  I don’t know how they sell so much.  I had a few give to me in a box of books and they’re just so…I can’t even describe it.  And this is from a girl who doesn’t mind a good romance novel.  I’d much prefer to read some quality fanfiction than the drivel Harlequin puts out.

Confession about Pride and Prejudice–I hated Darcy the first time I read it.  I know, it’s shocking.  I’d read Bridget Jones’s Dairy (a must read for any P&P fans and one of my favorite books of all time) and while I loved Lizzy I just couldn’t forgive Darcy for his interference and I despised Bingley even more for listening to Darcy and not having the backbone to stand up for himself and trust in his feelings.  So I reread the novel and somehow in the second rereading I fell utterly in love with Darcy.  I don’t know why or how, but I did.  I still despised Bingley, but I understood Darcy.  It wasn’t until I saw the Keira Knightley version (yes I have the Colin Firth version, too) that I started to thaw a little toward Bingley.  But it remains a favorite that I reread often.   My other favorite Jane Austen book is Persuasion.  I just love Anne’s and Frederick’s story.

If you love Pride &Prejudice I suggest you watch the vlog “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” on YouTube.  I watched almost all of the 100 episodes in two days.  It’s like crack, you can’t stop.

 

Keeper of Rumplestiltskin's and Neal's spears and war paint and crystal ball.

[Author]

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