Friday, March 19, 2010

Once Upon A Time IV

Finally Carl V's Once Upon A Time Challenge is here. I have been waiting patiently, or maybe not so patiently, ever since Jeff Vandermeer's Finch came out and I bought Finch and its predecessor Shriek but held off reading them until this challenge. For anyone that does not know, Once Upon a Time is all about reading fantasy, folklore, fairy tales or mythology and runs from March 21, 2010 to June 20, 2010. For details go here, for the review site go here.

I am going to sign up for the Journey because I appreciate the flexibility and lack of stress which means that I will read at least one book but I might read more. And I hope to do a few short story weekends.

I am definitely going to read Shriek by Jeff Vandermeer and I haven't decided whether I should save Finch for later or just dive right in.

My pool of possible other books include:

The Castle, Franz Kafka
Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
The City and the City, China Mieville
The Other City, Michal Ajvaz
Observatory Mansions, Edward Carey
White Apples, Jonathan Carroll
Alchemy of Stone, Ekaterina Sedia
Something by Italo Calvino (inspired by Bellezza) possibly Invisible Cities
Something by Jose Saramago possibly the Stone Raft

I would also be curious to read something by Angela Carter or Terri Windling so if anyone has any suggestions on where to start I would appreciate it.

And if I run out of inspiration, Jeff Vandermeer always provides lots of ideas such as in his Best of 2009 at Locus, Best of the Decade on Omnivoracious and of course his wonderful Essential Fantasy Reading List.

I look forward to reading everyones posts and adding to my wish list!

6 comments:

DesLily said...

great list!.. just curious though... the date on your post? FEB.???

Anonymous said...

My copy of Calvino's Cosmicomics arrived today; it looks so good! I hope you might read something by him so we can discuss his work together. All your other choices are new to me, which is a good thing: more introductions for me!

Ana S. said...

I'm excited that both you and Bellezza are reading Calvino! He's excellent.

Moo said...

Opps. I wrote and posted this last night, March 19 but I had saved a draft post in Feb where I listed books as I thought of them for this challenge. I assumed that blogger would give the actual post date.

I would love to discuss Calvino with you Bellezza. I suggested If on a Winter's Night a Traveler to my book club and while I loved it, everyone else thought it was confusing and weird. I haven't read anything else by him. What else have you read Bellezza and Nymeth?

Whitney said...

I haven't read any of these books but they all appear fascinating. I look forward to reading your thoughts on whatever books you choose to read on your journey.

Carl V. Anderson said...

Start with The Bloody Chamber for your Angela Carter reading and The Wood Wife by Terri Windling. Both are fantastic!!!