By societal standards, as a 20-something college graduate, I am no longer a child. That does not, however, mean that I don’t still love to lose myself in fairy tales. In fact, I’d say that I love them even more now that I don’t necessarily need the “happily ever after” and can truly enjoy the dark, gritty details that have been carefully extricated from the sweet, fluffy stories we know from Disney films.
That being said, if you’re interested in whimsical, sometimes dark, sometimes magical, but always wonderful stories, here are my most recent picks.
Aimee Bender’s Willful Creatures is a lovely collection of fantastical short stories–including tales about a boy with keys for fingers, a family of pumpkin heads (and the tragedy of their only iron-head son), and a woman who grows to love the potato children who mysteriously appear in her life and refuse to leave. I read this book in one evening, and I absolutely fell in love with it. Aimee Bender comes highly recommended from the Lemuria staff. Zita and John P., two of my coworkers, are also in love with her storytelling. Read their posts about her most recent novel The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake here and here.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke is not for the faint of heart. 846 pages of magic, Victorian England,Napoleonic wars, and a bitter magic rivalry, I’ll admit that it took me at least a month to finish (to my credit, I was still in college and at least attempting to be studious and such). Clarke’s novel reads as if it were the nonfiction account of magical England–complete with footnotes and fables within the fable of England’s most well-known magicians, once allies turned rivals,using their magic to fight Europe’s war–and each other. And of course–there is plenty of fairy mischief, too.
After you finish Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell (or before if you prefer) grab a copy of Clarke’s short story collection, The Ladies of Grace Adieu in which she returns to the England of Strange and Norrell, but also visits other magical worlds like Neil Gaiman’s Wall, which you’ll recognize from his novel Stardust. Just as magical as her novel, Clarke’s short stories will give you a proper dose of English magic. I particularly loved the story that the collection is named for “The Ladies of Grace Adieu” as well as “John Uskglass and the Cumbrian Charcoal Burner,” both of which include characters that you’ll meet in Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
Until next time,
your ever-faithful, grown-up, fairy-tale lover -Kaycie
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