Newbery Winner Gaiman Gives Readers `Instructions’
By Jeff Baenen at ABC News
While “The Graveyard Book” is set in a cemetery, where an orphaned boy is raised by ghosts after his family is murdered, Gaiman said it’s really a book about life and leaving home. His latest book “Instructions,” is a poem about how to survive a fairy tale. It has charming illustrations by Charles Vess and hits bookstores Tuesday.
“I’m probably more like a cook who uses horror as a herb or as a condiment. I love tossing in something that will send a little frisson of something or other up someone’s spine. But I don’t want to live there a year writing a book.”
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‘Little Women and Werewolves’: Adding scary twist to classic novel
By Colette Bancroft at the St. Petersburg Times
Continuing the monster mashup trend of classic literature laced with horror is Little Women and Werewolves (DelRey, $14) by Louisa May Alcott and Porter Grand, coming to bookstores May 4. The method for this wacky macabre genre: Choose a beloved, much-read and — most importantly — out-of-copyright 19th century novel. Preserving much of the original work, layer on a plague of fiends, weaving them into the original plot and having them interact with the book’s characters.
As for Alcott, is she growling in her grave over this remix of her best-known book? She actually balked at writing the semi-autobiographical Little Women, doing so only because her publisher wanted a virtuous book for girls. She much preferred writing Gothic thrillers and romances, which she called her “blood and thunder tales,” under the pen name A.M. Barnard.
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Adventure fiction: Burlington man finds new career retelling old tales
Lee B. Roberts at the Journal Times
Eager to share his travel adventures in St. Augustine, Fla., with his grandchildren, Arthur Cola considered sending them a postcard. Instead, the Burlington resident wrote a story set in what is said to be America’s oldest city (St. Augustine was founded in 1565) and sent it to his grandsons.
Intrigued by St. Augustine‘s history, Cola grew that story into a children’s book titled “Papa and the Gingerbread Man, An Adventure in America’s Oldest City” (2006). It tells the story of a grandfather who follows a cookie man through the historic sites of St. Augustine in an effort to convince him to attend his grandsons’ school Christmas party.
His next book, a novel titled “Papa and the Leprechaun King, The Secret Legend of the Shamrock” takes grandpa to an enchanted Ireland, where a group of baby boomer tourists work to save the realm of the “wee folk.”
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OK, where do I start with that? B.
Jo Walton at Tor
People are always asking where they should start reading particular authors. This series of posts working their way through the alphabet as represented by my bookshelves, is an attempt to answer those questions. Please comment to add any B writers that I may have missed, and of course to argue with my choices.
Iain M. Banks: The same person, incidentally, but he uses the M for SF. Where to start Banks is something you can reasonably argue. He started the Culture series with Consider Phlebas, which I do not like. I started with Use of Weapons, which is phenomenally brilliant but also deeply disturbing. I think perhaps the best place to start is Against a Dark Background, which is a standalone novel set in an old old civilization in one very isolated solar system. It showcases his worldbuilding and society building and his way of writing. It’s really Shelley’s Ozymandias on a larger and more science fictional scale.
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