Susan Hated Literature

A Modern Tale of Faerie
Author: Holly Black
ISBN: 0689860420 DDC: 813.6
Read for the Once Upon A Time challenge.
See also: LibraryThing ; About Holly Black ; Stainless Steel Droppings ; Book~Adorer ; The page wanderer
Other OUAT challangees: bottle of shine ; Stephanie’s books ; Cafe Shree

Kaye took another drag on her cigarette and dropped it into her mother’s beer bottle

Our hero, Kaye, has always seen faeries and their ilk. Her mother dismisses these characters as imaginary friends and Kaye has always accepted her weirdness makes her difference from other people her own age. But when she moves back home and meets up with her old friends she realises just how different she is from her few friends.

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Dir: Kevin Lima
Writ: Bill Kelly

• Amy Adams … Giselle
• James Marsden … Prince Edward
• Idina Menzel … Nancy Tremaine
• Susan Sarandon … Queen Narissa
• Patrick Dempsey … Robert Philip
• Timothy Spall … Nathaniel
• Rachel Covey … Morgan Philip
• Julie Andrews … Narrator

Enchanted is the story of Giselle, who meets her true love, Prince Edward after he rescues her from a troll. Or maybe an ogre. But before they seal their relationship with true-loves-kiss, and get married, Giselle is sent spinning out of her world. And into ours, a place where endings are never happy ever after.

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Dir: Matthew Vaughn
Writ: Jane Goldman & Matthew Vaughn based on book by Neil Gaiman

• Charlie Cox … Tristan
• Ian McKellen … Narrator (voice)
• David Kelly … Guard
• Kate Magowan … Slave Girl / Una
• Sienna Miller … Victoria
• Peter O’Toole … King
• Mark Strong … Septimus
• Jason Flemyng … Primus
• Rupert Everett … Secundus
• David Walliams … Sextus
• Michelle Pfeiffer … Lamia
• Claire Danes … Yvaine
• Robert De Niro … Captain Shakespeare

I read this book a while ago and really enjoyed it, so I wasn’t too sure if I’d enjoy the film. You know the way they always change stuff. But I try to pretend that it is a brand new story and not based on any book, course that doesn’t always work, but I do try.

Anyway, I’m happy to report that Stardust is just a lovely film. It is the story of a young man who goes on a quest into the faerie world to bring back a star in order to prove his love. Only across “the wall” he finds that the star is actually a woman, and that there are others looking to find her, and for slightly more nefarious reasons.

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Author: Herbie Brennan
ISBN:0747564671 DDC: 823.914
See also: LibraryThing ; Herbie Brennan’s blog ; Rosemary for remembrance ; BookLust
Read with FantasyFavorites
Book one in the Faerie Wars series

Henry got up early on the day that changed his life.

When this arrived in the post I was slightly put off by the cover, the American version is much nicer. The only reason I ordered it in the first place was because it is an upcoming group read. But once I started to read it I was glad I had. The first page had a few clunky sentences but it also had some great writing and the more I read the more I enjoyed the book. The main protagonist is Henry Atherton, whose parents are going through a bad patch, he works for an old man, Mr. Fogarty, who believes in aliens and fairies, and pretty soon he discovers that faeries are in fact real as he has to rescue one from the mouth of a cat. This rescued individual turns out to be Pyrgus Malvae, a prince in the realm of the Purple Emperor who has been sent to the “alternate” reality that is our earth. Cross-overs like this aren’t my favourite type of fantasy, but in this case it works well, and Brennan blends the faerie world and the human world well, he even manages to bring in the demon world and aliens.

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Full title: Tree and Leaf (Introductory Note, On Fairy-Stories, Leaf by Niggle) ; Smith of Wootten Major ; The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son (Beorhtnoth’s Death, The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son, Ofermod)
Author: JRR Tolkien
ISBN: 0048200158 DDC: 828.91208
See also: LibraryThing ; JespersUnivers ; Rosa-Sinenis ; Once Upon A Time review site

I propose to speak about fairy-stories, though I am aware that this is a rash adventure.

This, in many ways, is the perfect book for the Once Upon a Time Reading Challenge as it contains fairy tales and myth and fantasy. It is a collection of shorter works by Tolkien, and begins, not with a story but, with an essay, On Fairy-Stories and surprisingly, I found this the most interesting aspect of the book. Tolkien writes about the origins of fairy stories, why he believes them necessary. He also defines what he means by a fairy story. A very different thing from the tale relegated to the children’s nursery, although somewhat related. Possibly the first defence of the fantasy genre.

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Author: Charles de Lint
DDC: 813.54
See also: Library Thing ; Once Upon a Time ; A Librarian told me so

It starts with this faint sound that pulls me out of sleep: a sort of calliope music played on an ensemble of toy instruments. You know, as though there’s a raggedy orchestra playing quietly in some hidden corner of my bedroom, like the echo of a Tom Waits song heard through the walls from the apartment next door.

The blue girl of the title is Imogene, one of the narrators of this book. She and her family have just moved to a new neighbourhood in Newford, and Imogene is determined not to cause trouble. Not everyone wants her to fit in though. At her new school she is picked on by the “popular crowd” although never to the extent that her best friend Maxine is. And of course talking with ghost is never a very normal thing to do. Still, unless trouble comes looking for her Imogene won’t go looking for it. But there’s the rub, trouble, in the form of the school’s resident fairy population, does come looking for her and it isn’t everyday teenage hassle either. No, the fairies bring with them the probability of death.

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Author: Neil Gaiman
ISBN: 9780061142024 DDC: 823.914
See also: LibraryThing ;Film’s site ; BlogCritics ; Once Upon a Time Reading Challenge

There was once a young man who wished to gain his Heart’s Desire.
And while that is, as beginnings go, not entirely novel (for every tale about every young man there ever was or will could start in a similar manner) there was much about this young man and what happened to him that was unusual although even he never knew the whole of it.

When Tristran Thorn heads off into Faerie to find a star he has no idea of what is about to happen. All he cares is that the beautiful Victoria has promised that she will grant whatever he wishes if he brings the star that she saw fall.

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