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books tagged “Magical Realism”
books tagged “Magical Realism”
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Alchemist's Doorby Lisa GoldsteinISBN 0765301512 (0-7653-0151-2)
Softcover, Tor Books
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Alice's Adventures In Wonderlandby Lewis Carroll, Helen OxenburyISBN 0763620491 (0-7636-2049-1)
Softcover, Candlewick Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures In Wonderland'Book summary:Source of legend and lyric, reference and conjecture, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is for most children pure pleasure in prose. While adults try to decipher Lewis Carroll's putative use of complex mathematical codes in the text, or debate his alleged use of opium, young readers simply dive with Alice through the rabbit hole, pursuing "The dream-child moving through a land / Of wonders wild and new." There they encounter the White Rabbit, the Queen of Hearts, the Mock Turtle, and the Mad Hatter, among a multitude of other characters--extinct, fantastical, and commonplace creatures. Alice journeys through this Wonderland, trying to fathom the meaning of her strange experiences. But they turn out to be "curiouser and curiouser," seemingly without moral or sense.
For more than 130 years, children have reveled in the delightfully non-moralistic, non-educational virtues of this classic. In fact, at every turn, Alice's new companions scoff at her traditional education. The Mock Turtle, for example, remarks that he took the "regular course" in school: Reeling, Writhing, and branches of Arithmetic-Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision. Carroll believed John Tenniel's illustrations were as important as his text. Naturally, Carroll's instincts were good; the masterful drawings are inextricably tied to the well-loved story. (All ages) --Emilie Coulter [via]
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandby Helen Oxenbury, Lewis CarrollISBN 0763608041 (0-7636-0804-1)
Hardcover, Candlewick Press
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'Book summary:Lewis Carroll's timeless classic brought to life by one of the most revered children's book illustrators of our time!
Suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
There was nothing so very remarkable in that; nor did Alice think it so very much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to itself, "Oh dear! Oh dear! I shall be too late!"
Lewis Carroll's masterpiece, an exuberant mix of fun and fantasy, logic and lunacy, silliness and droll splendor, revolutionized children's literature. Its influence has been immeasurable, and the story's cast of characters, including Alice herself, the Mad Hatter, and the Cheshire Cat, hold a beloved place in our culture.
Now Helen Oxenbury, one of the world's most acclaimed illustratorswhose many books for children include the award-winning FARMER DUCK, by Martin Waddell, as well as her Tom and Pippo bookshas brought her own special brand of magic to Lewis Carroll's classic.
And ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND is Helen Oxenbury at her very best. Her vision of Alice is unique and modern. Her Wonderland is fresh, whimsical, and lovingly created. With more illustrations than any other edition, this beautiful volume has all the warmth, depth of emotion, humor, and acute observations of people and animals for which Helen Oxenbury's work is so highly regarded. Join us in celebrating a major artistic achievement! And welcome backto a Wonderland that is as astonishingly new as it is joyously familiar. [via]More editions of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland:
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Alice's Adventures in Wonderlandby Lesley Sims, Lewis Carroll, Mauro EvangelistaISBN 0794512399 (0-7945-1239-9)
Hardcover, Edc Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'Book summary:Beloved classic describes a little girl's adventures in a topsy-turvy land underground and her encounters with such improbable characters as the White Rabbit, March Hare and Mad Hatter, the sleepy Dormouse, grinning Cheshire Cat, Mock Turtle, and the dreadful Queen of Hearts. Includes all 42 of Sir John Tenniel's original illustrations. A selection of the Common Core State Standards Initiative. [via]
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Amritaby Banana Yoshimoto, Russell F. WasdenISBN 080211590X (0-8021-1590-X)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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Andesby Pablo Corral Vega, Mario Vargas LlosaISBN 0792264304 (0-7922-6430-4)
Hardcover, National Geographic Society
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The Book of Illusionsby Paul AusterISBN 0805054081 (0-8050-5408-1)
Hardcover, Holt & Company, Henry
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Book of Illusions : A Novel'Book summary:Vermont professor David Zimmer is a broken man. The protagonist of Paul Auster's 10th novel, The Book of Illusions, hits a period in which life seemed to be working aggressively against him. After his wife and sons are killed in an airplane crash, Zimmer becomes an alcoholic recluse, fond of emptying his bottle of sleeping pills into his palm, contemplating his next move. But one night, while watching a television documentary, Zimmer's attention is caught by the silent-film comedian Hector Mann, who had disappeared without a trace in 1929 and who was considered long-dead. Soon, Zimmer begins work on a book about Mann's newly discovered films (copies of which had been sent, anonymously, to film archives around the world). The spirit of Hector Mann keeps David Zimmer alive for a year. When a letter arrives from someone claiming to be Hector Mann's wife, announcing that Mann had read Zimmer's book and would like to meet him, it is as if fate has tossed Zimmer from one hand to the other: from grief and loss to desire and confusion.
Although film images are technically "illusions," this deft and layered novel is not so much about conscious illusion or trickery as about the traces we leave behind us: words, images, memories. Children are one obvious trace, but in this book, they are not allowed to carry their parents forward. They die early: Hector Mann losing his 3-year-old son to a bee sting just as David Zimmer has lost his two sons in the crash. The second half of The Book of Illusions is given over to a love affair, and to Zimmer's attempt to save something of Hector Mann, and of the others he has loved. In the end, what really survives of us on earth--what flickering immortality we are permitted--is left to the reader to surmise. --Regina Marler [via]
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Briar Roseby Robert CooverISBN 0802135412 (0-8021-3541-2)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Briar Rose'Book summary:Robert Coover's many acclaimed works of fiction have established him as a powerhouse among America's postmodernist writers. With Briar Rose, he casts his own unmistakable style on an ageless tale. A brilliant recreation of the timeless Sleeping Beauty story, Briar Rose tells of a prince trapped in the briars; a sleeping beauty who cannot awaken, dreaming of a succession of kissing princes; and the old spell-casting fairy who inhabits the princess's dreams, regaling her with legends of other sleeping beauties and trying to imagine the nature of human desire. [via]
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Cliffscomplete Shelley's Frankensteinby Stephen C. BehrendtISBN 0764587269 (0-7645-8726-9)
Softcover, Cliff Notes
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Cliffscomplete Shelley's Frankenstein'Book summary:In the CliffsComplete guides, the novel's complete text and a glossary appear side-by-side with coordinating numbered lines to help you understand unusual words and phrasing. You'll also find all the commentary and resources of a standard CliffsNotes for Literature.[via]CliffsComplete Frankenstein is certainly Mary Shelleys greatest literary achievement and one of the most complex literary works of all time. Unlike most Romantic writers, Mary Shelley seems interested in the dark, self-destructive side of human reality and the human soul.
Discover how Dr. Frankensteins creation impacts everyone he meets and save yourself valuable studying time all at once. Enhance your reading of Frankenstein with these additional features:
- A summary and insightful commentary for each chapter
- Bibliography and historical background on the author, Mary Shelley
- A look at the historical context and structure of the novel
- Discussions on the novels symbols and themes
- A character map that graphically illustrates the relationships among the characters
- Review questions, a quiz, discussion topics (essay questions), activity ideas
- A ResourceCenter full of books, articles, films, and Internet sites
Streamline your literature study with all-in-one help from CliffsComplete guides!
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The Collector Collector : A Novelby Tibor FischerISBN 080505118X (0-8050-5118-X)
Hardcover, Holt & Company, Henry
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Coyote Cowgirlby Kim AntieauISBN 0765302683 (0-7653-0268-3)
Softcover, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom
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Daughter of the Forestby Juliet MarillierISBN 0765343436 (0-7653-4343-6)
Softcover, Tor Books
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The Drawing of the Threeby Stephen KingISBN 0785701370 (0-7857-0137-0)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Drawing of the Three'Book summary:FOR USE IN SCHOOLS AND LIBRARIES ONLY. A chilling tale of Roland, the world's last, living gunslinger, follows the renegade gunman as he is thrust into the drug-and-crime-ridden world of the 20th-century and dark uncertainty. [via]
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The Edible Womanby Margaret AtwoodISBN 0770428223 (0-7704-2822-3)
Softcover, Bantam Books of Canada Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Edible Woman'Book summary:Margaret Atwood was already a mature writer when she wrote her first novel, The Edible Woman, in her mid-20s. The elements readers admire in her later fiction--edgy comedy, Gothic undertones, and a mordantly ironic view of contemporary society--are all present. The Edible Woman remains as delectably fresh and original as it was in the 1960s.
Her main character, Marian McAlpin, has a very contemporary problem. She feels alienated: constrained by her market-research job, ambivalent about her engagement to the "nicely packaged" but dull Peter, and alarmed by the prospect of her friends embarking on chaotic motherhoods. In a narrative jammed with images of food, body parts, advertising, and shiny surfaces, Marian feels like a commodity to be portioned out, wrapped up, and consumed. Acquiescing to a degree, she also rebels: she virtually stops eating, and she constantly flees from Peter in favour of the dubious alternative represented by Duncan, a bizarre student with a fetish for ironing. Vulnerable but empowered, tangled up in a world from which she is also acerbically detached, Marian is a classic Atwood heroine. The novel's ambiguous resolution, involving a woman-shaped cake that Marian solemnly decapitates and serves to her significant others, may seem heavy-handed. But it does drive home Atwood's pointed satire of an insidious consumer culture that convinces young people--and women in particular--that their identities and choices can be pulled from a shelf. That message is as relevant as ever. The Edible Womanhas no best-before date. --John C. Ball [via]
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The Essential Frankensteinby Leonard Wolf, Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, Christopher H. BingISBN 0743498062 (0-7434-9806-2)
Softcover, ibooks, Incorporated
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Essential Frankenstein'Book summary:Here is the complete original text of Mary Shelley's classic 1816 novel, fully annotated with thousands of fascinating facts and legends. Includes: background on the Romantic spirit that infuses the novel; commentary by leading contemporary writers; a selected filmography of major Frankenstein films; and dozens of illustrations. [via]
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Flukeby Christopher MooreISBN 0786259655 (0-7862-5965-5)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Frankensteinby Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, John Grant, Barry Jones, Anthony MarksISBN 0794500900 (0-7945-0090-0)
Softcover, Edc Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Frankenstein'Book summary:Frankenstein, loved by many decades of readers and praised by such eminent literary critics as Harold Bloom, seems hardly to need a recommendation. If you haven't read it recently, though, you may not remember the sweeping force of the prose, the grotesque, surreal imagery, and the multilayered doppelgänger themes of Mary Shelley's masterpiece. As fantasy writer Jane Yolen writes of this (the reviewer's favorite) edition, "The strong black and whites of the main text [illustrations] are dark and brooding, with unremitting shadows and stark contrasts. But the central conversation with the monster--who owes nothing to the overused movie image & but is rather the novel's charnel-house composite--is where [Barry] Moser's illustrations show their greatest power ... The viewer can all but smell the powerful stench of the monster's breath as its words spill out across the page. Strong book-making for one of the world's strongest and most remarkable books." Includes an illuminating afterword by Joyce Carol Oates. [via]
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Frankensteinby Harold BloomISBN 0791078825 (0-7910-7882-5)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheusby Mary Wollstonecraft ShelleyISBN 0762405457 (0-7624-0545-7)
Hardcover, Courage Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Frankenstein, Or, The Modern Prometheus'Book summary:Frankenstein, loved by many decades of readers and praised by such eminent literary critics as Harold Bloom, seems hardly to need a recommendation. If you haven't read it recently, though, you may not remember the sweeping force of the prose, the grotesque, surreal imagery, and the multilayered doppelgänger themes of Mary Shelley's masterpiece. As fantasy writer Jane Yolen writes of this (the reviewer's favorite) edition, "The strong black and whites of the main text [illustrations] are dark and brooding, with unremitting shadows and stark contrasts. But the central conversation with the monster--who owes nothing to the overused movie image & but is rather the novel's charnel-house composite--is where [Barry] Moser's illustrations show their greatest power ... The viewer can all but smell the powerful stench of the monster's breath as its words spill out across the page. Strong book-making for one of the world's strongest and most remarkable books." Includes an illuminating afterword by Joyce Carol Oates. [via]
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From the Ashesby Meghan BrunnerISBN 0759681708 (0-7596-8170-8)
Softcover, Authorhouse
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The Glass Bead Game : Magister Ludiby Hermann HesseISBN 080501246X (0-8050-1246-X)
Softcover, Holt & Company, Henry
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Glass Bead Game : Magister Ludi'Book summary:The Glass Bead Game, for which Hesse won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1946, is the authors last and crowning achievement, the most imaginative and prophetic of all his novels. Setting the story in the distant postapocalyptic future, Hesse tells of an elite cult of intellectuals who play an elaborate game that uses all the cultural and scientific knowledge of the Ages. The Glass Bead Game is a fascinating tale of the complexity of modern life as well as a classic of modern literature.[via]
This edition features a Foreword by Theodore Ziolkowski that places the book in the full context of Hesses thought.More editions of The Glass Bead Game : Magister Ludi:
Gojiroby Mark JacobsonISBN 0802135390 (0-8021-3539-0)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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The Handmaid's Taleby Margaret AtwoodISBN 0770428207 (0-7704-2820-7)
Softcover, Bantam Books of Canada Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Handmaid's Tale'Book summary:Throughout her career, Margaret Atwood has played with different literary genres in her novels--historical fiction (Alias Grace), pulp fiction (The Blind Assassin), the comedy of manners (The Robber Bride)--but no foray into genre fiction has been as successful as her turn to speculative fiction in The Handmaid's Tale. Published in 1985, it echoes Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World, but a vibrant feminism drives Atwood's portrait of a futuristic dystopia. In the Republic of Gilead, we see a world devastated by toxic chemicals and nuclear fallout and dominated by a repressive Christian fundamentalism. The birthrate has plunged, and most women can no longer bear children. Offred is one of Gilead's Handmaids, who as official breeders are among the chosen few who can still become pregnant.
The Handmaid's Tale is an imaginatively audacious novel that is at once a page-turning psychological thriller, a moving love story, and a chilling warning about what might be waiting for us around the corner. What ultimately makes it stand out is Atwood's ability to balance a passionate political statement with finely wrought literary fiction. The Handmaid's Tale is a remarkable work by one of Canada's most inventive writers. --Jeffrey Canton [via]
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Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Princeby J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandpreISBN 0786277459 (0-7862-7745-9)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince'Book summary:The deluxe edition includes a 32-page insert featuring near scale reproductions of Mary GrandPré's interior art, as well as never-before-seen full-color frontispiece art on special paper. The custom-designed slipcase is foil-stamped and inside is a full cloth case book, blind-stamped on front and back cover, foil stamped on spine. The book includes full-color endpapers with jacket art from the Trade edition and a wraparound jacket featuring exclusive, suitable-for-framing art from Mary GrandPré.
Potter News You Can Use
J.K. Rowling has revealed three chapter titles from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince to be:
- Chapter Two: "Spinners End"
- Chapter Six: "Draco's Detour"
- Chapter Fourteen: "Felix Felicis"
A Few Words from J.K. Rowling
"I am an extraordinarily lucky person, doing what I love best in the world. Im sure that I will always be a writer. It was wonderful enough just to be published. The greatest reward is the enthusiasm of the readers." --J.K. Rowling. Find out more about Harry's creator in our exclusive interview with J.K. Rowling.
Why We Love Harry
Favorite Moments from the Series
There are plenty of reasons to love Rowling's wildly popular series--no doubt you have several dozen of your own. Our list features favorite moments, characters, and artifacts from all five books. Keep in mind that this list is by no means exhaustive (what we love about Harry could fill five books!) and does not include any of the spectacular revelatory moments that would spoil the books for those (few) who have not read them. Enjoy.Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
- Harry's first trip to the zoo with the Dursleys, when a boa constrictor winks at him.
- When the Dursleys' house is suddenly besieged by letters for Harry from Hogwarts. Readers learn how much the Dursleys have been keeping from Harry. Rowling does a wonderful job in displaying the lengths to which Uncle Vernon will go to deny that magic exists.
- Harry's first visit to Diagon Alley with Hagrid. Full of curiosities and rich with magic and marvel, Harry's first trip includes a trip to Gringotts and Ollivanders, where Harry gets his wand (holly and phoenix feather) and discovers yet another connection to He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. This moment is the reader's first full introduction to Rowling's world of witchcraft and wizards.
- Harry's experience with the Sorting Hat.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
- The de-gnoming of the Weasleys' garden. Harry discovers that even wizards have chores--gnomes must be grabbed (ignoring angry protests "Gerroff me! Gerroff me!"), swung about (to make them too dizzy to come back), and tossed out of the garden--this delightful scene highlights Rowling's clever and witty genius.
- Harry's first experience with a Howler, sent to Ron by his mother.
- The Dueling Club battle between Harry and Malfoy. Gilderoy Lockhart starts the Dueling Club to help students practice spells on each other, but he is not prepared for the intensity of the animosity between Harry and Draco. Since they are still young, their minibattle is innocent enough, including tickling and dancing charms.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
- Ron's attempt to use a telephone to call Harry at the Dursleys'.
- Harry's first encounter with a Dementor on the train (and just about any other encounter with Dementors). Harry's brush with the Dementors is terrifying and prepares Potter fans for a darker, scarier book.
- Harry, Ron, and Hermione's behavior in Professor Trelawney's Divination class. Some of the best moments in Rowling's books occur when she reminds us that the wizards-in-training at Hogwarts are, after all, just children. Clearly, even at a school of witchcraft and wizardry, classes can be boring and seem pointless to children.
- The Boggart lesson in Professor Lupin's classroom.
- Harry, Ron, and Hermione's knock-down confrontation with Snape.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
- Hermione's disgust at the reception for the veela (Bulgarian National Team Mascots) at the Quidditch World Cup. Rowling's fourth book addresses issues about growing up--the dynamic between the boys and girls at Hogwarts starts to change. Nowhere is this more plain than the hilarious scene in which magical cheerleaders nearly convince Harry and Ron to jump from the stands to impress them.
- Viktor Krum's crush on Hermione--and Ron's objection to it.
- Malfoy's "Potter Stinks" badge.
- Hermione's creation of S.P.E.W., the intolerant bigotry of the Death Eaters, and the danger of the Triwizard Tournament. Add in the changing dynamics between girls and boys at Hogwarts, and suddenly Rowling's fourth book has a weight and seriousness not as present in early books in the series. Candy and tickle spells are left behind as the students tackle darker, more serious issues and take on larger responsibilities, including the knowledge of illegal curses.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
- Harry's outburst to his friends at No. 12 Grimmauld Place. A combination of frustration over being kept in the dark and fear that he will be expelled fuels much of Harry's anger, and it all comes out at once, directly aimed at Ron and Hermione. Rowling perfectly portrays Harry's frustration at being too old to shirk responsibility, but too young to be accepted as part of the fight that he knows is coming.
- Harry's detention with Professor Umbridge. Rowling shows her darker side, leading readers to believe that Hogwarts is no longer a safe haven for young wizards. Dolores represents a bureaucratic tyrant capable of real evil, and Harry is forced to endure their private battle of wills alone.
- Harry and Cho's painfully awkward interactions. Rowling clearly remembers what it was like to be a teenager.
- Harry's Occlumency lessons with Snape.
- Dumbledore's confession to Harry.
Begin at the Beginning
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
Hardcover
PaperbackHarry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Hardcover
PaperbackHarry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Hardcover
PaperbackHarry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Hardcover
PaperbackHarry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
Hardcover
PaperbackIf You Like J.K. Rowling, You'll Love These Authors&
- Cornelia Funke
- Eoin Colfer
- Garth Nix
New Novels to Keep You Busy
Cry of the Icemark
The Dark Hills Divide
Singer of All Songs
The Game of Sunken Places
Children of the Lamp
Dragon RiderAuthors Younger Potter Fans Should Try&
- Geronimo Stilton
- Andy Griffiths
- Dav Pilkey
While You Wait
Hot New Series for Potter Fans
Charlie Bone
Guardians of Ga'hoole
Keys to the Kingdom
Underland Chronicles
Dragons of DeltoraA Few Words from Mary GrandPré
"When I illustrate a cover or a book, I draw upon what the author tells me; that's how I see my responsibility as an illustrator. J.K. Rowling is very descriptive in her writing--she gives an illustrator a lot to work with. Each story is packed full of rich visual descriptions of the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, and all the different creatures and people. She makes it easy for me. The images just develop as I sketch and retrace until it feels right and matches her vision." Check out more Harry Potter art from illustrator Mary GrandPré.Did You Know?
[via]
The Little White Horse was J.K. Rowling's favorite book as a child. 
Jane Austen is Rowling's favorite author. 
Roddy Doyle is Rowling's favorite living writer. More editions of Harry Potter And The Half-Blood Prince:
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Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenixby J. K. Rowling, Mary GrandpreISBN 0786257784 (0-7862-5778-4)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Book Description--Special Features of the Deluxe Edition
This cloth-covered deluxe edition features full-color printed endpapers and a foil-stamped title on the spine, and comes complete with a full-color slipcase with matte lamination and foil-stamping. Best of all, the removable, suitable-for-framing book jacket is emblazoned with exclusive, original artwork (that's different than the regular edition) by illustrator Mary GrandPré--a one-of-a-kind keepsake that you won't find anywhere else.
About the Artist: Mary GrandPré
Award-winning artist, conceptual illustrator, animated film scenery developer, ad designer, and, oh yes, illustrator for a worldwide children's book phenomenon, Mary GrandPré somehow manages to juggle all her hats quite well, to mix a metaphor. It seems appropriate to mix metaphors when you're talking about someone who has mixed her media--and her genres--so gracefully ever since she was a child.
As a 5-year-old, GrandPré began drawing. Five or six years later she was experimenting with Salvador Dali-style oil painting. Next she moved on to copying black-and-white photos out of the encyclopedia. Later still she decided to go to art school (Minneapolis College of Art and Design), where she learned that being an artist and being an illustrator were not mutually exclusive.
A couple of decades later, after working in corporate advertising, film (GrandPré created the environment and scenery art for the animated film Antz), and book publishing, this multitalented artist received a call asking if she might like to work on a book cover and some black-and-white illustrations for a book about a young wizard named Harry Potter. The rest--dare we say it?--is history.
Exclusive Amazon Interview:
The Painter of PotterConsidering she may be the best-known illustrator on the planet right now, Mary GrandPré is remarkably mild, modest, and down-to-earth. In a conversation with Amazon.com's Emilie Coulter, the Harry Potter illustrator talks about her dog and her dad, Walt Disney's magic, and, of course, Book Five. Amazon.com:
You've read Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix--what do you think? Mary GrandPré: I think it's wonderful. It's unique, it's different from the rest. I think it's a really exciting part of the Harry Potter series. Amazon.com: Which Harry Potter book have you liked the best? GrandPré: I think they all stand alone, so I appreciate them separately, but when you tie them all together into the story you can't really have one without the other. I don't have a favorite. They're all great. Amazon.com: What was your original artistic inspiration for the first Harry Potter book? How did Harry end up looking like Harry? GrandPré: 
When I illustrate a cover or a book, I draw upon what the author tells me; that's how I see my responsibility as an illustrator. J.K. Rowling is very descriptive in her writing--she gives an illustrator a lot to work with. Each story is packed full of rich visual descriptions of the atmosphere, the mood, the setting, and all the different creatures and people. She makes it easy for me. The images just develop as I sketch and retrace until it feels right and matches her vision. Amazon.com: How closely do you work with J.K. Rowling? GrandPré: I've only met her once, a couple years ago. The publisher shows her sketches and gets feedback, but she and I don't communicate. This is pretty typical for illustrator/author relationships: they keep our visions and voices separate. Amazon.com: How are you handling Harry growing up? GrandPré:
It's exciting. I kind of feel like his mom--or maybe his step-mom. J.K. Rowling is his mom. But I feel like it's a tricky thing to create a character and then age him. You have to take careful note of how that happens because any little tiny difference in a face can make the whole person look very different. Over the years Harry has become pretty solid in my mind. I just do a lot of experimenting on the drawing board, playing with how I would technically change this or that part of his face. What's really exciting is how Harry's personality changes from book to book, his level of confidence, things you see in normal kids. It's really fun to bring that into the drawings.
What's really exciting is how Harry's personality changes from book to book, his level of confidence, things you see in normal kids. It's really fun to bring that into the drawings.
Amazon.com: You've called your artistic style "soft geometry." What do you mean by that? GrandPré: I don't know if that happens so much in Harry Potter covers; in my other work you see it more--it's stylized, abstract. It's just a simplification of subject matter, an abstraction, but not enough to not be approachable. I'm inspired by people like [Edward] Hopper and Henry Moore, who is one of my favorite artists. Amazon.com: And who is your favorite children's book illustrator? GrandPré:
I'd say Maurice Sendak is one of them. As a kid I was really, really inspired by early Walt Disney. That sense of magic is something I want to bring into my work in my own way. It's hard to say who's my favorite--it changes. It's more about favorite pieces of art. I do like a variety of artwork. I don't feel fresh doing the same thing over and over, so I like to view a lot of art and be inspired by it according to subject or story, more so than just by illustrators or authors. Amazon.com: What do you think of the artwork in the international editions? GrandPré: I've only seen a couple of these editions. Everybody has their own vision of the story and what it should look like. To be honest, I really just focus on what I need to do with the books. That's even true for the movie and Harry Potter as a product, I try to stay focused on what's happening in my studio with Harry. Amazon.com: It must have been amazing to see the characters you worked with come to life in the movies. GrandPré:
It was pretty cool. I thought they were really good. It was so much fun to see the magic on the screen. Once in a while I would catch a glimpse of something that might have been inspired by something they saw in one of the books that I had drawn and that was great. I don't know if it was in there or not, but I'd like to think so! Amazon.com: Do you have a favorite character in all the books? GrandPré: Besides Harry, who's my favorite, obviously, I would say Hagrid because he's like my favorite people in my life. He's a lot like my dad: protective and loyal and big and sweet; and he's a lot like my dog, who's part St. Bernard and has the same qualities. I kind of have a personal connection with Hagrid. Amazon.com: Any advice for a budding illustrator? GrandPré:
Yes, I would just say keep working hard and don't give up. Illustration, like any form of art, is up for criticism, but it has to come from the heart or it's not good. If you're not enjoying what you're doing, keep trying new things because your best work will come from work you enjoy. Constantly try to listen to your inner voice about who you are as an artist and what you do and what you know. I don't know about magic but I know that I'm moved by it--I have been since I was a little kid--and it tends to come into my work even when I'm not illustrating things of magic. Just continue to try and be relaxed and natural about how you draw. Try to bring yourself out in your work. Amazon.com: If you could choose to live your life exactly the way you wanted to, no holds barred, what would change? GrandPré: I'd have a lot more time to do personal work. No holds barred, I would probably paint for myself, just go nuts, experiment, be my own art director, be my own critic, experience total freedom in my artwork. I try to do that in my work now, but it's hard to do when you are problem solving and illustrating other people's visions. I'm starting to write my own picture books now, so part of that dream is coming into view for me.
Mary GrandPré's Art: See more of Mary GrandPré's art from previous Harry Potter books
Illustrations by Mary GrandPré © 1998, 1999, 2000, 2003 Warner Bros. [via]More editions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix:
The History of Danish Dreamsby Peter HoegISBN 0770427340 (0-7704-2734-0)
Softcover, Doubleday Canada, Limited
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How I Live Nowby Meg RosoffISBN 0786288787 (0-7862-8878-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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The Hundred Secret Sensesby Amy TanISBN 080411109X (0-8041-1109-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Hundred Secret Senses'Book summary:Amy Tan's latest effort unfolds a series of family secrets that questions the connection between fate, beliefs, and hopes, memory and imagination, and the natural gifts of our hundred secret senses. Years after her Chinese half-sister assails her with ghost stories set in the mysterious world of Yin, a young woman finds herself in China, looking for a way to reconcile the ghosts of her past with the dreams of her future. [via]
More editions of The Hundred Secret Senses:
- The Hundred Secret Senses: ISBN 0786205970 (0-7862-0597-0)
Softcover, Thorndike Pr - The Hundred Secret Senses: ISBN 0804115028 (0-8041-1502-8)
Softcover, Ballantine Books - The Hundred Secret Senses: ISBN 0745137741 (0-7451-3774-1)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr - The Hundred Secret Senses: ISBN 0786205989 (0-7862-0598-9)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr - The Hundred Secret Senses: ISBN 0788192043 (0-7881-9204-3)
Hardcover, Diane Pub Co - The Hundred Secret Senses: ISBN 080411109X (0-8041-1109-X)
Softcover, Ballantine Books
Immortalityby Milan Kundera, Peter KussiISBN 0802111114 (0-8021-1111-4)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Immortality'Book summary:Milan Kundera's sixth novel springs from a casual gesture of a woman to her swimming instructor, a gesture that creates a character in the mind of a writer named Kundera. Like Flaubert's Emma or Tolstoy's Anna, Kundera's Agnes becomes an object of fascination, of indefinable longing. From that character springs a novel, a gesture of the imagination that both embodies and articulates Milan Kundera's supreme mastery of the novel and its purpose; to explore thoroughly the great, themes of existence. [via]
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The Impossible Birdby Patrick O'LearyISBN 0765303396 (0-7653-0339-6)
Softcover, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Impossible Bird'Inkheartby Cornelia Funke, Anthea BellISBN 0786280417 (0-7862-8041-7)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Inkheart'Book summary:Some books are destined to be lifelong treasured possessions. Inkheart by Cornelia Funke, the bestselling German author of The Thief Lord, could easily lay claim to being such a book. It is a meaty, magical adventure that oozes a passion for books and the awesome power of words on a page, written by an author who clearly adores stories. Every chapter is introduced by tempting quotations from classic novels that whet your appetite for more and help underline the terrific heritage of children's literature that Inkheart is added to.
Meggie is the daughter of a revered bookbinder called Mo whose peaceful existence is one night shattered by the arrival of Dustfinger--a shadowy man with a mysterious link to Mo's past. Mo and Meggie are soon on the move, running from something that threatens everything they hold dear. But the past inevitably catches up with them and Mo is forced to reveal to his daughter for the first time his terrible secret. He has the ability, or curse, to breathe life into any story he reads and make the characters come alive. Just such a character, the sinister Capricorn, is after Mo to ensure that he stays alive and is never returned to the pages from which he was sprung. And, of course, he'll stop at nothing to guarantee success.
Inkheart is a treat and echoes of its many colourful characters, nail-biting drama and unrelenting invention will stay with the reader for a long time. It's also a novel for people who really love books. (Recommended for ages 10 and over.) --John McLay [via]
Into the Greenby Charles De LintISBN 0765300222 (0-7653-0022-2)
Softcover, Orb Books
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Into the Green'Book summary:The harp was a gift from Jacky Lanter's fey kin, as was the music Angharad pulled from its strings. She used it in her journeys through the kingdoms of Green Isles, to wake the magic of the Summerblood where it lay sleeping in folk who had never known they had it.[via]
Harping, she knew, was on third of a bard's spells. Harping, and poetry, and the road that led . . .
Into the Green
Charles de Lint takes us once again into lands infused and transformed by magic. Magic that grows in the roots of old oaks and dances by moonlight among standing stones. Magic that sleeps in an old soldier's eyes and glows in the gaze of a phantom stag. Magic that pumps through the heart and the veins of those born to the Summerblood-to be stolen at knife point, burned, destroyed, in danger of fading back into the green and disappearing forever from the world.More editions of Into the Green:
The Jaguar Smile: A Nicaraguan Journeyby Salman RushdieISBN 0805053115 (0-8050-5311-5)
Softcover, Henry Holt & Co
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Jazzby Toni MorrisonISBN 0785719857 (0-7857-1985-7)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Jazz'Book summary:Jazz embraces the vibrant music and lifestyle of 1920s Harlem, an urban renaissance of opportunity and glamour. A novel of murder, hard lives, and broken dreams, Jazz sways with a lyric medley of voices and human consciousness.
Narrated by the author, Toni Morrison, this is an intense but gratifying three hours of tape. Background jazz music enhances the feel of '20s Harlem, a city that attracted thousands of black southerners hoping for better lives. Joe Trace and his wife Violet were part of this migration; madly in love with each other and the idea of this urban mecca, they "traindanced into the city." But like so many of the marriages in Morrison's novels, this union crumbles, and the dreams for a better life fade away. Joe finds another, a love "that made him so sad and happy he shot her just to keep the feeling going."
In Jazz, time ebbs and flows like human memory, traversing between recollections of the past and expectations for the future; likewise, jazz music is often wild and chaotic. Here Morrison once again exemplifies herself as both a superb writer and a masterful storyteller. [via]
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Jonathan Livingston Seagullby Richard BachISBN 0802724698 (0-8027-2469-8)
Softcover, Walker Large Print
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Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Fiveby Harold BloomISBN 0791059251 (0-7910-5925-1)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Bookby Terry Jones, Brian FroudISBN 0760711062 (0-7607-1106-2)
Softcover, Marboro Books
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The Lion of Boaz Jachin and Jachin Boazby Russell HobanISBN 0747549087 (0-7475-4908-7)
Softcover, Bloomsbury Pub Ltd
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A Little Princessby Frances Hodgson BurnettISBN 0766607615 (0-7666-0761-5)
Hardcover, Modern Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Little Princess'Book summary:This retelling of the well-known classic is both charming and accessible to younger readers. "I do sometimes pretend I am a princess, so that I can try and behave like a proper one." When wealthy Sara Crewe first arrives at Miss Minchin's Select Seminary for Young Ladies, she is treated like a princess. But when Sara descends into poverty and is forced to work as a lowly servant, she needs all her courage and imagination to remain a princess at heart. This Young Classics edition explores the real world behind A Little Princess. Photography sets the scene without intruding on the story, and brings A Little Princess to life for a new generation of children. [via]
A Little Princessby Susanna Davidson, Kate AldousISBN 0794511236 (0-7945-1123-6)
Hardcover, Edc Pub
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› Find signed collectible books: 'A Little Princess'Book summary:Rich little Sara Crewe loves to imagine things. At her English boarding school, surrounded by luxury, she sees herself as a princess. But then disaster strikes as Sara is forced to work as a servant. Only her imagination can make life bearable, until something truly incredible happens. Ages 5+. [via]
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Lizardby Banana Yoshimoto, Ann SherifISBN 0802115640 (0-8021-1564-0)
Hardcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Lizard'Book summary:A collection of short stories by the bestselling author of Kitchen and N.P. demonstrates her magic realism and her very Japanese postmodernism--a blend of the traditional with the latest in popular culture. 75,000 first printing. [via]
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Local Girlsby Alice HoffmanISBN 0786220090 (0-7862-2009-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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Long Night of White Chickensby Francisco GoldmanISBN 0802135471 (0-8021-3547-1)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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Love Medicineby Louise ErdrichISBN 080502798X (0-8050-2798-X)
Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Love Medicine'Book summary:Expanded to include never-before-published chapters, this collection of interrelated stories of love, betrayal, mystery, and madness concerns men and woman bound by blood, legend, tradition, and need. 10,000 first printing. [via]
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Lyre of Orpheusby Robertson DaviesISBN 0771599196 (0-7715-9919-6)
Hardcover, Macmillan of Canada
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The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmareby G. K. ChestertonISBN 0755100166 (0-7551-0016-6)
Softcover, House of Stratus Ltd
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare'Book summary:The man who was Thursday is a classic of the spy genre that is equal parts mystery, suspense story, allegory, and farce. Each rereading of G.K. Chesterton's critically acclaimed novel reveals new meanings and nuances, while its jokes never become stale. The hero, Gabriel Syme, is Chesterton's ideal fo the virtuous common man. He must infiltrate and try to thwart an anarchist cell, at whose heart is the ambiguous Sunday, a man whose powers seem almost godlike. Syme's mission leads him through the back ways of Victorian London and on a wild chase through the French countryside, an adventure at once madcap, surreal, and cosmically important. More than just a charming tale full of Dickensian characters and a mysterious man who is supposed to be"Thursday," The Man Who Was Thursday asks the dark question: Will the human race survive? [via]
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Margaret Atwood's the Handmaid's Taleby Harold BloomISBN 0791075699 (0-7910-7569-9)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Margaret Atwood's the Handmaid's Tale'Book summary:Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, part of Chelsea House Publishers' Bloom's Guides collection, presents concise critical excerpts from The Handmaid's Tale to provide a scholarly overview of the work. This comprehensive study guide also features "The Story Behind the Story," which details the conditions under which The Handmaid's Tale was written. This title also includes a short biography on Margaret Atwood and a descriptive list of characters. [via]
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Margaret Atwood's the Handmaid's Taleby Margaret Eleanor AtwoodISBN 079105926X (0-7910-5926-X)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Margaret Atwood's the Handmaid's Tale'Book summary:Atwood's best-known novel depicts one woman's struggle to survive in a futuristic society in which women have become property.
The title, Margaret Atwoods The Handmaid's Tale, part of Chelsea House Publishers Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on Margaret Atwoods The Handmaid's Tale through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics. This collection of criticism also features a short biography on Margaret Atwood, a chronology of the authors life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. [via]
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Mason and Dixonby Thomas PynchonISBN 0805037586 (0-8050-3758-6)
Hardcover, Holt & Company, Henry
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Mason and Dixon'Book summary:A sprawling, complex, and comic work from one of the country's most celebrated and idiosyncratic authors, Mason & Dixon is Thomas Pynchon's Most Magickal reinvention of the 18th-century novel. It follows the lifelong partnership and adventures of the English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon (of Mason-Dixon Line fame) as they travel the world mapping and measuring through an uncharted pre-Revolutionary America of Native Americans, white settlers, taverns, and bawdy establishments of ill-repute. Fans of the postmodern master of paranoia will recognize Pynchon's personality in the novel's first phrase: "Snow-Balls have flown their Arcs," a brief echo of the rockets that curve across the skies in the writer's masterpiece Gravity's Rainbow. [via]
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Middlesexby Jeffrey EugenidesISBN 0786257008 (0-7862-5700-8)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Middlesex'Book summary:"I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974." And so begins Middlesex, the mesmerizing saga of a near-mythic Greek American family and the "roller-coaster ride of a single gene through time." The odd but utterly believable story of Cal Stephanides, and how this 41-year-old hermaphrodite was raised as Calliope, is at the tender heart of this long-awaited second novel from Jeffrey Eugenides, whose elegant and haunting 1993 debut, The Virgin Suicides, remains one of the finest first novels of recent memory.
Eugenides weaves together a kaleidoscopic narrative spanning 80 years of a stained family history, from a fateful incestuous union in a small town in early 1920s Asia Minor to Prohibition-era Detroit; from the early days of Ford Motors to the heated 1967 race riots; from the tony suburbs of Grosse Pointe and a confusing, aching adolescent love story to modern-day Berlin. Eugenides's command of the narrative is astonishing. He balances Cal/Callie's shifting voices convincingly, spinning this strange and often unsettling story with intelligence, insight, and generous amounts of humor:
Emotions, in my experience aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." & I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic traincar constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." ... I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.
When you get to the end of this splendorous book, when you suddenly realize that after hundreds of pages you have only a few more left to turn over, you'll experience a quick pang of regret knowing that your time with Cal is coming to a close, and you may even resist finishing it--putting it aside for an hour or two, or maybe overnight--just so that this wondrous, magical novel might never end. --Brad Thomas Parsons [via]
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My Idea of Fun: A Cautionary Taleby John ArdenISBN 0802142133 (0-8021-4213-3)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'My Idea of Fun: A Cautionary Tale'Book summary:Will Self has established himself as one of the most brilliant, daring, and inventive writers of his generation. My Idea of Fun is Will Selfs highly acclaimed first novel. The story of a devilishly clever international financier/marketing wizard and his young apprentice, My Idea of Fun is both a frighteningly dark subterranean exploration of capitalism run rampant and a wickedly sharp, technically acute display of linguistic pyrotechnics that glows with pure white-hot brilliance. Ian Wharton is a very ordinary young man until he is taken under the wing of a gentleman known variously as Mr. Broadhurst, Samuel Northcliff, and finally and simply the Fat Controller. Loudmouthed, impeccably tailored, and a fount of bombastic erudition, the Fat Controller initiates Ian into the dark secrets of his arts -- of marketing, money, and the human psyche -- and takes Ian, and the reader, on a wild voyage around the edges of reality. As we careen into the twenty-first century, Self perfectly captures the zeitgeist of our times: money is the only common language; consumerism, violence, and psychosis (drug-induced and otherwise) prevail; and the human soul has become the ultimate product.[via]More editions of My Idea of Fun: A Cautionary Tale:
Mythago Woodby Robert HoldstockISBN 0765307294 (0-7653-0729-4)
Softcover, Orb Books
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The Palm-Wine Drinkardby Amos TutuolaISBN 0802150489 (0-8021-5048-9)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghostsby Amos TutuolaISBN 0802133630 (0-8021-3363-0)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts'Book summary:When Amos Tutuola's first novel, The Palm-Wine Drinkard, appeared in 1952, it aroused exceptional worldwide interest. Drawing on the West African Yoruba oral folktale tradition, Tutuola described the odyssey of a devoted palm-wine drinker through a nightmare of fantastic adventure. Since then, The Palm-Wine Drinkard has been translated into more than 15 languages and has come to be regarded as a masterwork of one of Africa's most influential writers. Tutuola's second novel, My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, recounts the fate of mortals who stray into the world of ghosts, the heart of the tropical forest. Here, as every hunter and traveler knows, mortals venture at great peril, and it is here that a small boy is left alone.[via]More editions of The Palm-Wine Drinkard and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts:
A Prayer for Owen Meanyby John IrvingISBN 0792481976 (0-7924-8197-6)
Hardcover, World Pubns
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The Prestigeby Christopher PriestISBN 0765317346 (0-7653-1734-6)
Softcover, Doherty Associates, LLC, Tom
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prestige'Book summary:The Washington Post called this "a dizzying magic show of a novel, chock-a-block with all the props of Victorian sensation fiction: seances, multiple narrators, a family curse, doubles, a lost notebook, wraiths, and disembodied spirits; a haunted house, awesome mad-doctor machinery, a mausoleum, and ghoulish horrors; a misunderstood scientist, impossible disappearances; the sins of the fathers visited upon their descendants." Winner of the 1996 World Fantasy Award, The Prestige is even better than that, because unlike many Victorians, Priest writes crisp, unencumbered prose. And anyone who's ever thrilled to the arcing electricity in the "It's alive!" scene in Frankenstein will relish the "special effects" by none other than Nikola Tesla. [via]
The Prophetby Kahlil GibranISBN 0802725325 (0-8027-2532-5)
Softcover, Walker Large Print
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Prophet'Book summary:In a distant, timeless place, a mysterious prophet walks the sands. At the moment of his departure, he wishes to offer the people gifts but possesses nothing. The people gather round, each asks a question of the heart, and the man's wisdom is his gift. It is Gibran's gift to us, as well, for Gibran's prophet is rivaled in his wisdom only by the founders of the world's great religions. On the most basic topics--marriage, children, friendship, work, pleasure--his words have a power and lucidity that in another era would surely have provoked the description "divinely inspired." Free of dogma, free of power structures and metaphysics, consider these poetic, moving aphorisms a 20th-century supplement to all sacred traditions--as millions of other readers already have. --Brian Bruya [via]
Quarantineby Jim CraceISBN 0783801130 (0-7838-0113-0)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Quarantine'Book summary:The story of Jesus's 40 days in the wilderness is surely among the most celebrated and widely diffused narratives in Western culture. Why, then, would Jim Crace choose to retell it in strictly naturalistic, non-miraculous terms? The obvious answer would be that the godless novelist is trying to debunk divinity--to take the entire New Testament down a notch. And at first, this does seem to be the case. Crace's Jesus first got religion as an adolescent, and "was transformed by god like other boys his age were changed by girls." His peers view his spiritual fervor as a youthful eccentricity. Even now, as the thirtysomething Jesus heads out to the Judean desert for his 40-day retreat, he's perceived by his fellow anchorites as a flighty and impractical Galilean. They even call him "Gally" for short--and what sort of deity answers to a nickname?
Yet Crace is hardly the jeering materialist we might expect. As Jesus takes to his cliff-top cave, the author renders his religious transports without a hint of irony, and with a linguistic elegance that can hardly be called disrespectful: "The prayers were in command of him. He shouted out across the valley, happy with the noise he made. The common words lost hold of sound. The consonants collapsed. He called on god to join him in the cave with all the noises that his lips could make. He called with all the voices in his throat." And while most of the temptations of Christ are visited upon him by humans--by the motley crew of his cave-dwelling neighbors--he resists them with what we can only call superhuman will. Quarantine does, of course, operate on a fairly realistic plane. Jesus dies of starvation long before his 40-day fast is complete, and his fellow retreatants, who take center stage throughout much of the novel, are much too confused and brutal ever to figure in any Sunday school pageant. Still, Crace leaves at least the possibility of resurrection intact at the end, which should ensure that his brilliant book will rattle both believers and non-believers alike. [via]
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Sacred Nightby Alan Sheridan, Tahar Ben JellounISBN 0801864410 (0-8018-6441-0)
Softcover, Johns Hopkins Univ Pr
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Sarah Canaryby Karen Joy FowlerISBN 0805017534 (0-8050-1753-4)
Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
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The Seventh Scrollby Wilbur A. SmithISBN 0786204826 (0-7862-0482-6)
Hardcover, Mitchell Thornton
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Slaughter House Fiveby Kurt VonnegutISBN 0783883706 (0-7838-8370-6)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Slaughter House Five'Book summary:Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes unstuck in time after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden.
Don't let the ease of reading fool you--Vonnegut's isn't a conventional, or simple, novel. He writes, "There are almost no characters in this story, and almost no dramatic confrontations, because most of the people in it are so sick, and so much the listless playthings of enormous forces. One of the main effects of war, after all, is that people are discouraged from being characters..." Slaughterhouse-Five (taken from the name of the building where the POWs were held) is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch- 22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it a unique poignancy--and humor. [via]
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Snow in Augustby Pete HamillISBN 0786212225 (0-7862-1222-5)
Softcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Snow in August'Book summary:In 1940s Brooklyn, friendship between an 11-year-old Irish Catholic boy and an elderly Jewish rabbi might seem as unlikely as, well, snow in August. But the relationship between young Michael Devlin and Rabbi Judah Hirsch is only one of the many miracles large and small contained in Pete Hamill's novel. Michael finds himself in trouble when he witnesses the 17-year-old leader of the dreaded Falcons gang beating an elderly shopkeeper. For Michael, 1940s Brooklyn is a world still shaped by life in the Old Country, a world where informing on a fellow Irishman is the worst crime imaginable--worse even than the violent crimes committed by some of those fellows. So Michael keeps silent, finding solace in the company of Rabbi Hirsch, a Czech refuge whom he meets by chance. From this serendipitous beginning blossoms a unique friendship--one that proves perilous to both when the Falcons catch up with them.
Interlaced with Hamill's realistic descriptions of violence and fear are scenes of remarkable poignancy: the rabbi's first baseball game, where he sees Jackie Robinson play for the Dodgers; Michael's introduction into the mystical world of the Cabbala and the book's miraculous ending. Hamill is not a lyrical writer, but he is a heartfelt one, and this story of courage in the face of great odds is one of his best. [via]
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Tabloid Dreamsby Robert Olen ButlerISBN 0805031316 (0-8050-3131-6)
Hardcover, Henry Holt & Co
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Tabloid Dreams'Book summary:Robert Olen Butler's last short story collection, A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, was a keen, piercing book told largely in the voice of Vietnamese immigrants to America. To say that his new collection is a departure is an understatement: Butler has taken actual headlines from the more outrageous of the supermarket tabloids and fashioned short fiction around them. Headlines such as "Titanic Victim Speaks Through Waterbed," "Woman Loses Cookie Bake-Off, Sets Self on Fire," and "Every Man She Kisses Dies" are the starting points for this quirky volume from one of the most original American writers at work today. [via]
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Their Eyes Were Watching Godby Zora Neale HurstonISBN 078381884X (0-7838-1884-X)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Their Eyes Were Watching God'Book summary:At the height of the Harlem Renaissance during the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was the preeminent black woman writer in the United States. She was a sometime-collaborator with Langston Hughes and a fierce rival of Richard Wright. Her stories appeared in major magazines, she consulted on Hollywood screenplays, and she penned four novels, an autobiography, countless essays, and two books on black mythology. Yet by the late 1950s, Hurston was living in obscurity, working as a maid in a Florida hotel. She died in 1960 in a Welfare home, was buried in an unmarked grave, and quickly faded from literary consciousness until 1975 when Alice Walker almost single-handedly revived interest in her work.
Of Hurston's fiction, Their Eyes Were Watching God is arguably the best-known and perhaps the most controversial. The novel follows the fortunes of Janie Crawford, a woman living in the black town of Eaton, Florida. Hurston sets up her characters and her locale in the first chapter, which, along with the last, acts as a framing device for the story of Janie's life. Unlike Wright and Ralph Ellison, Hurston does not write explicitly about black people in the context of a white world--a fact that earned her scathing criticism from the social realists--but she doesn't ignore the impact of black-white relations either:
It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk. These sitters had been tongueless, earless, eyeless conveniences all day long. Mules and other brutes had occupied their skins. But now, the sun and the bossman were gone, so the skins felt powerful and human. They became lords of sounds and lesser things. They passed nations through their mouths. They sat in judgment.
One person the citizens of Eaton are inclined to judge is Janie Crawford, who has married three men and been tried for the murder of one of them. Janie feels no compulsion to justify herself to the town, but she does explain herself to her friend, Phoeby, with the implicit understanding that Phoeby can "tell 'em what Ah say if you wants to. Dat's just de same as me 'cause mah tongue is in mah friend's mouf."Hurston's use of dialect enraged other African American writers such as Wright, who accused her of pandering to white readers by giving them the black stereotypes they expected. Decades later, however, outrage has been replaced by admiration for her depictions of black life, and especially the lives of black women. In Their Eyes Were Watching God Zora Neale Hurston breathes humanity into both her men and women, and allows them to speak in their own voices. --Alix Wilber [via]
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Tokyo Cancelledby Rana DasguptaISBN 0802170099 (0-8021-7009-9)
Softcover, Grove Pr
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Toni Morrison's the Bluest Eyeby Harold BloomISBN 0791051919 (0-7910-5191-9)
Hardcover, Facts on File
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Toni Morrison's the Bluest Eye'Book summary:A child's descent into madness was explored in Eye.
The title, Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye, part of Chelsea House Publishers Modern Critical Interpretations series, presents the most important 20th-century criticism on Toni Morrisons The Bluest Eye through extracts of critical essays by well-known literary critics. This collection of criticism also features a short biography on Toni Morrison, a chronology of the authors life, and an introductory essay written by Harold Bloom, Sterling Professor of the Humanities, Yale University. [via]
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War for the Oaksby Emma BullISBN 0765300346 (0-7653-0034-6)
Softcover, St Martins Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'War for the Oaks'Book summary:Emma Bull's debut novel, War for the Oaks, placed her in the top tier of urban fantasists and established a new subgenre. Unlike most of the rock & rollin' fantasies that have ripped off Ms. Bull's concept, War for the Oaks is well worth reading. Intelligent and skillfully written, with sharply drawn, sympathetic characters, War for the Oaks is about love and loyalty, life and death, and creativity and sacrifice.
Eddi McCandry has just left her boyfriend and their band when she finds herself running through the Minneapolis night, pursued by a sinister man and a huge, terrifying dog. The two creatures are one and the same: a phouka, a faerie being who has chosen Eddi to be a mortal pawn in the age-old war between the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. Eddi isn't interested--but she doesn't have a choice. Now she struggles to build a new life and new band when she might not even survive till the first rehearsal.
War for the Oaks won the Locus Magazine award for Best First Novel and was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Society Award. Other books by Emma Bull include the novels Falcon, Bone Dance (second honors, Philip K. Dick Award), Finder (a finalist for the Minnesota Book Award), and (with Stephen Brust) Freedom and Necessity; the collection Double Feature (with Will Shetterly); and the picture book The Princess and the Lord of Night. --Cynthia Ward [via]
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The Waste Landby Stephen KingISBN 0785705430 (0-7857-0543-0)
Hardcover, Bt Bound
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› Find signed collectible books: 'The Waste Land'Book summary:The third volume in Stephen Kings acclaimed, epic Dark Tower series.[via]
Roland continues his quest for the Dark Tower, but he is no longer alone. He has trained Eddie and Susannahwho entered Mid-World from their separate whens in New York City in The Drawing of the Threein the old ways of the gunslingers. But their ka-tet is not yet complete. Another must be drawn from New York into Mid-World, someone who has been there before, a boy who has died not once but twice, and yet still lives. The "Ka-tet," four who are bound together by fate, must travel far in this novel encountering not only the poisonous waste lands and the ravaged city of Lud that lies beyond, but also the rage of a train that might be their only means of escape.The stunning Plume edition features full-color illustrations by Ned Dameron and is a collectors item for years to come.
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Wickedby Gregory MaguireISBN 0786206438 (0-7862-0643-8)
Hardcover, Thorndike Pr
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Wicked'Book summary:An astonishingly rich re-creation of the land of Oz, this book retells the story of Elphaba, the Wicked Witch of the West, who wasn't so wicked after all. Taking readers past the yellow brick road and into a phantasmagoric world rich with imagination and allegory, Gregory Maguire just might change the reputation of one of the most sinister characters in literature. [via]
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Widdershinsby Charles De LintISBN 0765312859 (0-7653-1285-9)
Hardcover, St Martins Pr
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World of Wondersby Robertson DaviesISBN 0770513190 (0-7705-1319-0)
Hardcover, Macmillan of Canada
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The Youngest Dollby Rosario FerreISBN 0803268742 (0-8032-6874-2)
Softcover, Univ of Nebraska Pr
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Harry Potter Et L'ordre Du Phoenix / Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenixby J. K. RowlingISBN 0785916725 (0-7859-1672-5)
Softcover, French & European Pubns
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› Find signed collectible books: 'Harry Potter Et L'ordre Du Phoenix / Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix'Book summary:Les quatre premiers tomes des aventures du jeune sorcier à lunettes se sont envolés aussi rapidement que le vif d'or dans une partie de quidditch ! Harry Potter et l'Ordre du Phénix ne fera pas exception. La magie en revient encore à la plume vive de Joanne K. Rowling, mais également, cette fois, au tourbillon de difficultés dans lequel est happé Harry adolescent.
Harry vient de passer un autre pénible été chez son oncle et sa tante, sans nouvelles de ses amis ni du monde de la magie. Autrefois admis en héros à l'école des sorciers, il y est accueilli plutôt tièdement en cette cinquième année. C'est que le ministère de la Magie ne veut plus rien entendre des prétendues menaces de mort qui planent sur Harry Potter. Mandée pour effacer le souvenir de Voldemort des couloirs de l'école, une nouvelle enseignante en profite dès lors pour rendre la vie dure à Harry et semer la zizanie parmi les grands et les petits sorciers. Chassé de l'équipe de quidditch et ridiculisé par le ministère de la Magie, Harry doit également combattre les images que parvient à immiscer dans son cerveau Lord Voldemort, bel et bien vivant, et plus menaçant que jamais. Et pour couronner le tout, voilà que Harry se retrouve affligé d'une timidité qui le transforme en poireau devant la belle Cho Chang.
Plaçant son jeune héros dans une position impossible, entre un gouvernement de la magie incompétent et une école impuissante, J. K. Rowling réussit un portrait saisissant de l'adolescence. Harry Potter et l'Ordre du Phénix exprime ainsi cette tragique vérité : chaque être est seul, mais il possède en lui des ressources illimitées... --Julie Sergent [via]
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Afrikaans
Duiwelskloof: Romanby Andre Philippus BrinkISBN 0798138793 (0-7981-3879-3)
Hardcover, Human & Rousseay
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