Thursday, March 27, 2008

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday to me, Happy Birthday meeeeeee, Happy Birthday to me!

I haven't had much of a chance to do any reading recently as I had a friend in town. It was great having the chance to spend some time with her; I hadn't seen her in two (maybe three) years. Still, having a guest and taking her out and around Seattle means very little time left over to read. Hopefully I can "catch up" this weekend.

I signed up for Carl's Once Upon A Time ll challenge last week and have been trying to decide what books I want to read. From March 21 to June 20, I need to read four books: one fantasy, one folklore, one fairy tale, and one mythology...and then, read Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream. (I'm doing Quest Three, the "harder" one.)

The problem is, I don't know which books to read!

  • I've got Kim Harrison's The Outlaw Demon Wails, Ilona Andrew's Magic Burns, Karen Chance's Embrace the Night, C.E. Murphy's Heart of Stone, In the Serpent's Coils, by Tiffany Trent, and Tangled Webs by Anne Bishop on the list...these six all seem to be urban fantasy (excluding Anne Bishop), although Heart of Stone and In the Serpent's Coils might have a mythological or fairy tale base.
  • Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss sounds like it will do for the folklore one (the summary says that the novel follows the story of Kvothe, the magically gifted young man who grows to be the most notorious wizard his world has ever seen). Wizard = King Arthur = folklore, right?
  • I could reread books (War for the Oaks, anything by Steven Brust [and I'm already planning on rereading all of the Vlad series, which has magic, dragons, and telepathic jhregs], anything by Charles de Lint) but I don't particularly want to. Oh! Joanne Harris would count; both Runemarks (ah ha! fairy tales!) and the sequel to Chocolat (I'm blanking on the title, but I know it's about magic) could work for this challenge.

Hmm, maybe I should check out what other people are reading. Not only would I get a better understanding of what others are reading, but I could see how they're classifying their choices!

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