Fairy Tale & Folk Tale Stars

New takes on old tales - Fiction and Nonfiction.

 

Annotations are from Advance, the Ingram Book Magazine, unless noted.

    Fiction

  • The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye: Five Fairy Stories
    Byatt, A.S.
    Publisher: Random House List Price: $ 19 ISBN: 0679420088 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    NYTBR NOTABLE
    A handful of brilliantly imaginative historical and contemporary fairy tales for grown-ups by the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession. Packaged in a beautiful little illustrated edition similar to Byatt's extremely successful collection, The Matisse Stories, this collection will make a lovely, affordably priced gift that will introduce her magical writing to many new readers.
  • Briar Rose
    Coover, Robert
    Grove/Atlantic List Price: 18.00 ISBN: 0802115918 Date: 1997
    starPublishers Weekly
    NYTBR Notable
    Briar Rose tells of a prince trapped in the briars, a sleeping beauty who cannot awaken and who dreams of a succession of kissing princes, as old spell-casting fairy who inhabits the princess's dreams regales her with legends of other sleeping beauties, and trying to imagine the nature of human desire.
  • Forever
    Author: Deveraux, Jude
    Publisher: Pocket $ 7.99 (paper) ISBN: 067101420x Date: 2002
    starPW
    A classic fairy tale is mixed with a modern love story in Deveraux's imaginative new novel--her first original paperback since 1998's An Angel for Emily. Darci Monroe falls in love with her employer, millionaire Adam Montgomery. When Adam asks Darci to use her psychic gift to help him, she makes a sacrifice greater than he imagined.
    Suggested Reading: Romance Stars
    Updated 9.30.02
  • The Lady Who Liked Clean Restrooms
    Donleavy, J.P.
    Publisher: St Martins List Price: $18.95 ISBN: 0312155638 Date: 1997
    starKirkus
    This modern-day fairy tale - in which a woman in a state of deep depression after a recent divorce is driven to find the finest ladies' rooms in Manhattan - is Donleavy at his best: witty, biting, decidedly scatological, eccentrically punctuated, and laugh-out-loud funny.
  • The Angel With One Hundred Wings: A Tale from the Arabian Nights
    Author: Horch, Daniel
    Publisher: St. Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312284187 Date: 2002
    starKirkusstarBookliststarLJ
    A beautiful adventure story and romance, this tale opens in the City of Peace, as Baghdad was once called. With engaging characters and rich imagery drawn from alchemy, the Koran, and early Islamic mystics, this is a literary masterpiece that captures the magic of the Middle East.
    Suggested Reading: All Stars Lists
    Updated 12.23.02
  • Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
    Author: Maguire, Gregory
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 24.95 ISBN: 0060391448 Date: 1995
    The Wizard of Oz is one of the most watched, best-loved movies of all time. Everyone who grew up watching it year after year will be fascinated by this twist in the tale--a richly comic, highly literary, and supremely entertaining excursion into the life and times of the infamous Wicked Witch of the West.
    Updated 7.6.04
  • Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister
    Author: Maguire, Gregory
    Publisher: Regan List Price: $ 24 ISBN: 0060392827 Date: 1999
    starKirkus
    From the author of the acclaimed novel Wicked comes a fresh perspective on another timeless tale - Cinderella - sure to enchant readers young and old alike.
  • Grimm's Last Fairy Tale
    Author: Middleton, Haydn
    Publisher: St. Martins $ 23.95 ISBN: 0312272901 Date: 2001
    starKirkus
    This compelling historical novel recreates the life story of literature's most famous brothers and could almost be a fairytale itself with its changes of fortune, tests of duty and honor, lost loves, and twisted family relationships. As Auguste, a niece, attempts to learn an old family secret, classic fairytales are retold, and the mysterious German woods forever haunt in the background.
    Suggested Reading: Historical Fiction Stars
    Updated 1/19/01
  • The Pied Piper's Posion
    Author: Wallace, Christopher
    Publisher: Overlook $ 25.95 ISBN: 1585670138 Date: 2000
    starBooklist
    In 1648, the ancient town of Hamelin struggled to survive the most savage war Europe has ever known. In 1946, group of refuges is falling victim to a mysterious disease at a quarantine camp in Poland. Is there a connection between the two calamities?
    Updated 4/17/00.

Nonfiction

  • Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folktales from the Gulf States
    Author: Hurston, Zora Neale
    Publisher: HarperCollins $ 25 ISBN: 0060188936 Date: 2001
    starKirkus
    The most extensive volume of African-American folklore that Hurston left behind, this collection of nearly 500 folktales gathered in the late 1920s represents a major part of her literary legacy.
  • Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales
    by Zipes, Jack (ed)
    Publisher: Univ of Oxford $ 49.95 ISBN: 0198601158 Date: 2000
    starLibrary Journal
    Strikingly illustrated with 70 pictures, from early engravings to 20th-century film stills, this authoritative reference is an essential companion for everyone who loves fairy tales and storytelling.