To Read & To Write

“Classic Japanese Fairy-Tales [Volume 1]: Mimei Ogawa: The Father Of Modern Japanese Fairy-Tales” is a new collection of Japanese fairy-tales translated into English by J.D. Wisgo (2018). This beautiful collection of six Japanese fairy-tales is precious and unique because it is the first publication of its kind: so widely available (unlike other publications of Ogawa’s) and with refreshed translations of classic tales, many of which are not widely known. Wisgo’s renderings of these stories are brilliant, extremely sensual and vivid, and full of poignant reflection without being overtly literary.  The six tales in this volume include: The Red Candle & The Mermaid, The Clockless Village, The Golden Hoops, Saffron Wine & The Desert Town, The Chocolate Candy Angel, and Many Years Later. To be sure, all of these are indeed fairy-tales (as opposed to fables). The lessons and meanings are subtle and abstract. When towns disappear is it due to bad luck or mermaids? Or, what is wors

This is the kind of book I wish I had discovered when I was a pre-teen/teen. Although some parts were cheesy and too straight-foward for me (Rapunzel not knowing terms of phrase like "hot" because of how cooped up she is inside her room, or her love interest Fane bringing her an Egg McMuffin present since she's never tried one, or the fact that they've never heard the Rapunzel story despite living in modern times)... not to mention unrealistic... I really did enjoy the story. The character's identities were very intriguing. Rapunzel's first visits to the outside world with Fane, her boyfriend, are very symbolic of what a relationship can do for a person - which is, in this particular story - to make someone feel safe enough to explore the world, no matter how or where. Cindy C. Bennett's contemporary re-telling of the Rapunzel fairy-tale is exciting, full of magic and suspense, and heart-felt. Rapunzel lives way up in the tower of Gothel Mansion, and

“Heroes & Monsters of Greek Myth” by Bernard and Dorothy Evslin and Ned Hoopes is a perfect little book of stories from Greek Mythology. The stories are written like folktales, making a simpler and more distilled (without retracting from quality) version compared to something like Ovid’s “Metamorphoses”. Readers will become familiar with Perseus, born of Zeus and a woman, who beheaded Medusa to prove his power to his oppressor, Polydectes. They will become familiar with Daedalus, father of Icarus and creator of waxen wings, whose son flew too close to the sun. Theseus also, who overcame his insecurity about being small compared to other men by slaying the monster Minotaur. They will read about Atalanta, the girl who was raised by bears after being abandoned by her father, the woman who became a fierce huntress, princess, and wife of Hippomenes. The awesome fables of King Midas and his greed and Pygmalion and his artistry will also be found in this book. “Heroes & Monsters o

It was a pleasure to listen to David Rakoff read his book “Don’t Get Too Comfortable: The Indignities of Coach Class, the Torments of Low Thread Count, the Never-Ending Quest for Artisanal Olive Oil, and Other First World Problems” (2006). His book of criticism and personal philosophy made for the very best rides to work and back home. I sat in the driver’s seat and chuckled, laughed, and joked as if Rakoff was right there, saying things like, “That’s unbelievable”, “Oh my god!”, and “That’s too funny” to myself while listening. This book, I admit, is the first audiobook I’ve ever finished. It helped that David Rakoff, the author himself, read it with his own voice. It isn’t shocking to find out that Rakoff worked for NPR, GQ, NYT Magazine, and Vogue. He is sharp, funny, and unabashedly honest - while still being pleasantly modest - about his thoughts and opinions on matters that very well could have made him some enemies. I was sad to find, when, three quarters through with the bo

Wilkie Collins’ novel The Woman In White has themes that may seem cliché: love conquers all, the truth will always come out in the end, people with an air of superiority usually have something to cover up… as Alexander Pope once said, “Charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.” Collins’ The Woman In White proves that, and is everything but cliché. This lengthy masterpiece of a novel is part sensation novel, part mystery, part social commentary, and of course, like every good story, part romance. It is a book that probably should be read slowly so as to savor every idea and emotion offered by this talented writer. And to read this novel slowly is exactly how it was read in 19th century England, when Collins submitted his story, chapter by chapter, week by week, to Charles Dickens’ magazine, All the Year Round. Victorians consumed this novel like starving animals from the year 1859-1860. This was a time of excess and pleasure, and “grandiose” performance (Sweet, Introduction)

Newbery Award winning classic children’s story, “A Wrinkle In Time” (1962), by Madeleine L’Engle, is a delightful science fiction and fantasy tale incorporating very real scientific concepts such as a *tesseract* (geometry: the generalization of a cube to four dimensions). To *tesser* means to travel beyond the rules of time and space, which is exactly what Meg, her brother Charles Wallace, her father, a friend named Calvin, and three old women (Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which), do to save one another from being incorporated into a dark planet far from home called Camazotz.  “A Wrinkle In Time” is not quite *hard* sci-fi (concerned by actual scientific accuracy), nor is it necessarily dystopian, although it steers close to both. L’Engle sprinkles a good amount of fantasy elements (such as Charles Wallace’s powers of intelligence and the angelic-like qualities of Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which), offering a brilliant escape from the mundane into a world both frightenin

The Hobbit - first of all - is a children's story about journeying. It's tone is playful even throughout the perhaps psychological and physical representations of the trauma of war (this was written between WWI and WWII) . There are huge spiders, evil trolls, and goblin battles, to name a few. These encounters that the hobbit (Bilbo Baggins), the dwarfs and elves have make them a team with the goal to retrieve the treasure that was wrongfully taken away from them (specifically from the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield) by yet another (recurring character in fantasy works) dragon, this one named Smaug. Gandalf the wizard acts as their guardian and teacher, offering kind words, advice, and support, the whole way, that is, the journey from the nice and homely place of Bag End to the dragon's lair at The Lonely Mountain. Bilbo Baggins is a naive jack-of-all-trades, even an odd-ball, and a partaker in pleasurable activities and hobbies, before he is practically pushed out of his co

“The Girl Who Drank The Moon” by Kelly Barnhill (2016), winner of the Newbery Medal, is one of the best books I’ve read this year. Although “The Girl Who Drank The Moon” is geared towards kids in about fifth grade, I, at thirty, loved reading this book and was fully engaged with the story, racing towards the end to find out the fate of the characters within the book. Barnhill mixes bits of alchemy, folklore, politics, romance, psychology, adventure, and horror in her fairy-tale, which is all wonderfully expected. But, as New York Times reviewer Diana Wagman has put it, “Many books we read when we’re young want to teach us lessons about life. True, the things we learn in them can stay with us forever. But lessons can be so dull. Luckily, Kelly Barnhill’s wonderful fourth novel, ‘The Girl Who Drank The Moon,’ educates about oppression, blind allegiance and challenging the status quo while immersing the reader in an exhilarating story full of magical creatures and derring-do.” The gir

Reading the few first pages of “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver feels like a big bop on the head by the blunt end of reality. But, as the story goes on, the pain and then numbness slowly fade away and everything is back to normal. Soon, in admiration of the year long quest one family undertook to remain one-hundred percent conscious of humanity’s food chain, a surge of motivation will take over. Organic, cage-free, free-range, fair trade, seasonal, locally made, USDA approved – all these words are now on many labels you see at the grocery store, the local deli, the yoga studio, at restaurants… and many other places. Are these words so easily understood? Organic means one-hundred percent natural. But how exactly is something one-hundred percent natural? Kingsolver goes through the step-by-step process it takes to get there, for each of those labels. These are certainly labels that should be sought after, as is well-known, but “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” will help

“Submergence”, written in 2011 by J.M. Ledgard (who has written for both “The Economist” and “The Atlantic”) is a novel that is shaped perfectly for the contemporary world. Its scope covers geography, philosophy, science, and politics. Though “Submergence” is all these amazing things, Ledgard manages to subtlety underscore these weighty themes with a poignant drama and romance that travels far deeper within the emotional psyche compared to how far it actually treks globally. While all this may seem in the written word - to some narrower minds - as pretentious, it is, in fact, the opposite. “Submergence” aims to illuminate how so very small, so very precious, but still small, humankind really is in the face of the natural world: which includes its technology, the subsequent wars produced by that technology, in this case the War in Afghanistan which continues to the present, as well as untouched Earthly landscapes such as the Hadal Deep, the deepest part of the ocean. Granted,