http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com A Book Blog Tue, 31 Aug 2010 19:10:24 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 en hourly 1 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/ice/ http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/ice/#comments Mon, 15 Mar 2010 04:43:02 +0000 Bitsy http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/?p=1184 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/ice/feed/ 0 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/the-return-of-the-light/ http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/the-return-of-the-light/#comments Wed, 20 Jan 2010 00:59:44 +0000 Bitsy http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/?p=1031 The Return of the Light Carolyn McVickar Edwards assembles twelve legends, folktales and fairy tales told about the "return of light" that occurs at the winter solstice. I should have read this in December but when I came across it earlier this month I couldn't help checking it out from the library. I wanted to know more about the roots of the older traditions surrounding the Winter Solstice before it was taken over by the Church. I didn't really find that, but I did find several different takes from around the world on just what happens during the solstice, the shortest day of the year, and their explanations for why the sun goes away, and more importantly why it comes back after.]]> http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/the-return-of-the-light/feed/ 1 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/the-cambist-and-lord-iron/ http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/the-cambist-and-lord-iron/#comments Fri, 01 Jan 2010 01:49:00 +0000 Bitsy http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/?p=827 Logorrhea: Good Words Make Good Stories, a collection of stories based on winning words at the Scripps National Spelling Bee. It was also published in The Years Best Fantasy and Horror 2008. "The Cambist and Lord Iron", of course, was based on the word cambist. A cambist is a person that exchanges money from one exchange rate to another (franks to pounds, yen to dollars). In this story the cambist is approached by a rich man (Lord Iron) who wants to make trouble and exchange some very rare and practically unknown type of bills for pounds sterling. By English law the cambist must legally exchange the money in 24 hours. In this both Lord Iron and the reader learn an interesting lesson about economics that begins about money and ends about far greater things than that.]]> http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/the-cambist-and-lord-iron/feed/ 0 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/mirror-mirror/ http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/mirror-mirror/#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 04:08:39 +0000 Bitsy http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/?p=802 Mirror, Mirror mother and daughter take a look at the fairy tales that shaped the past of motherhood and the relationships between mothers and daughters and discuss them in light of modern day motherhood and mother/daughter relationships. They discuss everything from abuse to abandonment, coming of age to marriage, rage and love, sex and death. A great book for mothers and daughters to read together to look at their relationships through the "mirror" of the past and to get women talking about each other, their relationship and themselves. ]]> http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/mirror-mirror/feed/ 1 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/just-ella/ http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/just-ella/#comments Sat, 24 Oct 2009 17:35:29 +0000 Bitsy http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/?p=208 Just Ella is a rewritten take on the famous fairy tale Cinderella. Only in this story Ella takes herself to the ball, evading a wicked stepmother and sweeping Prince Charming off his feet without any outside help of the magical or furry little creature kind. Once she gets everything she has ever dreamed of, through hard work, cunning and ingenuity it is just to discover that she is just another naive princess after all. The fairy tale she's worked so hard to achieve is not what it's cracked up to be.]]> http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/just-ella/feed/ 0 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/elementals/ http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/elementals/#comments Sat, 21 Feb 2009 18:45:39 +0000 Bitsy http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/?p=139 Elementals was a a very nice treat that I got myself and read over Christmas. For some reason no one buys me books anymore, I think they are intimidated by my five page long amazon wishlist. So I've been buying myself titles off of it in an attempt to shorten it some. I have read a collection of A.S. Byatt's short stories before in the form of Little Black Book of Stories and so more or less thought I knew what to expect. The stories I read in the collection Elementals absolutely blew me away.]]> http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/elementals/feed/ 0 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/black-heart-ivory-bones/ http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/black-heart-ivory-bones/#comments Fri, 20 Feb 2009 18:53:39 +0000 Bitsy http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/?p=128 Black Heart, Ivory Bones, is a collection of fantasy and horror tales edited by my two favorite ladies of their respective genres Ellen Datlow (horror) and Terri Windling (fantasy). This is one book in a series of six volumes of, as they call it, reconsidered fairy tales. These fairy tales are rewritten to change the focus of the originals or perhaps just to sharpen the point of them to showcase the sinister, the sensual, and the sometimes sadistic roots of our childhood fairy tales. I have always loved reading re-written fairy tales since I was introduced to the genre in junior high. That was the first time I read this entire series straight through. Definitely another one of those books my parents should have known about before I got my hands on it, though this particular title kept it pretty light in the sensual department.]]> http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/black-heart-ivory-bones/feed/ 0 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/little-black-book-of-stories/ http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/little-black-book-of-stories/#comments Fri, 12 Aug 2005 18:26:05 +0000 Bitsy http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/?p=37 http://fabula.exlibrisbitsy.com/reviews/little-black-book-of-stories/feed/ 0