Saturday 31 March 2007

Once Upon A Time Challenge Plans

Hey look! I just came back from the library with a bunch of books. And unintentionally, coincidentally and serendipitously (my word of the hour), I've picked up a bunch of stuff that will meet the Once Upon A Time Challenge criteria. Additionally, I am in the midst of some reading, which happily fit the task as well.

Carl V (the author of the blog) has issued a "reading challenge to celebrate spring, the time of rebirth and renewal, by experiencing the type of storytelling that connects us with our past." He has given out 4 Quests in his post, I have chosen to do Quest Two: "Read at least one book from each of the four genres of story-Mythology, Folklore, Fairytale, and Fantasy."

I mean, the other quests seemed soft, so I've not chosen them. Why, it's not a quest to me, unless I'm bound by duty to complete at least 3 different tasks!

Take Quest One: "Read at least 5 books from any of the 4 genres." It doesn't seem like 3 different tasks to me. Basically you're doing 1 task 5 times, if you're just reading from one genre. A Quest must be challenging at least! So I'm doing Quest Two: 4 different books, 4 different genres.

Anyway, he has defined each genre and suggested titles in his follow-up post Once Upon a Time, a beginning. Well, it's a looooooooong post and I admit I didn't read aaaaaallllll of it (I do get such headaches reading these black-background websites), but I sort of got the hang of how he defined the genres.

On to the books I've chosen:

For Fairytale, which he says are "books containing fairies, the fair folk, or have some contact with the realm of Faerie", I have chosen Faery Reel, which I am already in the midst of reading. Self-explanatory. It contains stories with fairies!

For Mythology, which is "all about the gods", I've chosen Lord of Light by Roger Zelany. This book has Buddha, Brahma, Kali, Krishna, I'm sure it fits the bill.

For Folklore, "the body of expressive culture, including tales, music, dance, legends, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, customs, and so forth within a particular population comprising the traditions (including oral traditions) of that culture, subculture, or group", Tales from the Arabian Nights.

Coincidentally, I'm starting on Adventures in Unhistory by Avram Davidson, so I'm including that for Folklore.

Finally for Fantasy, "Tales with knights, wizards, magical elements, castles, dragons", I've chosen the Abhorsen trilogy.

Yeah! Now I'm off to read.

5 comments:

Carl V. Anderson said...

Thank you so much for joining in! I look forward to your thoughts on the great books you chose.

chrisa511 said...

Awesome books! I've never heard of Lord of Light, but it's now on my wishlist. Sounds great.

I hope you enjoy the Abhorsen trilogy. I loved it, it's a wonderful but easy read. Just how I like them!

I've been wanting to read Adventures in Unhistory for awhile. sounds like another great one.

aichaku-愛着 said...

thanks for visiting my blog carl and chris! i'll be sure to write about the books, carl.

and chris, i just started on sabriel - definitely very easy to enter sabriel's universe. i think you'd like adventures in unhistory, davidson is very witty.

naridu said...

Hi :) I read Lord of Light a while ago and, if a little confusing at first, found it quite thought provoking. The Abhorsen trilogy used to be a favourite of mine so I do hope you enjoy it, Garth Nix has an amazing imagination.

aichaku-愛着 said...

Naridu, I noticed your icon, do you like anime and manga too? Thanks for visiting!