A Green Man Review

Not until then did they notice that Gandalf was missing. So far he had come all the way with them, never saying if he was in the adventure or merely keeping them company for a while. He had eaten most, talked most, and laughed most. But now he simply was not there at all! — J.R.R.Tolkein’s The Hobbit, or, There and Back Again

If you’re looking for Iain, our Librarian, he’s off again on a vacation trip, errr, I meant another short concert tour with his wife, violinist and vocalist Catherine, in the Baltic nations. While he’s gone,  Gus has the Library Apprentices, the Several Annies, assisting him with much needed gardening work, so I’m writing up What’s New this edition without their usual assistance as well.

I just remembered that I’ve got a tale of how Karen Wynn Fonstad’s The Atlas of Middle-Earth came to be a learning lesson for a group of Several Annies which  you can read here. For just how important Tolkien thought maps were to creating his world, go read our review of his epic work, The History of Middle-earth.

Jennifer reports on the class war between inaccurately-privileged fantasies in genre Regency romance and the genre’s better examples, notably Barbara Monajem’s very excellent Rosie and McBrae Regency Mystery series. The series starts when a young woman of title loses her husband, and her mother tries to have her committed to a mental institution for having obsessive-compulsive disorder. Then someone starts sending the widow poison pen letters trying to drive her to suicide. Then society’s latest and most celebrated anonymous cartoonist, who exposes dirty laundry among the Upper Ten Thousand, falls in lust with her. Wackiness ensues! And that’s just book one.

Lory notes, ‘In the early years of the twentieth century, A. A. Milne was a well-known writer of plays as well as humorous essays and poems. The Red House Mystery, published shortly before he became world-famous as the creator of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, is his only detective novel. In his tongue-in-cheek introduction, written after the Pooh craze had struck, he explains that “it is obvious now that a new detective story, written in the face of this steady terrestial demand for children’s books, would be in the worst of taste.” For mystery enthusiasts, this is a pity — for Milne’s take on the genre was as breezily accomplished as any of his other pursuits.’

Lory waxes about an unusual mystery in Farthing: ‘Jo Walton has a knack for genre fiction with a twist. In the World Fantasy Award-winning Tooth and Claw, she gave us a Victorian family saga — complete with siblings squabbling over an inheritance, the woes of the unwed daughters of the house, and the very important question of What Hat to Wear — with a cast of dragons, literally red in tooth and claw. Now in  Farthing, her material is the mid-century British country house murder mystery. The story is told in alternate chapters through the eyes of Lucy Kahn, a reluctant visitor to the family estate of Farthing, and over the shoulder of Inspector Carmichael, who has been sent from Scotland Yard to investigate the death of one of the other guests.

Evidence of political backbiting, personal blackmailing, and marital mismatches piles up as usual in such scenarios, but the most startling piece of all (and the most overlooked by the central characters) is that this Britain of 1949 has been at peace with Hitler for eight years, letting him take the Continent in exchange for leaving Britain a nominal independence.’

Michael looks at James Stoddard’s The High House and The False House: “Welcome to the House that God built. Evenmere, the High House, that unending ever-changing building which crosses and contains worlds. It is, and represents, all Creation, an enigma, a parable, a mystery. Within its halls and rooms, passages and basements, attics and terraces, are the undreamt worlds, the lands of dream, places like Ooz and Innman Tor and Arkalen. The House bridges upon our own world, but is far more than a house. It just Is.,

Robert finishes off a look at ‘Moonheart may very well be the first novel by Charles de Lint that I ever read. I can’t really say for sure — it’s been awhile. It certainly is one that I reread periodically, a fixture on my “reread often” list. It contains, in an early form, all the magic that keeps us coming back to de Lint. (And be reminded that Charles de Lint may very well be the creator of what we call “urban fantasy” — he was certainly one of the first to combine contemporary life and the stuff of myth.) It’s a novel that is centered on a Place, a location that is a portal between worlds.’

Jennifer offers chilaquiles for breakfast on a hot summer morning. No, really. When your ears are sweating a little, you don’t notice the heat outside so much. Your clothes smell delicious all day. Takes ten minutes. Any lucky soul who shares your breakfast with you will roll over with their paws in the air and love you for a solid week afterward.

Craig dug around in his film library to come up with the lighthearted baseball fantasy It Happens Every Spring. ‘Most films would feel a need to moralize on its characters’ actions instead of just letting them be. This film holds no such pretentions. It is simply what it is: a movie about a man who loves baseball utilizing a happy accident in the name of love. And it’s all the better for it.’

Robert has this to say about Craig Thompson’s Habibi: ‘Craig Thompson’s Habibi is a sprawling tale (that’s 672 pages of sprawling) that relates the adventures of two lostlings, the girl verging on womanhood Dodola, and the much younger Zam, a boy who she finds lost in the desert. They stumble across a ship that somehow has found its way to the desert (whether abandoned before or after it arrived there is anyone’s guess) and there make a life until through one circumstance and another each independently leaves — or is taken away.’

In new music, Gary reviews Twilight Blues by Poi Rogers. ‘This Santa Cruz based duo tossed the cowboy country western ethos of the Sons of the Pioneers with the warm tropical stylings of Hawaiian style lap steel guitar music and came up with something all their own,’ he notes. ‘It’s a winning formula that mixes roughly equal parts Western swing, cowboy campfire songs, Commander Cody and Ennio Moricone, all done with big smiles and lots of Cali sunshine. And they’re dog lovers to boot!’

Gary also reviews Invocation, the new one from Seattle Latin jazz trio Duende Libre. ‘Duende Libre’s core members — composer, bandleader and pianist Alex Chadsey, bassist Farko Dosumov, and drummer Jeff Busch — have been making music together for quite a few years now, and it shows in the tightness and easy flow of this set of eight originals rooted in the traditions and rhythms from Cuba, Brazil, and West Africa.’

From the Archives, Big Earl liked most things about a compilation of Hawaiian steel guitar music from Rounder. ‘A re-issue of a 1974 release, Hula Blues is a loose compilation of several artists who explored the possibilities of the lap steel (whether electric, acoustic or Dobro/National resonators) in the decades before the more complex pedal steel was invented. To paraphrase Ry Cooder, this music is often “highly hookey.” Cheesy pop tunes, oddball standards and quasi-hokum tunes abound. This only adds to the novelty of this disc and lends it a wonderful charm.

Christopher reviewed a couple of early discs by jazz pianist Michael Kaeshammer: Tell You How I Feel and Strings Attached. ‘Kaeshammer has a great left hand, as befits a boogie-woogie aficionado. And his right hand ain’t too shabby neither! Check out the other of his two originals on this disk, “Jivin’ with Dal,” to hear what he can do. He builds a fast and funky bottom, then begins to dance around with the melody above. Later he swaps, letting his left hand ‘solo’ while his right comps. All in all Tell You How I Feel would be impressive if it came from a twenty year veteran of jazz clubs, let alone a newcomer not yet 20 years old.’

Dean enjoyed most of the compilation and tribute album What’s That I Hear: The Songs of Phil Ochs. ‘What’s That I Hear includes 28 tracks from a wide spectrum of musicians. Regardless of style the best interpretations are those which stay true to Ochs’ spirit, and the worst are those which resort to the too-earnest whining which seems to be the default setting for folk and protest singers.’

Lars truly appreciated the traditional folk music of Magpie Lane’s A Taste of Ale. ‘Magpie Lane is a six-piece folk group from Oxfordshire. They only use acoustic, mostly traditional instruments such as assorted squeeze boxes, fiddle, guitar, whistles, flute, recorder and percussion. They have no intention of rocking up their songs or modernizing them. Instead they produce a sound with clear mediæval influences. With all six members singing, they are strong vocally as well as instrumentally.’

Mike appreciated pretty much everything about The Bluegrass Patriots’ Springtime in the Rockies. ‘Whether this band is covering A. P. Carter’s “Winding Stream,” or the Tompall Glaser/Harlan Howard hit “Streets of Baltimore,” or traditional numbers like “Down in the Valley” and “Eat at the Welcome Table,” you’re going to get that real old time sound. There aren’t that many bands of this caliber any more that promote the original sound pioneered by Bill Monroe and friends. These good old boys play it all fresh while keeping it tight and true.’

Noam had mixed feelings about Phil Ochs’s The Early Years. ‘Herein are collected twenty songs (running time a generous 74 minutes!), all from the years 1964-1966, which could easily be seen as the halcyon period of Ochs; the majority of the songs are live solo performances from the Newport Folk Festivals of those years, whereas the first five are taken from a then contemporary Vanguard sampler album.’

Our What Not is from Kage Baker who was a  storyteller beyond compare, be it in emails as Cat can well attest, at Ren Faires with her sister Kathleen serving up ale, lovingly critiquing quite old films, writing stories of chocolate quaffing cyborgs, whores who decidedly didn’t have hearts of gold,  or space raptors who are actually parrots now. So it won’t surprise you that was a master narrator of her own stories as you hear as when she reads for us ‘The Empress of Mars’, a novella she wrote. It was shortly before her death supposed to be included on a disc with a chapbook of the novella but the small press went tits up before that happened so she gave me permission to host it here.

So the Infinite Jukebox, our somewhat fey media server, has a song written and performed by Johnny Cash’s daughter, Rosanne,  that shows that she’s every bit as great covering her own material as she is covering his material as she did here. This week it’s ‘Runaway Train’ which comes from the same Bimbos concert in San Francisco that January evening. It details the end of a relationship that may or may not have been about her own such ending but it’s certainly heartfelt.

The truth of some promises is not as important as whether or not you can believe in them, with all your heart. A game of baseball can’t really make a summer day last forever. A home run can’t really heal all the broken places in our world, or in a single human heart. — Michael Chabon’s Summerland

I’ve been listening to Laurie Anderson’s Life On A String recording this fine late Spring afternoon as I do paperwork in the Library. I saw her once eight years ago at the Edinburgh Festival who’d commissioned a new work from her, and also decades back down London way. I’ve always lusted after her electric blue violin which is one of the coolest instruments I’ve ever encountered. Not to mention amazing sounding.

I just finished breakfast. I always drink tea as I never developed a taste for coffee no matter how good that I’m told it is. So it was lapsang souchong, a loose leaf first blush smoked black tea from Ceylon. With a splash of cream of course. And there was a rare surprise for breakfast too — apple fritters served with thick cut twice smoked bacon, using apple wood only, and yet more apples in the form of cinnamon and nutmeg infused apple sauce. There was even mulled cider for those wanting even more apples in their breakfast fare! Thus fortified, I’m now turning to writing the edition for this week…

Jennifer picks out five books about baseball, a sport said by some to have its origins in common with cricket, though in truth the true ancient  of this hallowed sport are uncertain. So we give you five very different books, four true in their takes and one very not:

Richard reviewed Bull City Summer: A Season At the Ballpark and Beyond: ‘A gorgeously crafted coffee table book, it’s a collaborative effort between a series of photographers and writers, many of them with ties to the Durham area.’

Richard also lovingly reviewed Dan Barry’s Bottom of the 33rd. The book is his ode to the longest baseball game ever played in an organized league, a 33 inning behemoth staged between the AAA Rochester Red Wings and Pawtucket PawSox in 1981.

Richard once again reviewed yet another, Lew Freedman’s Baseball’s Funnymen. ‘When most people think of the history of baseball, they think of it in terms of a Ken Burns documentary – soaring music, sepia tones, and a certain reverence for the deeds of players engaged in noble competition. But there are other sides of the game, not the least of which is humor.’

And Michelle reviewed a novel where baseball is the game. Literally the game. Michael Chabon’s Summerland.

Richard also took on a small book about a big topic, Ivan Day’s Ice Cream: A History. ‘Decidedly England-centric in nature, Ice Cream is nevertheless an excellent short Ihistory of ice cream’s rise to popularity. Starting with the early ice creams and the, shall we say, unique flavors enjoyed in the Georgian period, Ice Cream lays out the steps by which ice cream evolved into its current form.’

Michelle Erica wrote a wide-ranging review of a bunch of baseball movies, which we titled Play Ball: Baseball in Film. ‘It was inevitable that great writers would see parallels between the quest for the pennant and the Quest for the Holy Grail, just as it was inevitable that Hollywood screenwriters would churn out bio-pics about the tragic greats and comedies about pranksters and pratfalls.’

April has a warm response to the first volume of what looks to be an intriguing comics series, Air: Letters from Lost Countries: ‘Blythe is not your typical airline attendant. Sure, she’s blonde, pretty and personable, playing into every conceivable stereotype there is. But Blythe is much more than that. For starters, she’s acrophobic, surviving each flight only through the wonders of modern pharmaceuticals. Then there’s the attractive, mysterious passenger she’s fallen in love with, who may or may not be a terrorist.’

Gary here with music. First up in new music this time is Croatian singer Vesna Pisarović’s Poravna, ‘ …an album of traditional Bosnian Sevdah songs delivered in all their emotional intensity and melancholy, backed by an international avant garde jazz trio.’ It’s a return to her roots for Pisarović, who’s better known for placing 11th in the Eurovision Song Contest 2002.

I’m also reviewing one of my favorite creators of interesting Nordic music. ‘Geir Sundstøl’s recordings have always had a cinematic quality about them. His 2025 offering Sakte Film (Slow Motion Film) pushes that envelope even further, as explicitly stated in the title. The Norwegian musician and composer here stretches his already multicolored sonic pallette with additional stringed instruments, more use of electronics, and a string quartet on some of the tracks.’

From the Archives … Chávez Ravine, the current home of the Los Angeles Dodgers, has been in the news recently. David wrote a fine review of his favorite musician Ry Cooder’s album about the place. ‘The story of Chávez Ravine, the place, is one of “eminent domain” (the right of the government to take private property for public use, with proper payment being made) and of “red-baiting” and “contracted hits” and lies, and cheating, and lots of other fine American stuff like baseball.’

David tells us that Dan Bern sings about baseball on his album Fleeting Days. ‘Dan Bern wants to be one of those “big guys.” And on this, his latest, album, he makes a giant leap in that direction. He’s one of those little guys they always talk about, we used to call ’em “new Dylans.” Now they’re all Elvis Costello-ey with dollops of Nick Lowe, and a touch of Dobro to display their rootsiness. Hey! What’s wrong with that?’

David reviewed another album on which Ry Cooder got second billing, The Chieftains’ San Patricio. ‘San Patricio is Spanish for Saint Patrick, and the album is a tribute to the soldiers of the San Patricio battalion, a group of Irish immigrant conscripts who deserted the US Army to fight alongside the Mexicans against the invading Yankees during the Mexican-American War in the mid-nineteenth century.’

John McCutcheon sings about all things American including baseball. I reviewed his album Storied Ground. ‘If you’re a fan of unadorned, straightforward folk songs, John McCutcheon writes and sings them as well as anybody, and Storied Ground is a fine example of the genre. And if you haven’t seen McCutcheon perform, you owe it to yourself and to the spirit of American folk music to go see him if he comes through your town. As he says in his liner notes, “What would Woody do?” ‘

NRBQ had an album entitled At Yankee Stadium, which was neither live nor recorded at Yankee Stadium … I reviewed their album Dummy, which doesn’t have any baseball songs on it. ‘Dummy is good honest rock ‘n’ roll, stripped down to its essentials, by a veteran road-tested band. They make it sound easy, but in reality, a lot of bands should be so lucky to sound this good on their best day.’

I was a fan of The Lovin’ Spoonful and solo John Sebastian back in the day, so I was curious about how Sebastian’s albums John B. Sebastian, Tarzana Kid, and Welcome Back held up when Collectors’ Choice reissued them. The results were mixed. ‘He was one of those musicians who, after initial success with a band, floundered through various attempts at a solo career, always on the fringes, never quite breaking through. In some ways, it was the fault of things over which he had little control, including the many vicissitudes of the recording industry, bad luck, bad timing. From the vantage point of 30 years later, though, it’s also plain that his half-octave singing range was a weakness, and his material wasn’t quite as strong as that of many of his contemporaries.’

So let’s take our leave of each other this time with some spritely music in the form of  ‘Love Shack’ by the B-52s whose only official live recording got reviewed by Cat: ‘If you’re a fan of the band, you’ll definitely want Live! 8.24.1979, because official live recordings of this band are scarce. The liner notes are both informative and entertaining — kudos to Real Gone Music for these. Oh and ‘Rock Lobster’ is wonderful played live!’ Alas the Live! 8.24.1979 recording predates ‘Love Shack’ so you’ll need to enjoy it here instead! It’s a feel good summertime song that’s guaranteed to give you an earworm for days after you hear it.  The ‘Love Shack’ I have for you to enjoy was recorded  in Atlanta sometime in 2001.

Sophie: You can’t possibly know that’s the true story.
Nate: No, but that’s the best story.

Leverage series, “The Van Gogh Job”

I awoke well before dawn as I wanted to watch the Northern Lights as they’ve been particularly outstanding right now. Though none of the humans save Tamsin, our Hedgewitch, on the Estate joined me, but several of the Irish wolfhounds that guard our livestock accompanied me as well and even some of Tamsin’s owl companions flew low overhead. We, well at least we humans, found them fascinating as the wolfhounds and owls seemed to be playing a rather complicated chase game.

We later had breakfast back in the Kitchen nook — thick cut twice smoked applewood bacon, blueberry waffles with butter and maple syrup, tea for me and Tamsin as well, and Border strawberries, the ones that start red as blood and turn white as bleached bone, as well. We both felt need of  a very long walk to work it off, or a long nap… I however needed to put this together so both choices were put off for later consideration!

April starts us off with a treat for fairy tale aficionados: ‘Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tales are well-known, even to those who’ve never heard his name. His stories have entered our cultural consciousness (who doesn’t know of “The Little Mermaid,” even if it’s only through Disney’s version) and verbal lexicon (“The Emperor’s New Clothes”) and are here to stay. Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Hans Christian Andersen offers a glimpse at the man behind the tales, the subtle nuances of his art and language and renders the stories all the more powerful.’9

Kathleen has a look at book she’s treasured since her childhood, Tolkien’s Smith of Wooton Major & Farmer Giles of Ham. She says, ‘Smith and Farmer Giles have the advantage of being completed by Tolkien himself, and are lovely, polished tales. . . . They are the work of a very modern and well-educated scholar — but like all Professor Tolkien’s work, they feel like an echo of the sunlit fields and shadowed woods of the British mythic landscape that he so loved.’

A fine version of the Tam Lin story is reviewed by Richard as he looks at a Pamela Dean novel: ‘An early part of Terri Windling’s Fairy Tale series, Tam Lin is by far the most ambitious project on the line. The story of Tam Lin is one of the better known ones to escape folklore for the fringes of the mainstream; you’ll find references scuttling about everywhere from old Fairport Convention discs to Christopher Stasheff novels. There’s danger inherent in mucking about with a story that a great many people know and love in its original form; a single misstep and the hard-core devotees of the classic start howling for blood. Moreover, Dean is not content simply to take the ballad of Tam Lin and transplant it bodily into another setting.’

Robert brings us a look at a rather different take on fairy tales, in The Poets’ Grimm: 20th Century Poems from Grimm Fairy Tales, an anthology edited by Jeanne Marie Beaumont and Claudia Carlson: ‘The first thing one notices looking through the table of contents of The Poets’ Grimm is the overwhelming number of women contributors . . . They allude to several reasons for this, one, of course, being the increasing number of woman poets of note, but more important, the fact that fairy tales and women seem to be inextricably bound: not only were the majority of the Grimm Brothers’ informants women, but women, most particularly in the Victorian Era when the Grimms published their collections, were the guardians of the “virtues of the hearth”.

He next has a review of Winter Rose: ‘The story is told in McKillip’s characteristically elliptical style, kicked up an order of magnitude. Sometimes, in fact, it is almost too poetic, the narrative turning crystalline then shattering under the weight of visions, images, things left unsaid as Rois and Corbet are drawn into another world, or come and go, perhaps, at will or maybe at the behest of a mysterious woman of immense power who seems to have no fixed identity but who is, at the same time, all that is coldest and most pitiless of winter.’

And then there’s  Solstice Wood, a sequel of sorts to Winter Rose: ‘McKillip has always been a writer whose books can themselves be called ‘magical,’ and it’s even more interesting to realize that she seldom uses magic as a thing of incantations and dire workings, or as anything special in itself. It just is, a context rather than an event, and perhaps that’s the way it should be.’

Finally he has a look at The Third Cry to Legba, and Other Invocations, the first in an impressive series : ‘Manly Wade Wellman is the literary equivalent of a favorite corner bar. The regulars all know the place and sing its praises to the heavens, but somehow the restaurant critics and Saturday night crowds never seem to find the place. And we, as patrons, are secretly relieved that we still have it all to ourselves. That way, when we pass other patrons, we can give each other secret little smiles because, well, we know something the rest of you don’t. That, however, may be changing, at least in the case of the late Mr. Wellman, and it’s about damn time. Night Shade Books is putting together a six volume collection of Wellman’s works, and this is cause for much rejoicing among fans of good writing everywhere.’

Books can get successfully turned into other forms as we see in this review by Vonnie of an interesting performance of an Ellen Kushner novel: ‘Ellen Kushner and Joe Kessler at Johnny D’s. Kushner performed Thomas the Rhymer as a combination reading/musical performance at Johnny D’s, the synergy between the songs and the narrative was much stronger. The pauses, in particular, highlighted the words far better than the end of a paragraph on a page ever could. Kushner sang and played guitar, whilst Josef Kessler played fiddle and mandolin.’

Gus has a Kitchen story for us: ‘No, not the biscuits we have here in Scotland and the rest of the British Isles which Americans call cookies of one sort or another, but rather what Americans do call a biscuit. There’s simply nothing better then the smell of the biscuits baking in the kitchen, and they are sure to disappear as quickly as they appeared. And how they came to be a very appreciated aspect of the food here is a tale well-worth telling as I do here.’

‘Steamboy looks great in the trailers,’ Rachel says of Katsuhiro Otomo’s anime. ‘There are no interesting characters — Ray’s a generic Plucky Kid — and approximately one-fourth of the total dialogue consists of “Open the valve!” “Close the valve!” and “I’ll open this valve, and you close that valve!” Though there’s some amusing commentary on the military-industrial complex, the themes and politics of the film are simplistic at best. As for the plot, it’s all about stuff blowing up.’

Jack looks at a work by a Muslim writer now better known for her endeavours for Marvel Comics: ‘The first graphic novel by journalist G. Willow Wilson, Cairo is a rather well-crafted retelling of the Aladdin story set in contemporary Cairo. With a riff that will please fans of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods and Ernest Hogan’s Smoking Mirror Blues, here too are very old gods who find themselves confronting humans who are very much of the modernity. Here, residents of Cairo, human and otherwise, several Americans, a Leftist journalist and a djinn meet in a journey from the streets of Cairo to Undernile, the fabled river said to run deep below the Nile, in the opposite direction.’

Gary here, with music. In new music, I’m covering three jazz releases featuring piano, trumpet and vibraphone, respectively: Simon Linnert Trio’s Sayeh, Joe Magnarelli’s Concord, and Tony Miceli’s Nico’s Dream. I like them all, but am most taken with the Linnert’s. ‘The program features some top-notch tunes by modern jazz standouts, some Linnert originals, and three spontaneous improvisations from which the album takes its title, which appears to be Persian for “shade” or “shadow.”

I also review an album of guitar based instrumental music, Geir Sundstøl’s Sakte Film. ‘The Norwegian musician and composer here stretches his already multicolored sonic pallette with additional stringed instruments, more use of electronics, and a string quartet on some of the tracks.’

From the Archives, Faith enjoyed René Lacaille’s Mapou. ‘There must be something about the music of former French colonies. I was astounded by how much René Lacaille’s music from the Indian Ocean island of La Réunion sounds like Acadian music from the Maritimes, or zydeco or New Orleans jazz (not necessarily all at once, mind you, but in turn).’

Reviewing the new Dreamer’s Circus album recently got me thinking about another excellent Danish folk group, Haugaard & Høirup, so I combed through the Archives and came up with some of my reviews of their albums: Duo for Violin & Guitar, Light (Lys), Gaestebud/Feast, and Rejsedage/Travelling.

I liked the music on the compilation CD that came with Sean Wilentz and Greil Marcus’s book The Rose & the Briar: Death, Love and Liberty in the American Ballad. But I was left feeling that as a whole the songs didn’t hold together well outside of the context of the book. ‘But it’s more of an academic exercise than a listening experience; otherwise, the presence of such disparate elements as “Dead Man’s Curve,” “Come Sunday,” and “Nebraska” in one package makes little sense. Let’s just say this isn’t a comp CD you’d put together yourself to give to your girlfriend or boyfriend, unless you’re a musicologist.’

I noted that Just A Simple Soul was a good career overview of Bert Jansch’s music. ‘This two-disc set, named for the closing track on his 1998 album Toy Balloon, ­is indeed the first collection that covers his entire solo career, from his iconic 1965 self-titled debut through his final studio album, 2006’s Black Swan. This collection is presented chronologically, the first disc top-heavy with material from his prolific period in the ’60s, when he released six albums from 1965 to ’69.

And I still go back regularly and listen to Anna & Elizabeth’s self-titled album. ‘You just don’t hear this kind of singing much anymore, outside of Appalachia, and it is a joy to find such skill and empathy employed in the presentation of these old songs by these young musicians.’

Jason was favorably impressed with the singer Kyler’s second full-length release, A Flower Grows in Stone. ‘There are two parts to this album: the first part is filled with her more pop-oriented stuff, accompanied by her full band, and the second part harkens back to her acoustic roots with minimal production and unplugged guitar. These parts are separated by a thirty-five second “coffee break” where, if you listen closely, you can hear glasses and cups clinking together. It’s not until you’ve listened to the last note on the album that you realize how well she fits in both roles: pop singer and sultry folk songwriter.’

Patrick said the German Celtic-punk band Lady Godiva shows plenty of bollocks on the albums Whisky You’re the Devil, Tales of Kings and Boozers, and Red Letter Day, but he wasn’t sure that was sufficient. ‘Bollocks aside, this rag-tag band of musicians isn’t lacking in talent when it comes to playing. … The tin whistle shines, and the accordion and fiddle are decent, too. But the singing and song-writing … well, that’s a different matter entirely.’

Our What Not this week is another treat from Folkmanis. Says Robert: ‘I seem to have another Folkmanis puppet lurking around, this one the Rat In a Tin Can. The Folkmanis website describes him as being ready for a playful picnic (note the napkin in one paw). However, it seemed to me that he might just as easily be a waiter in an upscale rat restaurant: his black-and-white pattern might almost be taken for formal wear.’

So I’ve got some music for you that I think fits pretty much any season. It’s Michele Walther and Irina Behrendt playing Aaron Copland’s ‘Hoe Down’from Rodeo from his Rodeo album. I sourced it off a Smithsonian Institution music archive which has no details where or when it was recorded which surprised me given how good they usually are at such things.

‘I’m different and I’m happy,’ Calvin said. ‘But you pretend that you aren’t different.’ ‘I’m different and I like being different.’ Calvin’s voice was unnaturally loud. ‘Maybe I don’t like being different,’ Meg said, ‘But I don’t want to be like everybody else, either.’ –Madeleine L’Engle’s  A Wrinkle in Time

Hear that piper playing off in the distance toward the edge of the Wild Wood? Whoever it is is a damn fine piper and has apparently come this time of year for decades now. No one can say with any certainty who it is, though many of us have our suspicions based on the style of their playing and their choice of tunes, which lean heavily towards Northumbrian tunes such as those composed by Billy Pigg and Kathryn Tickell.

The Library, all six levels of it (or is it seven? It keeps changing), is getting a once-in-a-decade thorough cleaning and painting from the wee House brownies and the more-or-less human staff. So that’s why I’m outside this morning listening to that piper. Gus and Reynard insist it’s a green man, one that they’ve met and played with several times. Might be, might not be.

So let’s take a look at this edition…

Jennifer reviews three fine new 2025 titles: Egyptian Motherlode by David Sandner and Jacob Weisman, A Far Better Thing by H.G. Parry, and One Level Down by Mary G. Thompson. Some aren’t her cuppa, but they’re all  gripping and remarkably well written.

Jack dove into Daniel Karaczun’s Out of This Kitchen: A History of the Ethnic Groups and Their Foods in Steel Valley. ‘It contains history, interviews and over 200 recipes, household tips and home remedies from newspapers dating back 100 years. It mixes brief but illuminating histories with recipes, creating an ethno-historical cookbook that celebrates the infamous lockout and strike of 1892 at the Carnegie Illinois Steelworks in Homestead, Pennsylvania.’

Gary was pretty excited to watch the first two episodes of the new TV adaptation of Murderbot. ‘It’s a little too soon to tell after two episodes, but so far this adaptation by Chris and Paul Weitz is getting a lot of things right. Especially the wryly snarky tone, which sometimes reminds me of that first superb season of The Mandalorian.’

Michael and Denise reviewed the second and third Star Wars “prequels” and as you might expect their reviews were mixed. Regarding Episode II – Attack of the Clones, Michael said, ‘Overall? Star Wars: Episode II – Attack of the Clones is a damn fine film. Visually, it’s extraordinary. Plot-wise, it meanders and clunks like a Yugo in city traffic. … Sit through the bad parts, and you’ll be rewarded by the end, which answers some questions, and opens the floodgate for a lot more. And of Episode III, Revenge of the Sith, Denise said, ‘Do I think that George Lucas is a man who took the childhood memories of millions of his fans, ripped them into shreds then fed those visions back to us, demanding that we like it? Yes, but not because of this film. I’ll go see Revenge of the Sith again, and again. Why? Because it’s the end of an era. It’s the transition piece that fans like me have been waiting for.’

In new music, Gary reviewed two new albums from jazz drummer and composer Phil Haynes, Return To Electric, and Transition(s). He particularly liked the former, which has several originals and a handful of classic jazz rock fusion covers. ‘The covers include a couple of my favorite of the era, John McLaughlin’s “A Lotus on Irish Streams” from the Mahavishnu Orchestra’s Inner Mounting Flame, and the final track, Wayne Shorter’s “Paraphernalia” from Miles Davis’s Miles in the Sky.’

Donna was intrigued by a set of Tarot cards drawn in the style of the Flemish Renaissance painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder. ‘The minor arcana depict sturdy peasants engaged in their daily activities, planting and harvesting, cooking and praying, slaughtering livestock and drinking out of large tankards. Marchesi has organized the four houses to correspond to the seasons — swords with spring, wands with summer, pentacles with autumn and chalices with winter. I had a lot of trouble trying to make sense of the meaning of these cards.’

This is off  from an obscure folk group, The Skirlers‘ Cutting the Bracken. ‘Take Lorraine Kelly and Marion Storey both on fiddles, add Allen Bowling on highland and border pipes, Bob Smith on vocals, mandolin, guitar, tin whistles and bodhran, Chic Judge on highland pipes and vocals, and Tom Docherty on guitar and vocals, and there you have it — Celtic folk music blended in a single malt style. But is this the real thing from Scotland? Err, not exactly — the album was recorded live at The Golden Lion public house in Prittlewell, Southend.’

The Palace was more than four hundred years old and had served its purpose; it would be unbecoming to despise it for showing its age. But there was now one spot within it of something new. Turn your thought to it for a moment. One incongruous new idea amid a marsh of stagnant facts. — Steven Brust’s  Brokedown Palace

Ahhhh, plump pork sausages sizzling in their own fat, eggs any way you like them, palacsinta thick with lekvár, gulyás topped with sour cream, fresh brewed coffee with cream so thick it stands up… Sound good? It is. After a night of playing music, the musicians are always hungry, quite hungry indeed.

So Béla, our long-resident Hungarian violinist, pleased the lot of them — fussy though they be at the best of times — by delivering a crate of spicy Kolbasz sausages packed in ice and sawdust along with another crate that contained Páter Sör, a most excellent Hungarian wheat beer. and yet a third crate loaded with yet more Hungarian goodies for later.

We could even smell it in our rooms under the eaves up on the fourth floor, so we got up, dressed, and went down to the feast! Of course we got music as well, as Béla and several other musicians started playing some of the tunes collected by Béla Bartok, which you can find in Yugoslav Folk Music, his monumental four volume collection.

Gary came up with quite a number of archived reviews covering the academic writing of Jack Zipes about one of our favorite topics, fairy tales. Let’s see what he’s found.

Cat was highly impressed with Jack’s sprawling The Oxford Companion to Fairy Tales. ‘If you purchase only one reference book about the fairy tale tradition this year, this should be it. I have more books than I can count that are devoted to the subject of European fairy tales and their origins, but this is the first comprehensive guide that I’ve seen in print. The subtitle of the book is quite accurate: “The Western fairy tale tradition from medieval to modern.” ‘

And he was more than impressed with The Oxford Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature. ‘Any library with a more than bare bones children’s section needs this, as does anyone who is more than simply a fan of this literature. It is good enough that I expect to reference it a half dozen times a week. It’s certainly worth its weight in silver doubloons, fairy gold, dragons’ teeth, and gossamer wings!’

Chuck Lipsig reviewed at least five of Zipes’s books. He starts with two related works, Zipes’s Utopian Tales From Weimar, and Hermann Hesse’s The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse, edited and translated by Zipes. ‘I hesitate to choose any nation to be the nation of fairy tales. However, if I had to make a list, Germany, with its early 19th-century outpouring of tales, most notably by The Brothers Grimm, would merit consideration. With Utopian Tales From Weimar and The Fairy Tales of Hermann Hesse, both edited and translated by Jack Zipes, more recent incarnations of Germany’s fairy tale heritage, from just before World War I to the rise of the Nazis, are presented.’

He gave props to Jack’s Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry: ‘I am not, I suspect, the intended audience for Jack Zipes’s Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry. Zipes is a solidly on the political left, bemoaning the capitalist culture industry, especially Disney. I’m a pro-laissez faire celebrator of consumer culture and, specifically, a Disney fan. So when I say this is an excellent book, take it seriously.’

Faith reviewed a modern edition of folklore collected by 19th century scholar Thomas Frederick Crane, as edited by Jack Zipes. ‘Italian Popular Tales is a work of serious scholarship, but you don’t have to be a serious scholar to find it interesting. Where the scholar will find an excellent introduction to the early collections of Italian folktales, the casual reader will encounter a number of fascinating tales.’

Jack’s Creative Storytelling: Building Community, Changing Lives is an academic book of interest to educators who teach fairy tales, but it is very accessible, Chuck says. ‘However, this is not a book for those with casual interest. One needs a strong interest in either education or fairy tales — or better yet, both — for this book to be worthwhile reading. On the other hand, it does not take a scholarly background to read this book. Zipes is happily free of the gobbledygook that passes for academic writing these days.’

He was also positively impressed with a collection of Jack’s essays entitled When Dreams Came True: Classical Fairy Tales and Their Tradition. ‘Overall, When Dreams Came True is an excellent resource. The essays on the Brothers Grimm, fairy tales in Victorian England, and L. Frank Baum stand out as strong, detailed, and insightful. While not the ultimate compendium, the 20-plus page bibliography is a handy reference source on its own.’

Mia found the 38 versions of the Red Riding Hood tale a bit tedious (a lot, actually) in Jack’s The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood, but found the political context interesting. ‘There are some great pieces in this book, but frankly, unless one is obsessed with the Red Riding Hood story, reading it over and over is quite dull. The more modern stories and poems are infused with humor or make use of quirky twists on the tale, and they can be quite enjoyable.’

Robert found the arguments Jack used in Hans Christian Andersen: The Misunderstood Storyteller to be strained. ‘All told, I’m afraid this book was a disappointment, although Zipes does introduce some interesting concepts, such as the idea of revenge being a means of righting an imbalance in our personal moral order. It didn’t really broaden my understanding of Andersen and his role in nineteenth-century literature to any significant degree, or add to my appreciation of just why his fairy tales have remained the force that they are in literature and film as a whole.’

In related books, our Jack Merry took a deep dive into Maria Tatar’s The Annotated Brothers Grimm, which he compares and contrasts with Zipes’s similar tome. ‘If you’re looking for all two hundred and forty-two of the tales, including the thirty-two commonly omitted tales, you must get Zipes’ The Complete Brothers Grimm, as Tatar, like almost all other translators, selects a mere handful of them to reflect her tastes, forty-six for this collection, with nine of them being for adults, more with female protagonists than not.’

Despite knowing hardly anything about cooking, J.J.S. Boyce bravely (or foolishly?) decided to review a couple of complex books by Lesley Chamberlain — and try to cook some of the recipes therein! Fortunately, he was able to enlist the assistance of a Ukrainian uncle who knows his way around the kitchen. Find out how they fared in these detailed reviews of Chamberlain’s The Food and Cooking of Russia and The Food and Cooking of Eastern Europe.

Lahri Bond tracked down a video of the Tam Lin movie directed by Roddy McDowall! ‘For years I’ve heard of a rumor of a movie version of this classic tale, but could not find more details, until a friend found it an online video catalogue. What a surprise to have found that actor Roddy McDowall would have chosen this tale as the basis for his first (and only) turn as a film director. Filmed in 1968 (rendering him unable to reprise his role of Cornelis in the Planet of the Apes sequel) McDowall set the tale in London and the Scottish Borders during the “swinging Sixties.”

Jack Merry gaily took up the task of reviewing Grimm’s Grimmest with illustrations by T. A. Dockray, and an introduction by Maria Tatar. ‘Grimm’s Grimmest serves up tales that you won’t want to tell your daughter if you want her to sleep tonight. But these are tales that any adult interested in the folk process should read. Just keep the light burning brightly by your side as you read them — and watch out for the things that move in the dark corners of your room.’

Gary here with music. In new releases, I review a couple of jazz fusion albums, Yonglee & the Doltang’s Invisible Worker, and Michael Sarian’s Esquina. ‘I’m definitely a sucker for the jazz-rock fusion of my youth: Mahavishnu Orchestra, Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis, Return To Forever, Weather Report. Especially if it has some complicated time signatures and lots of Fender Rhodes electric piano. I’m not alone, because it’s a sound that’s been popular with plenty of musicians right up to the present day, including these two recent releases.’

The Danish instrumental folk trio Dreamer’s Circus has a new album out called Handed On. ‘The majority of these 13 tunes are originals, starting with the delightful dance “Uhrbrand’s Cabin” composed by Busk as a tribute to the Uhrbrand family and other residents of Fanø Island and their music; it’s led by Sørensen’s fiddle. It’s the most traditional Danish tune among those composed by the band, although Carr’s Quebecois style tune “The Iron Hall” has strong elements from that tradition …’

I also review a couple of new albums by Norwegian women’s vocal groups singing in different folk traditions: Øyonn Groven Myhren and Marit Karlberg’s Tostemt, and Kvedarkvintetten’s Tagal. Of the former, I note, ‘Using only their voices and simple sparse accompaniment on the lyre (Myhren) and the langeleik zither (Karlberg), they present 13 songs, largely Hardanger fiddle tunes to which lyrics have been added over the years or to which they sing in a type of wordless mouth music, in mesmerizing two part harmony.’

From the Archives, inspired by all the books about fairy tales, I looked up some tasty reviews of ballads, songs that tell stories.

Since Martin and Eliza Carthy are in the middle of a rare U.S. tour, I pulled David’s archived review of Martin Carthy’s The Carthy Chronicles. ‘The Carthy Chronicles is a massive set. Sure there are lots of 4 disc boxsets on the market, but this one includes more rare and unreleased tracks than almost any one I’ve ever seen. It leaves the listener hungry for more!’

David also reviewed one of a trio of Charlie Louvin’s latterday albums. ‘Charlie Louvin could sing the phone book and make it interesting I think, but here he Sings Murder Ballads and Disaster Songs and totally captivated this listener.’

‘Nashville’s Eric Brace has teamed up with fellow singer-songwriter Karl Straub to write a “folk opera” set during the California Gold Rush, based on the story behind “Sweet Betsy From Pike,” one of the most durable folk songs to come out of the American Westward migration,’ I noted regarding Brace & Straub’s Hangtown Dancehall. ‘The players and singers are top-notch, the songs are well-written, and if you string them all together they tell a poignant story that puts flesh on the dry bones of history.’

I reviewed Anaïs Mitchell & Jefferson Hamer’s Child Ballads: ‘American singer-songwriters Anaïs Mitchell and Jefferson Hamer have taken something of a middle tack in their superb little album Child Ballads. They do take a strictly acoustic and folk approach, but with arrangements and production that somehow have a modern feel to them.’

I enjoyed Chuck Brodsky’s The Baseball Ballads: ‘Jealous lovers with guns. Racism. Illicit drugs. The pain and confusion of growing up. And … spies? All of these, except perhaps the last, are typical fodder for American singer-songwriters. But this isn’t a typical record of folk songs. Troubador Chuck Brodsky has made an entire album of ballads inspired by baseball.’

Scott brought us a review of Russian Songwriter: A Collection From Boris Grebenshikov. ‘Backed by a frequently changing assortment of musicians known as Akvarium, Grebenshikov has written and sung an enormous volume of songs over the last thirty years. In this collection, he presents a number of his songs that characterize the Russian singer-songwriter tradition, along with his own versions of one traditional song and three covers of Russian songwriters who exerted a particularly heavy influence on him.’

To go with all those reviews of folklore and children’s lit, here’s an archival review by Mia of the Folkmanis’s Pirate, Princess, Knight, Witch, and Jack-in-the-Box puppets. ‘All in all these are some pretty cool toys for children or adults. Like all Folkmanis they are sturdy and finely crafted and should last for a very long time. I’d not bother with the Jack-in-the-Box myself, but the rest are definitely worth the purchase price.’