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Recent Posts
- What’s New for the 16th of August: Deborah Grabien’s music criticism essays; new Americana and jazz, and some music for the Dog Days of Summer
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Midsomer Strangeness
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Contradances
- What’s New for the 26th of July: Witches in fiction, both books and film; an Americana reissue and some music on a smoky theme
- A Kinrowan Estate story: chicken pot pieces
- What’s New for the 19th of July: Charles de Lint’s Ottawa novels with a quote from Drink Down the Moon, Gary’s review of Nordic fiddle music, It’s Michele Walther and Irina Behrendt playing Aaron Copland’s ‘Hoe Down’ from his Rodeo album
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Midsomer Odd Things
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Library and Its Librarian
- What’s New for the Fifth of July: Remembering Jane Yolen; some new Americana and jazz music; Fishing Blues
- A Kinrowan Estate Story: Recursive Loops
- What’s New for June 21: Jennifer Stevenson’s ‘Solstice’
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Turkish Coffee
- What’s New for the 7th of June: Foxes in literature, live Balkan music, comforting jazz, Americana jazz, and wonderfully weird fusion jazz; and John Fogerty live
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Bloodied Kings
- What’s New for the 24th of May: Gary’s Review of Elizabeth Bear’s White Space novels, iain’s review of the Lonely Signal Burns novellas by her, she reading her own story, ‘The Chains That You Refuse’, and I see Gary has some tasty music reviews fir us as well
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Our Greensward
- What’s New for the 10th of May: books reviewed by Jennifer Stevenson, music by Teddy Thompson, Americana music from all over, and some live music from John Fogerty
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Walk
- What’s New for the 26th of April: the nature of Stories; some new and newish SF, plus new world, jazz, folk and Americana music
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Spring Day
- What’s New for the 12th of April: Some new and recent SF; new Americana, Norwegian folk rock and jazz; and thoughts on War For The Oaks
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Unified Theory of Libraries (A Letter to Anna)
- What’s New for the 29th of March: Beer and spirits, in song and text, some new Scandinavian fiddle music and jazz flute music, and more
- A Kinrowan Estate story: A Ghostly Librarian
- What’s New for the 15th of March: some DeLint stories for early spring; lots of polskas, Serbian folk rock, progressive jazz, and Nordic music from the archives
- A Kinrowan Estate story: Hedge Witches
- What’s New for the 1st of March: Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks, Rosanne Cash’s ‘Runaway Train’, Johnny Cash at San Quentin, plus new Americana and jazz music
- A Kinrorwan Estate story: Cranachanh
- What’s New for the 15th of February: Some Seanan McGuire fantasy, Alison Bechdel’s latest, Pamela Dean’s Tam Lin; Nordic sounds, old time, Americana and Tex-Mex music
- What’s New for the 1st of February: Kage Baker retrospective; new Americana, Buddhist chants and Finnish songs, new and reissued jazz, and more
Category Archives: Books
Brian Attebery’s The Fantasy Tradition in American Literature: From Irving to Le Guin
The American fantasy tradition is important because fantasy is conservative. It holds ancient beliefs and insights safe within a shell of seeming inconsequence. Its roots go back beyond writing and beyond recall, but it also continues to alter as our … Continue reading
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Tagged American folklore, Fantasy Tradition in American Literature
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Edward D. Ives’ The Bonny Earl of Murray: The Man, the Murder, the Ballad
A strapping, handsome young gallant, tall in the saddle, a bruiser in football and good at knightly games, [the Bonny Earl of Murray] was in many ways a quintessential popular hero, and when he was brutally butchered the people rewarded … Continue reading
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Anne McCaffrey’s Black Horses for the King
“No hoof, no horse,” say the Worshipful Company of Farriers. “Farriery,” the craft of shoeing horses, was even more vital in the days when every mobile enterprise was dependent on horses, especially the enterprise of war. And what more famous … Continue reading
Posted in Books
Tagged Arthurian fiction, YA fiction
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Seamus Heaney’s Beowulf audiobook
Beowulf changed into my life when I was seven. It was a dreary, endless afternoon, and I was rooting through my father’s shelf of dusty old college textbooks when my hand grasped a battered, musty paperback with a strangely evocative, … Continue reading
Graeme Fife’s Arthur the King
Who was the real Arthur? Many authors today dig into history and piece together the fragments they find there. They offer us Arthur as Celtic chieftain or as Roman warlord. They find traces of him in the Mabinogion, and speculate … Continue reading
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Tagged Arthurian studies, British history, King Authur
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Clare Leslie and Frank Gerace’s The Ancient Celtic Festivals and How We Celebrate Them Today.
Yn ha, porth kov a wav. (In summer, remember winter.) — an ancient Cornish proverb Clare Leslie and Frank Gerace have provided a wonderful resource in The Ancient Celtic Festivals and How We Celebrate Them Today. This slender book (fifty-eight pages) … Continue reading
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Tagged Ancient Celtic Festivals, Celtic cultures
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Ed Gorman and Martin Greenberg’s Once Upon a Crime
Fairy tales had a major impact on shaping the imagination of folks long before they were first written down. And mystery fiction goes back many, many centuries as a genre. The themes that were the basis of the material shaped … Continue reading
Wendy Froud and Terri Windling’s A Midsummer Night’s Faery Tale
It appears that, like many of us, Wendy Froud and Terri Windling were more interested in the faery court of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream than in Demetrius, Helena, or any of the other human characters. A Midsummer Night’s Faery Tale contains … Continue reading
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Tagged fey, sculpture, Terri Windling, Wendy Froud
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Terri Windling and Wendy Froud’s The Winter Child
The faery court of Old Oak Wood was not the largest in the British Isles, but it was the oldest, steeped in elfin history and tradition. Ruled by Titania and Oberon, those celebrated lovers of story and song, the wood … Continue reading
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Tagged fey, Terri Windling, Wendy Froud
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Emma Bull and Will Shetterly’s Double Feature
If any of you readingthis are fans of Emma Bull’s War for The Oaks novel, or Will Shetterly’s Bordertown novels, you’re familiar with these two wonderful authors. What you may not know is that they are married to each other. Really. Truly. Now imagine … Continue reading
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Tagged Emma Bull, fantasy, War for the Oaks
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