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There are few authors we love more than Catherynne Valente, the brilliant author of staff faves like Deathless and the Fairyland series.. Imagine our delight when we learned that she’d agreed to come and talk to us live and in person!
Join us this Friday at 7pm to hear her discuss her new novel Radiance. Wear your masks and be ready to munch on some delicious snacks, because this is going to be a party!
The following extract is from The Oxford Companion to Children’s Literature and describes the origins of The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkein.
“The Hobbit, by J. R. R. Tolkien, was the outstanding British work of fantasy for children to appear between the two World Wars, and the first of a series of books which eventually brought Tolkien world-wide fame and created a cult following. ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit.’ Tolkien scribbled these opening words of the book one day in the late 1920s or early 1930s, without having any idea what they meant. The story that developed from them, first told to the author’s children at their Oxford home, has certain resemblances to other classics of juvenile fiction. The origins of the word ‘hobbit’ puzzled Tolkien himself. It appeared in his mind without conscious invention; he later suspected that it might have been suggested by Sinclair Lewis’s novel Babbit, whose hero’s character is not entirely unlike that of Bilbo Baggins, and he was also interested in the allegation, made by a reader of The Hobbit, that the word ‘hobbit’ appeared in a collection of fairy stories dating from around the turn of the century. Since Tolkien’s death it has been pointed out that the story in question was probably ‘The Hobyahs’, in Joseph Jacobs’ More English Fairy Tales, 1894.”
Gif via Giphy.com
Vincent van Gogh
warm up sketch, pencil and digital :)
DIANA SUDYKA “Arctic Night”
We’re just a teeny bit excited for Indie Bookstore Day. How about you?
Hi, today is Independent Bookstore Day. There are events all over the country, but even if you can’t make a specific event, today would just be a really nice time for you to go into your local indie and make a purchase. Think about what these stores do: They supply you with culture, information, and entertainment. Sometimes they just let you hide from the rain and look through their stacks. Your local bookstore is a beating heart of your community. Support them like they support you. xx
These are just a few of the many, many reasons to go visit your local indie bookstore on May 2nd, but we suspect you don’t need much persuading. Go forth and read!
Also, the book swag will be AMAZING!
James Joyce from Exiles
2 reasons for book lovers to learn a new language, from BuzzFeed’s “28 Beautiful Words The English Language Should Steal”
Every now and then a book grabs me so fiercely I don’t want to ever let it go. I picked up Christian Kiefer’s The Animals on a whim - I was shelving, and something about the cover made me pause and take a closer look. The moment I read the first page I knew that it needed to come home with me.
I’m a fast reader, choosing for the most part to devour books in one quick gulp. Not so with The Animals. I didn’t want it to be over, didn’t want to be bereft of Kiefer’s language and characters, and so I read it slowly, rationing the pages, making myself put it down and walk away until tomorrow, when I would snatch it up again and swallow down a few more precious words. It’s a dark book, and sad, but also beautiful. His writing burrows into you. I found myself thinking about it constantly, trying to find ways to make my writing feel like his without mirroring it.
At first I was resentful of being pulled away from the Wildlife Sanctuary in the book - that was what initially drew me in, and until the end was what I felt most deeply. But as I continued reading I understood why it was necessary to be pulled away, why all of the things that came before made the sanctuary and the animals so powerful. All of the different aspects of the story, no matter how far-reaching, were interconnected, necessary, vital.
I can already tell that The Animals will be one of my favorite books released this year. I finished it weeks ago and still I think about it, feel it poking around in my mind, making a home.
