Elijah David

September brings autumn with it, and though that may not be official for another three weeks, I want to jump-start the season with a run down of some favorite books to read in the fall. The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien Aside from the fact that this book begins in the fall, it just has such an autumnal feel to me throughout. It has forests and traveling and longing for both home and adventure, which encapsulates the spirit of the season for me. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury I'll try not to overload this list with Halloween-ish stories, but Something Wicked is such an autumn-infused story. Will's father even calls the carnival's denizens "The Autumn People". Bradbury and this book may be partly responsible for my own love of autumn. The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis Really, Narnia in general can feel autumnal, but The Horse and His Boy  is the most autumnal, with its arid atmosphere and the Hermit of the South...

John Barth, author of Lost in the Funhouse , once said that writers tend to fall into one of two categories: sprinters and marathon runners, meaning they tend to excel at short stories or novels. Ever since I first read this description, I have identified strongly with it because, like Barth, I rarely find myself wanting to sprint (write a short story). Most stories that I'm inspired to write come to me as fully fledged novels. However, just because I don't tend to write short stories doesn't mean I don't enjoy reading them. I recently was reminded of a short story collection I read four years back and was inspired to track down a copy to read again. In that spirit, I'm listing out my Top 10 Short Story Collections. They are, in roughly ascending order: The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie This loosely connected collection of stories deals with the Native American/Amerindian/First Nations experience in modern America. It's a skil...

I recently picked up Charles de Lint's Riddle of the Wren because I learned that it was part of Mirriam's inspiration for Paper Crowns (that is, she flipped through, saw the word Wysling, and ran with it). I wanted to see what he'd done with the concept, and when I saw that Cernunnos was also included in the glossary, I knew this book would be worth the read. (Mirriam also asked me to see how the two books compared.) From the opening pages, this book feels quintessentially de Lint-ish. It has ordinary people who love stories and wild things and the edges of artistic society. There's lyricism in the prose and a sense of wonder and magic pervading the world. The opening chapters felt like something out of the Newford stories rather than something like Harp of the Grey Rose or Wolf Moon , both of which seem to be related to Riddle of the Wren in the sense of de Lint's working old myths and folktales into new works. RotW works its way into Irish lore about t...