false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1171089202m/86895.jpg 86895 13 "Once upon a time," A.S. Byatt's title fairy story begins, "when men and women hurtled through the air on metal wings, when they wore webbed feet and walked on the bottom of the sea, learning the speech of whales and the songs of the dolphins ... there was a woman who was largely irrelevant, and therefore happy. Her business was storytelling..." But this is no backward looking, quaint fairy time. The time is the present, and the protagonist is a sensible scholar who is given the not-at-all sensible gift of a genie. How will Gillian, an expert in fairy stories and well versed in all that can go wrong with wishes, use hers? <P> Distinguished British author and Booker Prize-winner A.S. Byatt creates fairy tales for adults, each a blend of the magical and the modern, and readers of <I>Angels & Insects</I> and <I>Possession</I> will recognize the role of Victorian fairy tales in her fiction. This handsome little book includes reproductions of woodcuts that evoke our childhood wonder for dragons and princesses, glass coffins and netherworldly things. 578387 book 1994 The Djinn in the Nightingale's Eye total:540|5:9|4:11|3:6|2:1|1:0| 540 2121 746 48 5 3 false false Tue Oct 14 07:03:03 -0700 2008 Fri Apr 24 08:14:38 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jul 07 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 02:53:01 -0700 2009 Mon Sep 21 02:53:18 -0700 2009
I still have sitting on my bedside table Possession, by Byatt. It is sitting there all forlorn, halfway-read with a growth which stagnated a couple of months back, when I found I just couldn't read another page...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Apr 25 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 25 11:26:58 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 25 11:32:52 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Thu Feb 28 19:07:28 -0800 2008 Tue Jun 30 15:15:59 -0700 2009 Short and uninteresting, the first short story of the collection made me immediately doubt the person who recommended Byatt.

"The Miller's Daughter"
-A sad story that I had difficulty getting into initially. I don't feel as though I unders...more...]]> 2 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 21 21:58:33 -0700 2007 Sun Oct 28 15:42:50 -0700 2007
1. The Glass Coffin: Very similar to the idea of Sleeping ...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Fri May 04 13:34:35 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 09 16:33:36 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Aug 10 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 16:33:38 -0700 2009 Fri Aug 28 16:34:35 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Thu Nov 05 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 20:26:29 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 16:53:40 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Wed Aug 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 28 07:29:29 -0700 2008 Thu Aug 28 08:26:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Jul 21 08:40:42 -0700 2009 Tue Jul 21 08:41:23 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Fri Nov 20 10:09:45 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 20 10:13:58 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Wed May 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 29 08:38:58 -0700 2009 Thu May 14 16:27:09 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Apr 10 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Wed Mar 04 17:02:58 -0800 2009 Wed Mar 04 17:04:02 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Wed Jul 02 11:40:55 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 28 07:00:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sun Nov 08 20:46:23 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 08 20:47:16 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Mon Nov 09 09:54:37 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 09:55:20 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Thu Oct 10 00:00:00 -0700 1996 Thu May 22 14:58:45 -0700 2008 Thu May 22 14:58:45 -0700 2008
The basics - 5 fairy tales ... the first seems very "standard" but they grow in complexity, and there is at least one that does not have a typical "happy ending". The longest tale i...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Feb 16 06:49:24 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 14:52:39 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Fri Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 1993 Mon Aug 24 06:08:32 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 24 06:12:58 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Tue Jul 01 07:00:35 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 01 07:10:48 -0700 2008 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=86895