Friday's Recommended Reading:

A miscellaneous assortment of interesting things....

* Katherine Langrish on "anti-tales," Bluebeard, Mr. Fox, and the Scandinavian folkroots of her novel West of the Moon at The Paradoxes of Mr. Pond. It's a fabulous post -- and it's also the last day of her blog tour, so please have a visit and leave a comment to celebrate the end of a great, folklore-rich tour!  (And if Kath's post whets your appetite for more on Bluebeard and Mr. Fox, go here, here, here, and here.)

* Stephen Marche on How Shakespeare Invented Teenagers in The New York Times Magazine. A fascinating little piece.

* Alex Clark on The Lost Art of Editing in The Guardian. Alternately depressing and encouraging, and so true on both counts. (Yes, I know that's contradictory, but so is the publishing industry these days.)

* Fiona MacCarthy on the Victorian "Cult of Beauty," a new exhibition at the V&A, in The Guardian. Note to self: do not miss this.

* Natalie Grant's Open Letter to Madeline L'Engle in McSweeney's. Very touching.

* Mike Allen interviews Erzebet YellowBoy Carr on the IAF blog. (There are other good interviews here too.)

* Maria Shriver interviews poet Mary Oliver at Oprah.com, of all places (via Colleen Mondor).

* Justine Lee Monk on why fiction is important and kicking procrastination at Tribal X and Tribal Writer (via Gwenda Bond). Good advice for writers/creators.

* Rose Fox on Going Digital: A Personal Journey in Publishers Weekly. Learning to love ebooks.

* Colleen Mondor on Under the Poppy, Kathe Koja's amazing new novel, at Chasing Ray; which I also highly rcommend.

* Laura Miller on The Last Ringbearer, a Russian novel based on Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, at Salon.com.

* Evan Ratliff on Taming the Wild: the strange saga of breeding tame foxes in Siberia, in National Geographic magazine.

* The discussion on magic continues at John Barleycorn and Astrotabletalk.  A new "Moveable Feast" in the making?

* And for something completely different: four clothing sites that are fun to poke around in, all with a vintage, whimsical, folkloric or fairy tale feel: Gypsy Moon, Gudrun Sjödén, Ewa Y Walla and Mori Girl (the latter two via Angela Bell). Also, here's a dress made of beetles' wings at Hermes' Pre-Raphaelite Art blog. 

Have a good weekend.