Wyrd & Wonder-ful: My Many Plans for May!

It’s Wyrd & Wonder again! That means a whole month of awesome people sharing their love of all things fantasy, and I’m ridiculously excited (and bizarrely nervous???) about taking part for the second year in row! There are so many things I want to do, I honestly don’t know where to start.

But when in doubt, I make lists. So let’s break it down!

TBR

These are the books I desperately want to read this month – many of them I’ve already started, but want to focus in on (I read 40 books simultaneously, switching from one to the other and back again as the mood takes me – it slows me down, but then I end up finishing a bunch of books all at once, so it works out). I feel ridiculously spoiled with all these awesome books to read, honestly!

Feature Lists

Last year I had a lot of fun doing my Fantastic Beasts, Here You’ll Find Them posts; rec lists of books featuring different magical creatures. I did one for unicorns and one for dragons. This year I’d like to do one for pegasi, in honour of this year’s Wyrd & Wonder mascot, and one other – but I haven’t decided on the second beastie yet. Suggestions or requests are welcome!

I also want to do rec lists for

Decadent FantasiesStandalonesSo You’re Tired of Greek MythologyWonderful Worldbuilding: Worlds I’d Run Away ToAmazing Fantasies You’ve Probably Never Heard OfGentle Books for Trying Times

As well as sequels to my Coolest Magical Systems and Coolest Magical Abilities posts from last year.

I don’t know if I’ll manage them all, but I’m going to try!

Essays

I have two essay-things I’m working on and hope to post this month, one about mythopoeic fantasy (which will obviously include recs), and another tentatively titled Being the Fantastic: Reading Fantasy and Living as the Other, where I have Thoughts about outcasts and disability and how much Tolkein would absolutely despise people like me. It might morph into something equally pretentious about The New Generation of Fantasy. We’ll see!

Crescent Classics

The Crescent Classics started when I was 15 and Very Unimpressed with the books I had to read for school – and especially unimpressed because none of them were Fantasy! Which is, as any sensible person knows, the best genre. Who were these fools creating our academic reading lists, and where could I send a letter of outrage???

My teacher would not tell me where I could send a letter, so instead I started making a list of books I thought should be considered classics.

Which were, of course, all Fantasy.

That list has changed – and grown! – a fair bit since then, but I still hope to have a four-part series (one post a week) sharing some of the books on it. What I’d really love is to get a (friendly!) conversation going about whether other people agree or disagree with my choices, and what other books people would make Fantasy Classics if they could.

I’m willing to bet I won’t manage all of this, but it’s going to be fun trying. Let the magic begin!

IMAGE CREDIT: pegasus images by Svetlana Alyuk on 123RF.com

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