Soman Chainini’s WORLD WITHOUT PRINCES

Just started reading the second installment of THE SCHOOL FOR GOOD AND EVIL, and I’m looking forward to April 30, 6pm, when Soman Chainini will be at the Harvard Coop to talk about his book.  He will be in conversation with Gregory Maguire, and I will introduce and “moderate” the conversation.

I love the playlist for the first volume, which reminds me how much fun he is having with the trilogy.

The School for Good and Evil Reading Playlist by Soman Chainani

One of my goals in writing The School for Good and Evil was to give the book new energy from chapter to chapter, so you never feel like you’re in the same place twice. For each of the 30 chapters, I’d pick a book (sometimes a piece of music or an article) that I remembered loving as a child or adolescent and obsessively reread it until I put the chapter to bed. None of the books had explicit links to The School for Good and Evil – in fact, most of them aren’t even fantasy. But in the end, I realized I had a ‘playlist’ to my own imagination, at once light and dark, good and evil.

Compiled between April 2011 through March 2012

1. The Princess & The Witch

Mary Poppins, P.L Travers.

2. The Art of Kidnapping

Peter Pan, JM Barrie

Music Video: “Oh, Father” (Madonna, Like a Prayer)

3. The Great Mistake

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll

The Bad Beginning, Lemony Snicket

4. The Three Witches of Room 66

The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith

The Steampunk Bible, Jeff Vandermeer

5. Boys Ruin Everything

Interview with a Vampire, Anne Rice

6. Definitely Evil

The Witches, Roald Dahl

7. Grand High Witch Ultimate

The Magicians, Lev Grossman

8. Wish Fish

9. 100% Evil

The Magician King, Lev Grossman

10. Bad Group

The Hobbit, JR Tolkien

11. The School Master’s Riddle

The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman

12. Dead Ends

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh

TV: Downton Abbey, Season 1

13. Doom Room

14. The Crypt Keeper’s Solution

Room with a View, EM Forster

15. Choose Your Coffin

16. Cupid Goes Rogue

Midnight in the Garden of Good & Evil, John Berendt

17. The Empress’ New Clothes

18. The Roach and the Fox

Auntie Mame, Patrick Dennis

Auntie Mame Around the World, Patrick Dennis

Madonna Style, Carol Clerk

Music Video: “Express Yourself,” Madonna

“Viva Donatella,” Lauren Collins. New Yorker. 9.24.07

19. I Have a Prince

Lord of the Flies, Wiliam Golding

20. Secrets and Lies

21. Trial by Tale

And Then There Were None, Agatha Christie

22. Nemesis Dreams

The Secret History, Donna Tart

Music Video: “Bedtime Story,” Madonna (Bedtime Stories)

23. Magic in the Mirror

The Line of Beauty, Allan Hollingshurst

24. Hope in the Toilet

25. Symptoms

The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde

TV: Downton Abbey, Season 2

26. The Circus of Talents

27. Promises Unkept

Blindness, Jose Saramago

Music Video: “Frozen,” Madonna (Ray of Light)

28. The Witch of Woods Beyond

The Crucible, Arthur Miller

Music Video: “What It Feels Like For a Girl,” Madonna (Music)

29. Beautiful Evil

30. Never After

The Alienist, Caleb Carr

Music Video: “Falling Free,” Madonna (MDNA)