Cannonball Read 17

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

The Bloody Chamber

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

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I recently decided to re-read The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter (it was my choice for my book group). It was as fun as I remembered. Carter’s sexy takes on traditional fairy tales like “Little Red Riding Hood,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Puss in Boots” is at times over-the-top in its prose, humor, and horror – which suits her feminist takes on damsels in all sorts of distress perfectly. She delivers a great vampire tale, “The Lady of the House of Love,” too.  But I think […]

Fairy Tales: a genre by and for “we the people”

Old Wives' Fairy Tale Book by Angela Carter

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I picked up this fairy tale collection in Tim’s Books, a tiny off-the-path used bookstore in Provincetown, because it had Angela Carter’s name on it, and I’ve been dedicating my book-buying to hoarding collections by the best fairy tale scholars, especially the feminist ones. It has, as you can see, a delightfully dated cover, but its ideas are very radical and timeless. The book is a selection of fairy tales and folktales chosen by Carter (author of the brilliant The Bloody Chamber), highlighting some of the […]

Bloody fairy tales

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

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As soon as I got an audience telling dark fairy tales online, people were recommending Angela Carter’s brilliant The Bloody Chamber to me. In fact, one follower loves it so much, they sent me a copy! Thank you to them. I really loved Carter’s literary take on popular fairy tales. Many short stories are direct twists on familiar tales (Bluebeard, Beauty and the Beast, Red Riding Hood) but others feel like original tales based on common motifs and characters (like “The Lady of the House of […]

She’s Only a Bird in a Gilded Cage

Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter

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CBR15 Passport Siberia Now mystical and/or spooky circus is one of my favorite vibes, but it is the language of this book that sets it apart for me, ranging from an East End London lilt to wonderfully baroque proclamations a la P. T. Barnum at his most fulsome. The plot is based on a feminist twist of the Leda and the swan myth.  Fevvers, renowned aerialiste, is recounting her origin story in turn of the century London to a young American journalist.  At six two […]

Grabbag

Point to Point Navigation by Gore Vidal

A Sorrow beyond Dreams by Peter Handke

For Colored Girls... by Ntozake Shange

Madea by Euripides

Anthem by Ayn Rand

Mumbo Jumbo by Ishmael Reed

The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter

Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

Beowulf by Trans. Heaney

Beowulf by Trans. Headley

Never Let me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

Ancillary Sword by Ann Leckie

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Point to Point Navigation – 4/5 This is a second and shorter memoir by Gore Vidal published a few years before he died. It wasn’t right before his death, but you get the impression that he is saying a last few things at least before he begins to wrap up his writing career. His career began when he was about 19 or so when he began writing what would become his first novel, Williwaw, a WWII short novel about a boat in the North Pacific […]

Fairy Tales of Carnal Desires

The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter

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Yep, I definitely enjoy audiobooks more if I’ve read the book before. In this case I even enjoyed it so much, that I very predictably drifted off to sleep while listening to it. Which is fine at night, but not a particularly good idea during home office. I’ll blame it on Emilia Fox’s dulcet voice. As for the book itself: it’s a collection of retellings of fairy tales and myths, all with a slightly more feminist twist and an adult audience in mind.* The stories […]



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