My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate My, edited by Kate Bernheimer

Kate Bernheimer put together this stunning collection of fairy tale retellings and remodelings with the idea that "fairy tales remain a literary underdog--undervalued and undermined." Well, I hate to argue with you, Ms. Bernheimer, but look around. They are mined EVERYWHERE right now. Thank you Hollywood.

Okay, now that I've gotten my reverse sarcasm out of the way, let me say that this book is truly a gem. For all the wonderful adaptation and recreations of fairy tales that are out there, My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me is a truly spectacular collection, and I thank Ms. Bernheimer for this successful attempt to elevate fairy tales in a literary manner.

If a fairy tale retelling is a treat, then I have gorged myself on this delectable book. With stories from Neil Gaiman, Kelly Link, and Francesca Lia Block (to pick a random three among the ones I had previously heard of) these stories give many tales, both obscure and well-known, an excellent and valuable re-illumination.

A couple of my favorites:

Aimee Bender's "The Color Master," retells Donkeyskin by Charles Perrault, and features the tailors who create the princess's beautiful gowns (remember? the moon, the sun, the sky?) and how they manage to pull of the required dresses.

"First Day of Snow" by Naoko Awa features a Kamikakushi Tale from Japan, in which a little girl plays hopscotch with some snow rabbits and is nearly lost forever.

Kevin Brockmeier's "A Day in the Life of Half of Rumpelstiltskin" takes a long moment to imagine how the halves of Rumpelstiltskin fare after all of Rumpelstiltskin is thwarted.

Some stories worked better for me than others, as is the case with any short story collection. Overall, though, this book is well worth your time, both in terms of literary merit and stunning fairy tale retelling.

The Rumpelstiltskin Problem by Vivian Vande Velde

Have you ever wondered about Rumpelstiltskin? What's up with that guy, anyway? Why does he WANT a baby? Why does the Miller make up such a blatant lie about his daughter? How dumb can the king be, to believe him? Why does the daughter agree to marry the king after he threatened to kill her?

Have you ever noticed how many PROBLEMS there are with this story?

Ms. Velde certainly did, and she set about to fix these problems, with six imaginative and hilarious retellings of the story.

This is an extremely quick read, and extremely entertaining. I hope you'll do yourself the favor of reading this book. My favorite versions of this story are always the ones where the Miller's Daughter runs off with Rumpelstiltskin. Velde may have a couple of those--and other fun variations, as well.

Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women by Nancy Madore

I love looking at the amazon.com reviews for sexy books. I always read all the one star reviews because it's fascinating to me to contrast the ones who thought the book was too sexy with the ones who thought it wasn't sexy enough....

But anyway. Nancy Madore's Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories for Women is the first in a series of short story collections, focusing on fairy tales. The second book seems to mainly draw from nursery rhymes, the third from a more general fantasy background. The stories are gently erotic--you won't find anything harshly graphic in this collection.

The collection includes these stories:

Beauty and the Beast

Bluebeard

Cat and Mouse

Cinderella

East of the Sun and West of the Moon

Goldilocks and the Three Barons

Mirror on the Wall

Mrs. Fox

Snow White in the Woods

The Empress' New Clothes

The Goose Girl

The Sheep in Wolves' Clothing

The Ugly Duckling

I quite enjoyed the twists on Beauty and the Beast and The Goose Girl. The rest of the stories I found less memorable; some were more clever than others.

Fairy Tales for Grown-Ups by Jennifer Rowe

I received Fairy Tales for Grown-Ups as a surprise gift, and was delighted to read through it in an afternoon.

These seven short tales aren't adaptations so much as new whimsies, but they do represent the familiar elements of fairy tales we are more familiar with, from a little bit of magic to a journey of discovery. Frogs, trolls, and dragons populate the pages, along with some modern day archetypes of princesses and fools.

There's not a lot of depth to the stories, as they are all VERY short, but for a quick, enjoyable read, I'd recommend this book.

Fairy Tales for Computers

I came across this collection, recommended by a coworker when I was still working at Barnes and Noble. Since this particular coworker always recommended the most interesting things, I was intrigued, and of course the title served to pique my interest farther.

This collection includes:

The Machine Stops by E. M. Forster

The Nature Theatre of Oklahoma from Amerika by Franz Kafka

Notes On A Dream from the early diaries of Theodor Herzl

The Book of the Machines from Erewhon by Samuel Butler

On Intelligence from the essays of Paul Valéry

The Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen

From the introduction:

In electronic terms the stories are prehistoric. Yet every race of beings needs a mythos of tradition: perhaps this collection may be viewed as semi-sacred prophetic writings that will help give computers a sense of religious origin and historic identity...

...Any computer confident of its own strength will not be disturbed by being treated as a possible enemy of man, or if offended should remember that gods and mortals have always been rivals, and the universe has best thrived--at least in fairy tales--when the competition is friendly...

...While this book is published primarily for machines in a world they already dominate, persons whose duty it is to tend machines, and even those persons not yet fully affiliated or enmeshed, may take pleasure in reading it for their own peripheral purposes. At least, respectfully, this possibility has not been entirely ruled out by the publishers.

Fairy Tales for Computers is a fun and thought provoking collection, and while it speaks more to science fiction than fable, it's fascinating to see how building a mythology could be similar for any type of creature. I do find it particularly interesting that all the stories predate modern computers but still seem to predict the direction that such machines are going in. I recommend it for any library that has an interest in fairy tales and the mythic element of history (and the future).