Fairy Tale: A Very Short Introduction

Fairy Tale: A Very Short Introduction
Author: Marina Warner
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2018-02-13
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0191060194

From wicked queens, beautiful princesses, elves, monsters, and goblins, to giants, glass slippers, poisoned apples, magic keys, and mirrors, the characters and images of fairy tales have cast a spell over readers and audiences, both adults and children, for centuries. These fantastic stories have travelled across cultural borders, and been passed on from generation to generation, ever-changing, renewed with each re-telling. Few forms of literature have greater power to enchant us and rekindle our imagination than a fairy tale. But what is a fairy tale? Where do they come from and what do they mean? What do they try and communicate to us about morality, sexuality, and society? The range of fairy tales stretches across great distances and time; their history is entangled with folklore and myth, and their inspiration draws on ideas about nature and the supernatural, imagination and fantasy, psychoanalysis, and feminism. In this Very Short Introduction, Marina Warner digs into a rich hoard of fairy tales in all their brilliant and fantastical variations, in order to define a genre and evaluate a literary form that keeps shifting through time and history. Drawing on a glittering array of examples, from classics such as Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and The Sleeping Beauty, the Grimm Brothers' Hansel and Gretel, and Hans Andersen's The Little Mermaid, to modern-day realizations including Walt Disney's Snow White, Warner forms a persuasive case for fairy tale as a crucial repository of human understanding and culture. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

A Wild Swan

A Wild Swan
Author: Michael Cunningham
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Total Pages: 145
Release: 2015-11-10
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0374712603

Fairy tales for our times from the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Hours A poisoned apple and a monkey's paw with the power to change fate; a girl whose extraordinarily long hair causes catastrophe; a man with one human arm and one swan's wing; and a house deep in the forest, constructed of gumdrops and gingerbread, vanilla frosting and boiled sugar. In A Wild Swan and Other Tales, the people and the talismans of lands far, far away—the mythic figures of our childhoods and the source of so much of our wonder—are transformed by Michael Cunningham into stories of sublime revelation. Here are the moments that our fairy tales forgot or deliberately concealed: the years after a spell is broken, the rapturous instant of a miracle unexpectedly realized, or the fate of a prince only half cured of a curse. The Beast stands ahead of you in line at the convenience store, buying smokes and a Slim Jim, his devouring smile aimed at the cashier. A malformed little man with a knack for minor acts of wizardry goes to disastrous lengths to procure a child. A loutish and lazy Jack prefers living in his mother's basement to getting a job, until the day he trades a cow for a handful of magic beans. Reimagined by one of the most gifted storytellers of his generation, and exquisitely illustrated by Yuko Shimizu, rarely have our bedtime stories been this dark, this perverse, or this true.

Once Upon a Time

Once Upon a Time
Author: Max Lüthi
Publisher: Indiana University Press (Ips)
Total Pages: 196
Release: 1976-09-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

This first paperback edition of the seminal work by the Swiss scholar Max Lüthi will be welcomed by folklorists for its informative survey of the various ways in which fairytales and related genres (local legends and saints' lives) may be read. "Lüthi's lucid and intelligent book is refreshingly welcome." —Sewanee Review

I Heart My Life

I Heart My Life
Author: Emily Williams
Publisher: Hay House, Inc
Total Pages: 290
Release: 2019-06-04
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1788173104

Written by entrepreneurial phenomenon Emily Williams, I Heart My Life is a guidebook for women to change their money mindset, get clarity on what they want and start living the life of their dreams. I Heart My Life is a guide for living life in a different way to everyone else--going for your desires and no longer letting doubt, shame, insecurity or other people's judgment stop you from moving forward with that "something big" you know you're meant for. It brings together mindset, money beliefs, success principles, vulnerability, and real-life stories of women who have made their career and life dreams come true. Emily Williams once couldn't even get a job at Starbucks. Yet she went on to move to a new country, clear $30k in credit card debt and build a seven-figure coaching business from scratch. Having worked for years with thousands of women around the world to release what holds them back from the success they want, Emily is now sharing all her most powerful tools to help women radically transform their lives. In this book, you'll discover how to: cultivate a success mindset and trust the intelligence within your heart become clear about what you really want--then, go after it embrace gratitude as a driver for your ambition and success get big results and handle things when they don't go as planned be consistent, persistent and confident on the path towards your dreams Whether you're dreaming of starting your own business, getting ahead in your career, or just experience more joy, adventure and fulfilment in your life, I Heart My Life will catapult you toward your greatest desires.

Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups

Bedtime Stories for Grown-Ups
Author: Dan Jones
Publisher:
Total Pages: 240
Release: 2018-08-07
Genre:
ISBN: 9781724938435

Bedtime Stories for Grown-ups is a collection of 20 bedtime stories for adults from the 'Dan Jones Hypnosis' YouTube channel. The bedtime stories have been created in a way that encourages sleep and promotes wellbeing, helping with stress, anxiety and worry, three of the main areas behind many sleep problems, so, these bedtime stories are ideal for stressed out adults or those who find they worry or overthink when they should be falling asleep. These sleep stories for adults can be read by the person who wants to fall asleep, or read to someone to help them fall asleep, or audio recorded for personal use to help you fall asleep. Each bedtime story is a transcript of a 20-35 minute long hypnotic healing bedtime story. For most of human history storytelling helped people to share knowledge and wisdom while inspiring change and creativity. Storytelling is one of the oldest forms of verbal hypnosis. Stories stimulate and access the dreaming brain allowing people to update their neurology with new learning to change thinking, behaviours and responses to life events. Somewhere along the way storytelling became associated with children, it was seen as odd if you were an adult who said you liked listening to stories. This has now started to change, adults listening to stories and reading bedtime stories is on the rise. Dan Jones has over 20 years experience using storytelling as a form of therapy and to help people sleep, he also has a successful YouTube channel 'Dan Jones Hypnosis' with over 100 hypnotic healing bedtime stories for adults and over 20 sleep stories for children.

Tales of the Brothers Grimm

Tales of the Brothers Grimm
Author: Jacob Grimm
Publisher: Damiani
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2015
Genre: Art
ISBN: 9788862083867

For Tales of the Brothers Grimm, 36 celebrated and lesser-known of the unsanitized fairy tales collected by the illustrious brothers were carefully chosen by artist Natalie Frank, reinterpreted in 75 gouache and chalk pastel drawings, and cast in a Surrealist dreamscape. This volume, designed by Marian Bantjes, is the largest collection of Grimms' Fairy Tales ever illustrated by a fine artist. Frank's irreverent palette, sophisticated use of color and inventive depiction of these dark narratives capture the original stories with a contemporary and unflinching eye. Each of the tales opens with a hand-drawn title page and is framed by a unique border; small drawings punctuate each story in the tradition of classic fairy-tale editions. The foremost Grimm scholar, Jack Zipes, introduces the book.

Disfigured

Disfigured
Author: Amanda Leduc
Publisher: Coach House Books
Total Pages: 211
Release: 2020-02-11
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 177056604X

A CBC BOOKS BEST NONFICTION OF 2020 AN ENTROPY MAGAZINE BEST NONFICTION 2020/21 A NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY BOOK OF THE DAY (07/23/2022) Fairy tales shape how we see the world, so what happens when you identify more with the Beast than Beauty? If every disabled character is mocked and mistreated, how does the Beast ever imagine a happily-ever-after? Amanda Leduc looks at fairy tales from the Brothers Grimm to Disney, showing us how they influence our expectations and behaviour and linking the quest for disability rights to new kinds of stories that celebrate difference. "Historically we have associated the disabled body image and disabled life with an unhappy ending” – Sue Carter, Toronto Star "Leduc persuasively illustrates the power of stories to affect reality in this painstakingly researched and provocative study that invites us to consider our favorite folktales from another angle." – Sara Shreve, Library Journal "She [Leduc] argues that template is how society continues to treat the disabled: rather than making the world accessible for everyone, the disabled are often asked to adapt to inaccessible environments." – Ryan Porter, Quill & Quire "Read this smart, tenacious book." – The Washington Post "A brilliant young critic named Amanda Leduc explores this pernicious power of language in her new book, Disfigured … Leduc follows the bread crumbs back into her original experience with fairy tales – and then explores their residual effects … Read this smart, tenacious book." – The Washington Post "Leduc investigates the intersection between disability and her beloved fairy tales, questioning the constructs of these stories and where her place is, as a disabled woman, among those narratives." – The Globe and Mail "It gave me goosebumps as I read, to see so many of my unexpressed, half-formed thoughts in print. My highlighter got a good workout." – BookRiot "Disfigured is not just an eye-opener when it comes to the Disney princess crew and the Marvel universe – this thin volume provides the tools to change how readers engage with other kinds of popular media, from horror films to fashion magazines to outdated sitcom jokes." – Quill & Quire “It’s an essential read for anyone who loves fairy tales.” – Buzzfeed Books "Leduc makes one thing clear and beautifully so – fairy tales are fundamentally fantastic, but that doesn’t mean that they are beyond reproach in their depiction of real issues and identities." – Shrapnel Magazine "As Leduc takes us through these fairy tales and the space they occupy in the narratives that we construct, she slowly unfolds a call-to-action: the claiming of space for disability in storytelling." – The Globe and Mail "A provocative beginning to a thoughtful and wide-ranging book, one which explores some of the most primal stories readers have encountered and prompts them to ponder the subtext situated there all along." – LitHub "a poignant and informative account of how the stories we tell shape our collective understanding of one another.” – BookMarks "What happens when we allow disabled writers to tell stories of disability within fairytales and in magical and supernatural settings? It is a reimagining of the fairytale canon we need. Leduc dares to dream of a world that most stories envision is unattainable." – Bitch Media