Carl V. at Stainless Steel Droppings has lured me into yet another fantastic challenge, wicked blog-fiend that he is. Perhaps it is that I first read about it at 4 a.m., but I think its allures would have worked their wiles on me at any hour, frankly. It is the Once Upon a Time Challenge, and the beauty of it (for me, and I suspect for many others) is that it will include many a work that I would inevitably sneak off to read in a guilty corner anyway while I should be working on other challenges, reading groups, and, well, the work I get paid for. The challenge will lend this surreptitious reading a much-needed dignity.

The challenge officially began five days ago, on March 22, and will run until the very toll of midnight on Midsummer's Eve (June 21), at which moment, presumably, all unread books will turn into pumpkins. Carl V. provides a number of different options for those with more or less time to devote to the challenge (or those who have varying levels of interest in and intimidation by the genres at its core). The one I have chosen is this: read five books from the four genres of Folklore, Fantasy, Mythology, and Fairytale.

I have tried to represent a range of genres and time periods in the list below, but have sorely neglected the fairy tale. Be soothed (as I am) by the fact that I have spent quite a bit of time, at various points in my life, reading fairy tales, from the Brothers Grimm and Anderson to Angela Carter and Bill Willingham's Fables comics. After my list of five - which is a bit serious, even stuffy, at times - I have added some "alternates" which I might dip into, time permitting (and I have a feeling that other reading will give way before it). This list will almost certainly grow when I have returned home from my travels and can take a gander at my bookshelves.

Something Rotten by Jasper Fforde

I am already midway through (cheater!) this last in Fforde's flights of fancy on fantastic travel through the literary canon and the police procedural. (Can I add that my boyfriend and I had a huge fight the other night about the definition of "procedural"? It was a battle of epic proportions, and a draw was finally called.) I must also admit that it is on my Chunkster Challenge list. But the extreme dryness of the next entry on my list should make up for my hedging here.

Morphology of the Folktale by Vladimir Propp

A crucial work of theory and analysis that (as far as I know without having read it) investigates the core frameworks behind folkloric narratives of all types.

Metamorphoses by Ovid
The Golden Ass by Apuleius

These last two works are from my ongoing project based on the list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Ovid's Metamorphoses, a long poetic work from which much of what we recall of classical mythology is drawn, is perhaps the more familiar of the two. The Golden Ass uses a fantastic premise (its protagonist, who is somewhat absurdly fascinated by magic, is transformed into a donkey) to contain a series of folktales and mythological narratives. It is also - according to Wikipedia - the only extant Roman novel.

A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K. Le Guin

A classic of modern fantasy (and first in a famous series) that I have started several times, but somehow never finished. Well, now is its time.

Alternates/Extra Credit List:

Titus Groan by Mervyn Peake
Inkheart by Cornelia Funke
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke
Sabriel by Garth Nix
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
Italian Folktales by Italo Calvino
Perdido Street Station by China Mieville
The Light Ages by Ian MacLeod
A Sudden Wild Magic by Diana Wynne Jones
Trickster's Choice by Tamora Pierce
Swordspoint by Ellen Kushner
A Thousand Nights and a Night
Grendel by John Gardner