The Way Out
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(out of 3 reviews)
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Price: $ 6.99
The Blue Fairy Book
The book has no illustrations or index. Purchasers are entitled to a free trial membership in the General Books Club where they can select from more than a million books without charge. Subjects: Fairy tales; Fiction / General; Fiction / Fantasy / General; Fiction / Fantasy / General; Fiction / Fantasy / Short Stories; Fiction / Fairy Tales, Folklore
Rating: (out of 20 reviews)
List Price: $ 30.52
Price: $ 22.33
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Review by for The Blue Fairy Book
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I absolutely LOVE this book. It is one of my all-time favorites and a wonderful book for ALL ages, as I am 16 years old and very much enjoy reading it. I highly recommend it!!
Review by Backroads for The Blue Fairy Book
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“The Blue Fairy Book” is amazing. I am planning to collect all of Andrew Lang’s color fairy tale books. It has an excellent group of stories from different fairy tale writers, including Perrault, d’Aulnoy, and Grimm. This book was originally printed in the 19th century. It has not been abridged, nor have any of the original pictures been taken out. (Be warned, they’re *artistic*) These are the original, unaltered by Disney versions, and contain the nightmarish plots they were meant to have. Anyone who collects fairy tales should have this.
Review by Kristen Laine for The Blue Fairy Book
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I just ordered a number of the Andrew Lang books from Amazon. The Blue Fairy Book arrived yesterday, and I could not have been more disappointed. It came in a very plain blue hardback. I opened it up, and NOWHERE inside is Andrew Lang mentioned, nowhere are any of the illustrations, from either of the two other versions I know. The production quality — the paper, the binding — is poor, and the “author” is listed throughout as “Anonymous.” The publisher of this book is IndyPublish.com. I don’t know the deal, or how they get listed under Andrew Lang, but I recommend that if you want a real Andrew Lang book, don’t buy one of the IndyPublish books.
Review by L. Power for The Blue Fairy Book
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If you are new to Lang, it started in 1889 with the blue fairy book, and then a series developed, yellow, crimson, orange, red, and so forth.
The fact that this series has endured to now is a testament to its quality.
As you read, you will discover fairy tales and myths from all over the world, including the well known writers such as Grimm, Andersen, Perrault, and Mme D’Aulnoy.
These are not the politically correct stories you might expect, and I believe you will find them useful whether it’s for your own reading pleasure, of for passing on stories to children.
In fact, if you look beyond the surface of the story, there is a cautionary aspect for children who might get lost, and the evil characters they might meet like the wolf in sheep’s clothing, or the boy who cried wolf, or the nice person who offers a gift, but is really a wicked queen in disguise.
There may be a young prince who helps a hairy man escape, and the king embarrassed and enraged orders the child to be killed. Naturally the woodsman slaughters an animal instead, and returns those to the king instead as evidence of performance of the deed.
There are stories of boys becoming men, being tested by the princess, and doing great deeds to prove their worth. Some characters are wicked and evil, and so the protagonist has to develop resources of their own to defeat the deceit, trickery, jealousy, ambition, and wickedness of the people they encounter.
I recommend you start with the blue book, because it has most of the best known stories, for example, Aladdin, Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots. You can check the contents of each book at mythfolklore, and even read the stories online.
If you are buying Lang, you need to know which publisher, because there are many editions through different publishers, some are good with nice print and pictures, others have small print and no pictures.
I highly recommend the Dover edition which has pictures and good size print. These pictures are black and white drawings. The Boomer books edition has good size print. If you want a durable hardcover library style book with a red string bookmark, I recommend the D N Goodchild books. Avoid the compilation book, and buy them individually.
One of my favorite stories not in this edition is The wooing of Olwen. It’s unusually cruel and bloodthirsty from Wales and King Arthur’s court.
I know you will enjoy these wonderful stories, and I hope this review was helpful.
Review by Mike Christie for The Blue Fairy Book
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Andrew Lang’s series of fairy-tale books are some of the fundamental children’s reading of the twentieth and late nineteenth century. The stories are not “original”: there’s no such thing when they were almost without exception passed down orally; but they are in old, not very modernized tellings.Many readers who have only seen or read modern, Disney-fied versions of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty or Snow-White will not recognize some of the darker twists in these tales. For example, in Sleeping Beauty, when the Prince wakes the Princess and marries her, the story is by no means over. The Prince’s mother is an Ogress, whom his father married for her wealth, and it’s suspected that she likes to eat little children; that “whenever she saw little children passing by, she had all the difficulty in the world to avoid falling upon them”. The happy couple have two children, named Day and Morning, and the Ogress decides to dine on them one day when the Prince is away. Yes, it still has a happy ending, but Disney it isn’t.The illustrations–8 full page, plus 130 smaller ones–are all from the original 1891 edition. They’re black and white woodcuts; very atmospheric, and I think most children will like them.The only thing that might have to be explained to a child is the occasional use of vocabulary that is no longer current. Most often this is the use of “thee” and “thou”; but a few other words will crop up. However, they’re usually inferable from context, and the stories are marvellous entertainment regardless.
Review by Steven Elliott for The Way Out
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I have all The Books music, but that doesn’t mean I know much about them. The music almost defies description or explanation – you just have to listen to it. Is it music meant to make you think or “to tease you out of thought”? Is it the musical equivalent of koan? I have my suspicions, but I don’t know for sure. I don’t know whether the found sounds they use are meant to be ironic or provocative. Both? Are we supposed to think about them or simply let them wash over us like waves? In the end, I think, each person has to make up their own mind. I can say, however, that I keep listening, because I never know where they are going, where they will take me. And I do want to find out. I don’t know whether this is the way out, or the way in, or when and if we ever get there. Whatever. It is a trip worth the price of admission.
The music appears to be a home made project of the artists, so I assume they had a hands on approach to the cover art as well. I’ve been around long enough to notice an obvious rip off of the first Living Bible paraphrase that came out on the heels of the hippie age in the early 1970′s called The Way:THE WAY: The Living Bible (Illustrated) Before it became known as Christianity the teaching of Jesus was simply known as The Way. I don’t know what to make of that. I suppose The Books have “sampled” the title and artwork of The Way as they have sampled all the other recordings and incorporated them into their music and made them their own – but to what end? Also, as the reader may know, the “Bible” itself merely means the “Book.” People of faith of any stripe are know as “people of the Book.” The Book vs. The Books, The Way vs. The Way Out. Is there a message for us to discern here? Must we decide? Maybe we should just do as the Books do and make of it what we will.
Review by Alex for The Way Out
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The Books have certainly progressed in the interim between albums. These songs match their “found” sounds with instrumentation in new ways, but they still retain the same magic of their first two albums.
While this is a great album to add to your collection, I would disagree with the review that recommends this as a first album to get from The Books. For your first albums I would suggest “The Lemon of Pink” and then “Thought for Food”. Both superlative. Head to their main site “the books music [dot] com” to hear full previews.
Also, don’t forget The Books’ collaboration with Prefuse 73 — “Prefuse 73 Reads The Books” Talk about catching lightning in a bottle – it is a perfect alloy of their styles.
BTW, if you have a chance to see The Books live, it is an event not to be missed. They synch’d a videos with their songs and added new layers of rhythm to some of their best songs.
Review by Kristopher Bell for The Way Out
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“The Way Out” is another solid outing and incremental step forward for the fun, experimental duo The Books.
Built around found audio snippets of adults and children, “The Way Out” playfully dissects these anonymous guests’ words, recontextualizing them to sometimes humorous, sometimes profound effect. And as always the music itself is interesting and provocative. These are skilled musicians, eschewing typical arrangements, signatures, and beats for explorations of texture and rhythm.
Highlights on the album for me include: “A Cold Freezin’ Night” – a frenetic, bass-and-rhythm-driven soundtrack to the murderous threats of a group of children; “Beautiful People,” a harmonious chant-like mathematical dream (I’m not sure I understand the subject matter, but what a trippy song!); and “All You Need is a Wall,” which finds the group coming close to putting together a conventionally structured folk song (and they can sing!).
For those who know The Books, there’s lots to love and enjoy about this album. It will feel familiar from the start in that its a natural, albeit slight, evolution (and then, only really in that sense that they use their own voices a bit more and push into some heretofore unexplored genres).
For those new to The Books, this album is as good a jumping off point as any. And although fans often say “The Books” and “experimental” in the same breath, don’t be scared by the label. Yes, its different cup of tea, but its a lovely sip nonetheless.