WishFaery Book Links ~ Personal Recommendations
 
Here are the books, authors and illustrators who have touched my heart. The excellent illustrations of Arthur Rackham, the re-told Faery Tales edited by Teri Windling, and the views of modern interactions with the Fae, brought to us by Emma Bull and the excellent Charles deLint. These are the books that live on my library shelves — that is, when they are not being joyously re-read.
 
We've provided a direct link to each book listing on Amazon.com, to make it easier for you to get more information about the book. There are quite a few on this list that are out of print. If you find that Amazon.com doesn't have the book, and you really must have it, consider the following: Book Search at Book Oasis (these people are cool!), or a General Book Search on ABEbooks. The links should open in a new window , to make it easier to get back to WishFaery. When you've finished browsing the bookstores, simply close their browser to return to ours!
 
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Dawn's Favorites:

Charles deLint sees the Fae with clarity. He populates his stories with fae and humans so believable it is difficult to return to our day-to-day lives. These books are in my library, sometimes loaned out, sometimes not... deLint creates his beings with such rich detail that when I have finished one of his books I often continue dreaming about the characters, taking the story line into my own heart and mind. He speaks to those symbols that are deep in our centers, leaving our centers little to do but respond, and gladly. What I particularly enjoy is that the language of the old Fae (in the Jack books) is a language I've been studying this past year. The first book by deLint I encountered was Yarrow — by the end of the book I had come home.

Note that there are several books at the bottom of the deLint list that have not yet been released. Amazon.com will take pre-ordering of those (I plan to have them as soon as they come out). I have never been disappointed with a book by deLint. Enough of the chat — here is the list:

Terri Windling started a project a few years back, to re-tell the classic Fairy Tales in modern settings. Several other authors have joined in on this project, and the stories get better all the time. These are not the light and happy fairy tales we remember from our childhoods — these are mature, well-told tales with the fairy tale as the starting point. In "The Essential Bordertown", Windling (the editor) brings together several authors (13 stories in all) with the theme of Bordertown — where human and faery fringe elements meet.

Emma Bull writes of the Bordertown, where streetwise Elves and Humans mix it up. Plenty of magic working alongside our modern urban conveniences. The first novel I read of hers was War for the Oaks, with the age-old battle between the Seleigh and the Unseleigh courts coming through a gateway into our world — on the campus of the University of Minnesota. Ms. Bull has the gift of taking the reader into her reality. When I finished War for the Oaks, I wanted to be just starting it. Mixing musicians and Faery with just the right flavoring of wonder... I am so glad the book is back in print — and I do hope Ms. Bull writes more soon!

Arthur Rackham was chiefly an illustrator of childrens' books and fairy tales. His illustrations are rich, and curiously different from other illustrators of Faery of his time. I am the happy owner of a first edition "A Fairy Book" illustrated by Mr. Rackham, and it is a joy to see his odd creatures and beautiful maidens going through the actions described in the tales. The book, dated 1923, is sadly out of print. These two new books (below) have some of those illlustrations as well.

One for the Storytellers