Posts
- Folk-Lore in the Old Testament: Studies in Comparative Religion, Legend, and Law - James George Frazer. A blast from the past, brought back - and at ninety-three bucks, kind of expensive. I have a problem paying that much for stuff in the public domain - especially when the abridged version is free at Google Books.
- The Foxfire 45th Anniversary Book: Singin', Praisin', Raisin' - ed. by Joyce Breen, Casi Best and Foxfire Students. One of my first exposures to folklore was when I found an original Foxfire book on my aunt's bookshelf. I'll probably be on the lookout for this one.
- British Traditions, Arizona Folklore, Mythological Canines, et al. - Looks like you can buy bound copies of Wikipedia articles. Who exactly is the target market for this? I assume that if you can click your way onto Amazon, you can brave the big bad internet and surf on over to Wikipedia. Profiting off of free information really gets my goat!
- Tales of Old Essex - Adrian Gray; Tales of Old Hertfordshire - Doris Jones-Baker; Tales of Old Sussex - Lilian Candlin. New editions of tales from the English countryside. Other collections too numerous to mention include tales collected from the regions of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Shropshire, Suffolk, etc..
- Images of Women in Arsi Oromo Folktales, Folksongs and Proverbs: Critical Analysis of Images of Women in Folklore - Ahmed Dedo. A look at the folklore of Ethiopia from the perspective of the portrayal of women, and how this portrayal runs counter to official ways of raising the profile of women in that country.
- Our Secret Territory: The Essence of Storytelling - Laura Simms. This seems a little too touchy-feelie for me, especially with it's genitally evocative cover. But I might give it a try, because I am interested in the phenomenon of contemporary storytelling.
- Myths, Legends, and Heroes: Essays on Old Norse and Old English Literature - edited by Daniel Anlezark. Part of the Toronto Old Norse-Icelandic Series. A Festschrift dedicated to John McKinnell, this collection includes essays with a strong linguistic and archaeological bent.
- Explaining Traditions: Folk Behavior in Modern Culture - Simon J. Bronner. I am looking forward to reading this wide-ranging study from one of my favorite contemporary American folklorists.
- Race, Oppresion and the Zombie: Essays on Cross-Cultural Appropriations of the Carribean Tradition - ed. by Christopher Moreman and Cory Rushton. This book might be worth checking out, especially as it may help explain the current explosion in the popularity of Zombies in American Hipster and Youth culture (I feel like such an old writing that sentence)!
- Albanian and South Slavic Oral Epic Poetry - Stavro Skendi. Memoirs of the American Folklore Society, V44. (1956) Literary Licensing, LLC, offers bound reprints of many books of interest to the armchair academic - including many editions of the "Memoirs of the American Folklore Society." They are kind of pricey, but legit - unlike those shysters selling wikipedia articles. I am still mad about that. This service might be most beneficial to those without access to academically-inclined used bookstores. There seem to be many 'publishers' on Amazon with similar business models.
- An Epoch of Miracles: Oral Literature of the Yucatec Maya - Allan F. Burns. Ooh, this looks promising. A performer-centric collection of contemporary stories from Yucatec Maya.
- Continuity and Innovation in the Magical Tradition - edited by Gideon Bohak, Yuval Harari and Shaul Shaked. Jerusalem Studies in Religion and Culture.
Been a while, and I am feeling kind of rambunctious! Might be Tropical Storm Irene beating the rain against my storm windows. I am going to publish this post before the whole town of Boston goes dark.
