"the age of the great epics"

[eldritchhobbit]

Happy birthday to valancourtbooks, the publisher and general editor behind the most excellent Valancourt Books. May you have a fantastic day today (just remember: no matter how old you are, I'm older!), and a wonderful year to come.


For those who haven't found it yet, I'd like to recommend in_tenebras, a reading group for Gothic and supernatural fiction. It offers such fiction, one book at a time, in two installments per week. Discussion is welcome, and no expertise is required. Currently the community is wrapping up Edgar Allan Poe's influential The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket, and soon they will begin James Hogg's Gothic classic The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner.


In other news, I am happy to say that the forthcoming Past Watchful Dragons: Fantasy and Faith in the World of C.S. Lewis book has gained some early praise:

* It is no small achievement to gather twelve essays written with authority and grace (ten on Lewis and one each on Tolkien and J.K. Rowling). Lewis enthusiasts with Puddleglum personalities, who expect at least one bad egg in a dozen, will be pleasantly disappointed.
- Robert Trexler - Editor, CSL: The Bulletin of the New York C.S. Lewis Society

* This is no dry collection, but a continuation in kind of the vibrant conversations that went on between C.S. Lewis and his like-minded friends in smoky Oxford pubs and book-lined college rooms. This “old, old talk,” as he called it, gathered in themes that ranged from the homely to the cosmic, and even beyond. The themes in this book fittingly take in the not-so different concerns of the 21st century, demonstrating the remarkable relevance and inexhaustible fascination of C.S. Lewis’s writings, vision, and continuing presence in literature, cinema, drama and intellectual discourse.
- Colin Duriez - Author of Tolkien and C.S. Lewis: The Gift of Friendship, The C.S. Lewis Chronicles, and A Field Guide to Narnia

* A welcome collection of reflections on C.S. Lewis by both seasoned and fresh voices on a widerange of topics topped off with two provocative explorations into Tolkien and Rowling.
- Christopher Mitchell - Director, Marion E. Wade Center, Wheaton College

I've just seen the cover layout, which is breathtakingly beautiful thanks to gorgeous artwork by melissagay. The book should be out next month; I will post more information when it is available.


"Once I planned to write a book of poems entirely about the things in my pocket. But I found it would be too long; and the age of the great epics is past.” - G.K. Chesterton

Comments

[galadhir.livejournal.com]

Past Watchful Dragons sounds like a book for me. I'll keep my eyes peeled for that one :)

[eldritchhobbit.livejournal.com]

Oh, wonderful! I'm so glad to hear it. :) I'll post more when the ordering information is available. Thanks!