208 ratings | 49 reviews | avg rating:3.70

more photos (4)

Kevin P. Futers’s Followers (10)

Kevin’s Bookshelves

to-read (61)
currently-reading (0)
read (221)
did-not-finish (0)
17th-century (2)
anglo-saxon-fiction (9)
anglo-saxon-history (2)
children-s (8)
christian-fiction (1)
colonial-fiction (2)
See all bookshelves »

Kevin’s Friends (44)

Scott Spotson

508 books | 274 friends

Elaine Anderson

303 books | 12 friends

J.C. Wing

1,125 books | 345 friends

Danielle Coffer

186 books | 24 friends

Donna

168 books | 200 friends

Paul Kinghorn

197 books | 106 friends

Neil

2,578 books | 440 friends

Barb

637 books | 3,434 friends

More friends…

Kevin P. Futers

Goodreads Author

Born

in Dundee, The United Kingdom

Website

http://www.gruffling.info

Twitter

kevinfuters

Genre

Historical Fiction, Fantasy

Influences

J.R.R. Tolkien,Anglo-Saxon poetry, Anglo-Saxon History ...more

Member Since

October 2011

URL

https://www.goodreads.com/gruffling

edit data

I was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1968 and after a young childhood spent around the UK, my family settled down in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was here that I grew up and as a young lad with the strong feeling of being Scottish (and being reminded regularly of my accent). I never really noticed that I had become a Geordie until I went to (of all places, you might say!) Sunderland Polytechnic.

By that time I had already met my future wife and had fallen in love not just with her but with what I can only describe as my home; my city (Newcastle) and my county (Northumberland).

It is a strange path that took me took me from Environmental Studies at Sunderland to an MA in Anglo-Saxon Studies at Newcastle, but the route was always via writing and to a l I was born in Dundee, Scotland in 1968 and after a young childhood spent around the UK, my family settled down in Newcastle upon Tyne. It was here that I grew up and as a young lad with the strong feeling of being Scottish (and being reminded regularly of my accent). I never really noticed that I had become a Geordie until I went to (of all places, you might say!) Sunderland Polytechnic.

By that time I had already met my future wife and had fallen in love not just with her but with what I can only describe as my home; my city (Newcastle) and my county (Northumberland).

It is a strange path that took me took me from Environmental Studies at Sunderland to an MA in Anglo-Saxon Studies at Newcastle, but the route was always via writing and to a large part reading as well. My inspirations are largely in Fantasy and to a lesser extent Sci-Fi, but in my early twenties I gained a fascination for all things Arthurian in fiction, stemming from reading Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave. There came a point however when there were only so many retellings of the same material you could read and so I looked around and found that there was a body of other books set at around the same time but without the divisive and restrictive figure of Arthur. The most influential of these was Ragnarok by Anne Thackerey, a book that took me away from my cosy Celtic Twilight romanticism into the cold dawn of Anglo-Saxon expansion. I found that I was more at home there, for of course I was back full circle to The Hobbit, the first book that I can remember being read to me (thanks George!).

It became clear to me that this was something I needed to know more about. As someone who has always been a writer, it opened up new avenues. A book that I was anxious to write gained Anglo-Saxon elements before being dropped in favour of a new concept, which in time would become "The Adventures of the Billy Goats Gruff."

I still go for romanticism (but not necessarily romance) by the bucketload but I hope that I have picked up enough of a respect for my favoured period so that I do not ride rough-shod over period detail. I never cease to rail against depictions of peoples and events that are just the way that Hollywood sees history.

I have also published a book about the poet Cædmon, recorded by Bede as the first man to compose Christian poetry in the vernacular language and mode. When I have finished the paper edition, I have several ideas for new books awaiting their time to flourish.

The rest of the blurb on my book says that I live with my wife, four children and two lurchers, but that is only part of the story and those details themselves are already a little out of date. Let us say it is still close enough to represent the truth of the situation. ...more

Combine Editions
Kevin P. Futers’s books

Average rating: 4.6 · 5 ratings · 4 reviews · 1 distinct work

The Adventures of the Billy Goats Gruff

4.60 avg rating — 5 ratings — published 2010 — 4 editions

Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

* Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more, click here.

rss
Kevin’s Recent Updates

Kevin Futers and 322 other people liked Bruce Katz's review of Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America: "Ignore the stars. This book presents a challenge to me. It's clearly written, thorough, well-reasoned, passionate, and I agree with just about everything in it, but... I'll come back to that 'but" in a moment. It's perfectly clear that Richardson wro" Read more of this review »
Feb 24, 2025 02:42AM · see review · preview book See a Problem? We’d love your help. Let us know what’s wrong with this preview of Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson. Problem: Details (if other): Thanks for telling us about the problem. Not the book you’re looking for? Preview — Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson <iframe sandbox id="wrongBookKindlePreviewScreen">

Kevin Futers and 322 other people liked Bruce Katz's review of Democracy Awakening: Notes on the State of America:

Democracy Awakening by Heather Cox Richardson

"Ignore the stars.

This book presents a challenge to me. It's clearly written, thorough, well-reasoned, passionate, and I agree with just about everything in it, but... I'll come back to that 'but" in a moment.

It's perfectly clear that Richardson wro" Read more of this review »

Feb 24, 2025 02:42AM · see review · preview book

More of Kevin's books…

Kevin’s Quotes

“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
― C.S. Lewis

16993 likes

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisioned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?. . .If we value the freedom of mind and soul, if we're partisans of liberty, then it's our plain duty to escape, and to take as many people with us as we can!”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

tags: fantasy, literature, philosophy

5697 likes

“Faërie contains many things besides elves and fays, and besides dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants, or dragons; it holds the seas, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth, and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien On Fairy-stories

tags: fairy, fairy-tale

310 likes

“The consolation of fairy-stories, the joy of the happy ending; or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous "turn" (for there is no true end to any fairy-tale): this joy, which is one of the things which fairy-stories can produce supremely well, is not essentially "escapist," nor "fugitive." In its fairy-tale -- or otherworld -- setting, it is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur. It does not deny the existence of dyscatastrophe, of sorrow and failure: the possibility of these is necessary to the joy of deliverance; it denies (in the face of much evidence, if you will) universal final defeat and in so far is evangelium, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, Joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien On Fairy-stories

211 likes

“Why should a man be scorned, if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? The world outside has not become less real because the prisoner cannot see it. In using Escape in this way the critics have chosen the wrong word, and, what is more, they are confusing, not always by sincere error, the Escape of the Prisoner with the Flight of the Deserter. just so a Party-spokesman might have labeled departure from the misery of the Fuhrer's or any other Reich and even criticism of it as treachery .... Not only do they confound the escape of the prisoner with the flight of the deserter; but they would seem to prefer the acquiescence of the "quisling" to the resistance of the patriot.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, Tolkien On Fairy-stories