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The Newford Stories
With his uncanny grasp of the magic hovering at the edge of everyday life, "Charles de Lint shows that, far from being escapism, contemporary fantasy can be the deep mythic literature of our time." (The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction) Perhaps this is why the Modern Library 100 Best Books of the Century on-line list contained more books by him than by any other writer. ~~~ Set in Newford, a quintessential North American city that might exist anywhere or nowhere, de Lint's stories wander amid the tenements and the music clubs, the waterfront and the alleyways, where ancient myths and magic spill into the modern world. Here, ghosts loiter under street lamps, gemmins live in abandoned cars, and goblins traverse the tunnels below. ~~~ You'll meet folks like Jilly Coppercorn, a painter who sees wonder on these mean streets; Christy Riddell, writer and collector of urban folk tales and odd stories; his brother Geordie, a street fiddler who calls up enchantment with his music; and many others, like the boy who saves feral bicycles, the girl who stumbles into "the city of bridges," an origami fortune teller, a serial killer of people's dreams, "bone woman," and a conjure man. ~~~ With The Newford Stories, de Lint weaves before you a mesmerizing tapestry of stark realism, fond hope, and illimitable dreams.
794 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
6 people are currently reading
406 people want to read
About the author
Charles de Lint
446 books3,992 followersCharles de Lint is the much beloved author of more than seventy adult, young adult, and children's books. Renowned as one of the trailblazers of the modern fantasy genre, he is the recipient of the World Fantasy, Aurora, Sunburst, and White Pine awards, among others. Modern Library's Top 100 Books of the 20th Century poll, conducted by Random House and voted on by readers, put eight of de Lint's books among the top 100.
De Lint is a poet, folklorist, artist, songwriter and performer. He has written critical essays, music reviews, opinion columns and entries to encyclopedias, and he's been the main book reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1987. De Lint served as Writer-in-residence for two public libraries in Ottawa and has taught creative writing workshops for adults and children in Canada and the United States. He's been a judge for several prominent awards, including the Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon and Bram Stoker.
Born in the Netherlands in 1951, de Lint immigrated to Canada with his family as an infant. The family moved often during de Lint's childhood because of his father's job with an international surveying company, but by the time Charles was twelve—having lived in Western Canada, Turkey and Lebanon—they had settled in Lucerne, Quebec, not far from where he now resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
In 1980, de Lint married the love of his life, MaryAnn Harris, who works closely with him as his first editor, business manager and creative partner. They share their love and home with a cheery little dog named Johnny Cash.
Charles de Lint is best described as a romantic: a believer in compassion, hope and human potential. His skilled portrayal of character and settings has earned him a loyal readership and glowing praise from peers, reviewers and readers.
Charles de Lint writes like a magician. He draws out the strange inside our own world, weaving stories that feel more real than we are when we read them. He is, simply put, the best.
—Holly Black (bestselling author)
Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint's vivid, original world. No one does it better.
—Alice Hoffman (bestselling author)
To read de Lint is to fall under the spell of a master storyteller, to be reminded of the greatness of life, of the beauty and majesty lurking in shadows and empty doorways.
—Quill & Quire
His Newford books, which make up most of de Lint's body of work between 1993 and 2009, confirmed his reputation for bringing a vivid setting and repertory cast of characters to life on the page. Though not a consecutive series, the twenty-five standalone books set in (or connected to) Newford give readers a feeling of visiting a favourite city and seeing old friends.
More recently, his young adult Wildlings trilogy—Under My Skin, Over My Head, and Out of This World—came out from Penguin Canada and Triskell Press in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Under My Skin won 2013 Aurora Award. A novel for middle-grade readers, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, published by Little Brown in 2013, won the Sunburst Award, earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Quill & Quire, and was chosen by the New York Times Editors as one of the top six children's books for 2013. His most recent adult novel, The Mystery of Grace (2009), is a fascinating ghost story about love, passion and faith. It was a finalist for both the Sunburst and Evergreen awards.
De Lint is presently writing a new adult novel. His storytelling skills also shine in his original songs. He and MaryAnn (also a musician) recently released companion CDs of their original songs, samples of which can be heard on de Lin
De Lint is a poet, folklorist, artist, songwriter and performer. He has written critical essays, music reviews, opinion columns and entries to encyclopedias, and he's been the main book reviewer for The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction since 1987. De Lint served as Writer-in-residence for two public libraries in Ottawa and has taught creative writing workshops for adults and children in Canada and the United States. He's been a judge for several prominent awards, including the Nebula, World Fantasy, Theodore Sturgeon and Bram Stoker.
Born in the Netherlands in 1951, de Lint immigrated to Canada with his family as an infant. The family moved often during de Lint's childhood because of his father's job with an international surveying company, but by the time Charles was twelve—having lived in Western Canada, Turkey and Lebanon—they had settled in Lucerne, Quebec, not far from where he now resides in Ottawa, Ontario.
In 1980, de Lint married the love of his life, MaryAnn Harris, who works closely with him as his first editor, business manager and creative partner. They share their love and home with a cheery little dog named Johnny Cash.
Charles de Lint is best described as a romantic: a believer in compassion, hope and human potential. His skilled portrayal of character and settings has earned him a loyal readership and glowing praise from peers, reviewers and readers.
Charles de Lint writes like a magician. He draws out the strange inside our own world, weaving stories that feel more real than we are when we read them. He is, simply put, the best.
—Holly Black (bestselling author)
Charles de Lint is the modern master of urban fantasy. Folktale, myth, fairy tale, dreams, urban legend—all of it adds up to pure magic in de Lint's vivid, original world. No one does it better.
—Alice Hoffman (bestselling author)
To read de Lint is to fall under the spell of a master storyteller, to be reminded of the greatness of life, of the beauty and majesty lurking in shadows and empty doorways.
—Quill & Quire
His Newford books, which make up most of de Lint's body of work between 1993 and 2009, confirmed his reputation for bringing a vivid setting and repertory cast of characters to life on the page. Though not a consecutive series, the twenty-five standalone books set in (or connected to) Newford give readers a feeling of visiting a favourite city and seeing old friends.
More recently, his young adult Wildlings trilogy—Under My Skin, Over My Head, and Out of This World—came out from Penguin Canada and Triskell Press in 2012, 2013 and 2014. Under My Skin won 2013 Aurora Award. A novel for middle-grade readers, The Cats of Tanglewood Forest, published by Little Brown in 2013, won the Sunburst Award, earned starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Quill & Quire, and was chosen by the New York Times Editors as one of the top six children's books for 2013. His most recent adult novel, The Mystery of Grace (2009), is a fascinating ghost story about love, passion and faith. It was a finalist for both the Sunburst and Evergreen awards.
De Lint is presently writing a new adult novel. His storytelling skills also shine in his original songs. He and MaryAnn (also a musician) recently released companion CDs of their original songs, samples of which can be heard on de Lin
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 22, 2011
I’ve said many times over that I am not a fan of short stories. I’d rather spend 600 pages getting to know someone and living their life alongside them, than have some poignant lesson thrown at me in six. These stories, however, are something different. While they’re still short, they all take place in the same location and often involve the same characters in different capacities. Sometimes Jilly is the main character, sometimes she’s in the background. Sometimes the story is about Sophie, sometimes she’s referenced as a friend of a friend. So it doesn’t seem as much that you’re reading short stories but parts of a novel told from many, many different points of view.
The creativity of De Lint is astounding. He doesn’t just pull characters from popular myth, but he creates his own creatures too. His descriptions aren’t ornate, but put in a way that you think “oh, I see exactly.” In other words, he writes the way I wish I could write.
The creativity of De Lint is astounding. He doesn’t just pull characters from popular myth, but he creates his own creatures too. His descriptions aren’t ornate, but put in a way that you think “oh, I see exactly.” In other words, he writes the way I wish I could write.
May 2, 2020
This isn’t the first (or even second) time that I’ve read the short stories collected here, since I’ve had copies of almost all of Charles de Lint’s books for years, but a new (to me) recollection of three of his collections of stories about Newford is an excellent excuse to re-read them once again. What surprised me most about this re-read is how sad many of the stories seemed to be this time around. De Lint has never shied away from tough storylines, telling the brutal reality of the darker side of the world even while his message remains that of hope, but I guess reading the stories during this highly stressful time in the world emphasizes the darkness. Thankfully the final stories in the collection are a bit more uplifting, so we ended on a more positive note!
April 30, 2013
Okay, so this is a little bit of a way to fluff up my GoodReads goal progress - I intentionally got the omnibus edition so I could count all three included books towards my goal as well as the omnibus itself.
That said, and somewhat oddly, I actually have slightly different feelings towards the whole edition than I did toward the individual books, each of which I gave four stars out of five (as I found them well-written and enjoyable but not particularly emotionally involving).
There wasn't any one great "wow" moment that sent chills down my spine, as there usually is with books that grab me enough for a five-star rating. But while this book is long and has a *lot* of stories (some of which, as is always the case with short-story collections, are better than others), it never felt like I was slogging through it. Quite the reverse, in fact - if I went a day or two without reading it, I started to miss these characters and this world that Mr. de Lint had created.
And that, I think, is ultimately the real triumph of this series, and these stories especially. de Lint writes authentically about people on the fringes of society - minorities dealing with cross-cultural issues, artists and musicians scraping out a living, homeless people with far more complex histories and inner lives than society at large would ascribe to them. But even when the stories are darker in theme (and many of them are), there are moments of humor and hope, expressions of humanity that make the characters more than two-dimensional renderings. Eventually, these moments add up to a real place populated by real people - a place some ways away, perhaps, with friends you don't see often, but that doesn't mean you don't love reading about what they're up to these days.
Personal side note: I can't believe I missed these stories back in the 90s, when the majority of them were written. They fit pretty solidly into the...paradigm (for lack of a better term) of the crowd my mother and I hung out with when I was a teenager; I'd be surprised if more than a few of our social circle at the time weren't readers. That said, reading them was an entertaining trip through the attitudes and worldview I remember at the time, and dug up some sweet memories I'd thought long forgotten.
That said, and somewhat oddly, I actually have slightly different feelings towards the whole edition than I did toward the individual books, each of which I gave four stars out of five (as I found them well-written and enjoyable but not particularly emotionally involving).
There wasn't any one great "wow" moment that sent chills down my spine, as there usually is with books that grab me enough for a five-star rating. But while this book is long and has a *lot* of stories (some of which, as is always the case with short-story collections, are better than others), it never felt like I was slogging through it. Quite the reverse, in fact - if I went a day or two without reading it, I started to miss these characters and this world that Mr. de Lint had created.
And that, I think, is ultimately the real triumph of this series, and these stories especially. de Lint writes authentically about people on the fringes of society - minorities dealing with cross-cultural issues, artists and musicians scraping out a living, homeless people with far more complex histories and inner lives than society at large would ascribe to them. But even when the stories are darker in theme (and many of them are), there are moments of humor and hope, expressions of humanity that make the characters more than two-dimensional renderings. Eventually, these moments add up to a real place populated by real people - a place some ways away, perhaps, with friends you don't see often, but that doesn't mean you don't love reading about what they're up to these days.
Personal side note: I can't believe I missed these stories back in the 90s, when the majority of them were written. They fit pretty solidly into the...paradigm (for lack of a better term) of the crowd my mother and I hung out with when I was a teenager; I'd be surprised if more than a few of our social circle at the time weren't readers. That said, reading them was an entertaining trip through the attitudes and worldview I remember at the time, and dug up some sweet memories I'd thought long forgotten.
March 24, 2017
Well where do you begin to review this book?
First thing to understand about it is the layout of the book. It is in fact an omnibus collecting thee separate books into this one. They are: The Ivory and The Horn; Dreams Underfoot; Moonlight and Vines. They aren’t novels, but they aren’t just a series of completely unrelated short stories either. Unlike most other collections of short fiction that fall into your hands, these all have at least two compelling aspects to them in common. The first is that they all (save one, and that interestingly, is the first) take place in one city. Secondly, there are many characters that appear over and over. Not always as the main people in the main drama in that particular tale, but sometimes just as supporting players, or at other times perhaps as just someone the main character in a story knows of; heard their name, or familiar with their reputation or work. The way you might live in a city and know, by reading the local arts review that a certain comedian or singer performs at a well-known club every Tuesday, but have never gone to a performance. What makes these points interesting, is that first thing the stories have in common; there taking place in the same city. This is the case because most of us when we hear that a series of fantasy stories is set in a particular community we think, quaint small town, or isolated from the outside world. Well that’s just not the case here, and makes this a much more original work. Newford is not some quaint little drowsy town, it is a big sprawling metropolitan landscape, with business districts and downtown arty enclaves, and vast slums. Homelessness and drugs and prostitution plague some neighborhoods, and poverty is a real thing here. There are wealthy successful people living their lives alongside bag ladies and hobos. Police and social workers and halfway houses exist alongside art galleries and cafes and late night dive bars and strip clubs. But here, in Newford, some of those bag ladies and homeless men and women, might also be supernatural beings, or sorcerers, some of those musicians and artists may also have one foot in other realities not our own.
This book is big. Not the biggest one I have read by a longshot, but at times you might feel it is. Not because it is hard to read, or tiring to read, or boring, or any other negative reasons a book may seem to be long, but rather because it seems to be such a massive canvas that the book is splashed onto. Canvas is a good word here also, especially because so much of the language of this book seems to come from the vocabulary of the artist. The arts both visual and written play a huge part in the storytelling here. So many characters seem to be artists of one kind or another. Painters, sculptors, graphic arts, musicians and writers. They make up a large percentage, though not all, of the characters. In reading the various stories you kind of come to an opinion as to why this is the case. You don’t come to this conclusion by any overt words from the author, but rather by osmosis. You absorb the apparent reason, which seems to be as simple as the fact that more artistic people tend to be more open to the, “unseen world,” that is always just outside of the corner of most people’s field of vision. The theory as to why most of us have no experience with “magic” is that theory of Consensual Reality which is discussed in the second story of this huge collection, The Stone Drum. The theory being that the reality we mostly see is the one the human race has subconsciously come to agree is the real true one reality. Some however, are more open to seeing outside that frame of reference than others. We see in certain recurring characters that some people once they pierce the veil of the reality we agree on, will never see the world the same again. Others will slip back, at least to a degree, into seeing the world as most of us see it.
Most of the stories have a component of fantasy within them that is obvious, but not all of them. Many tales in this book have fantasy elements that could easily be explained away, or in some cases, no obvious fantasy or fantastic element at all. An obvious example of this type of story is, In the House of My Enemy, which seems to not have any at all.
As I said, there are a cast of thousands (slight exaggeration) in a collection as big as a big city, but there are also many recurring characters. Most prominently is Jilly Coppercorn, a painter who is always ready to believe a tall tale told by both friends and strangers alike. Many other recurring characters are the wide circle of friends and acquaintances of Jilly, and consequentially the friends and acquaintances of those people as well. Figuring prominently among these are Christy Riddell and his brother Geordie. Christy is important because his name pops up as the most famous living writer making Newford his home. He is considered the preeminent authority on urban folklore and myth. Christy is mentioned though not seen, in the very first story in the collection, and as I mentioned before, that story is the only one not set in Newford. The protagonist of that first tale is a fan of his books, and seems to wonder if any or all of the stories he relates may be true.
There are many, many fantastically wonderful stories in this book, and a quick sampling of some of the strongest would include the aforementioned In the House of My Enemy, which relates a harrowing book end set of stories of child abuse and its consequences, as well as, the origin of Jilly’s name. But there are many more. Many more are flat out masterpieces and it could take another set of reviews of each one to fully do justice to them all.
This book is filled with the sense of magical unknown (the fantasy counterpart I think to science fiction’s “sense of wonder”) and it permeates your blood by the time you finish the last story. By that point, you will also be searching for the Fairie just outside your field of vision.
I do think one interesting footnote to this collection is how the final story returns to the life of Christy Riddell. This story, The Fields Beyond the Fields, interestingly relates how Christy, a man who most think is steeped in mystery, is more and more beginning to believe less and less. This despite the fact that he has seen so much and even has as his live in lover a being he knows to be a supernatural embodiment of the internet. Yet…yet he is beginning to forget these things are true, beginning to slip back behind the veil. It is interesting to see him save himself from this fate, and in a simple and quietly honest and realistic way. It is also telling to see the author who has focused so much energy telling the stories of his writer character’s artist friends, to return to that writer for one last affirmation of the magical.
First thing to understand about it is the layout of the book. It is in fact an omnibus collecting thee separate books into this one. They are: The Ivory and The Horn; Dreams Underfoot; Moonlight and Vines. They aren’t novels, but they aren’t just a series of completely unrelated short stories either. Unlike most other collections of short fiction that fall into your hands, these all have at least two compelling aspects to them in common. The first is that they all (save one, and that interestingly, is the first) take place in one city. Secondly, there are many characters that appear over and over. Not always as the main people in the main drama in that particular tale, but sometimes just as supporting players, or at other times perhaps as just someone the main character in a story knows of; heard their name, or familiar with their reputation or work. The way you might live in a city and know, by reading the local arts review that a certain comedian or singer performs at a well-known club every Tuesday, but have never gone to a performance. What makes these points interesting, is that first thing the stories have in common; there taking place in the same city. This is the case because most of us when we hear that a series of fantasy stories is set in a particular community we think, quaint small town, or isolated from the outside world. Well that’s just not the case here, and makes this a much more original work. Newford is not some quaint little drowsy town, it is a big sprawling metropolitan landscape, with business districts and downtown arty enclaves, and vast slums. Homelessness and drugs and prostitution plague some neighborhoods, and poverty is a real thing here. There are wealthy successful people living their lives alongside bag ladies and hobos. Police and social workers and halfway houses exist alongside art galleries and cafes and late night dive bars and strip clubs. But here, in Newford, some of those bag ladies and homeless men and women, might also be supernatural beings, or sorcerers, some of those musicians and artists may also have one foot in other realities not our own.
This book is big. Not the biggest one I have read by a longshot, but at times you might feel it is. Not because it is hard to read, or tiring to read, or boring, or any other negative reasons a book may seem to be long, but rather because it seems to be such a massive canvas that the book is splashed onto. Canvas is a good word here also, especially because so much of the language of this book seems to come from the vocabulary of the artist. The arts both visual and written play a huge part in the storytelling here. So many characters seem to be artists of one kind or another. Painters, sculptors, graphic arts, musicians and writers. They make up a large percentage, though not all, of the characters. In reading the various stories you kind of come to an opinion as to why this is the case. You don’t come to this conclusion by any overt words from the author, but rather by osmosis. You absorb the apparent reason, which seems to be as simple as the fact that more artistic people tend to be more open to the, “unseen world,” that is always just outside of the corner of most people’s field of vision. The theory as to why most of us have no experience with “magic” is that theory of Consensual Reality which is discussed in the second story of this huge collection, The Stone Drum. The theory being that the reality we mostly see is the one the human race has subconsciously come to agree is the real true one reality. Some however, are more open to seeing outside that frame of reference than others. We see in certain recurring characters that some people once they pierce the veil of the reality we agree on, will never see the world the same again. Others will slip back, at least to a degree, into seeing the world as most of us see it.
Most of the stories have a component of fantasy within them that is obvious, but not all of them. Many tales in this book have fantasy elements that could easily be explained away, or in some cases, no obvious fantasy or fantastic element at all. An obvious example of this type of story is, In the House of My Enemy, which seems to not have any at all.
As I said, there are a cast of thousands (slight exaggeration) in a collection as big as a big city, but there are also many recurring characters. Most prominently is Jilly Coppercorn, a painter who is always ready to believe a tall tale told by both friends and strangers alike. Many other recurring characters are the wide circle of friends and acquaintances of Jilly, and consequentially the friends and acquaintances of those people as well. Figuring prominently among these are Christy Riddell and his brother Geordie. Christy is important because his name pops up as the most famous living writer making Newford his home. He is considered the preeminent authority on urban folklore and myth. Christy is mentioned though not seen, in the very first story in the collection, and as I mentioned before, that story is the only one not set in Newford. The protagonist of that first tale is a fan of his books, and seems to wonder if any or all of the stories he relates may be true.
There are many, many fantastically wonderful stories in this book, and a quick sampling of some of the strongest would include the aforementioned In the House of My Enemy, which relates a harrowing book end set of stories of child abuse and its consequences, as well as, the origin of Jilly’s name. But there are many more. Many more are flat out masterpieces and it could take another set of reviews of each one to fully do justice to them all.
This book is filled with the sense of magical unknown (the fantasy counterpart I think to science fiction’s “sense of wonder”) and it permeates your blood by the time you finish the last story. By that point, you will also be searching for the Fairie just outside your field of vision.
I do think one interesting footnote to this collection is how the final story returns to the life of Christy Riddell. This story, The Fields Beyond the Fields, interestingly relates how Christy, a man who most think is steeped in mystery, is more and more beginning to believe less and less. This despite the fact that he has seen so much and even has as his live in lover a being he knows to be a supernatural embodiment of the internet. Yet…yet he is beginning to forget these things are true, beginning to slip back behind the veil. It is interesting to see him save himself from this fate, and in a simple and quietly honest and realistic way. It is also telling to see the author who has focused so much energy telling the stories of his writer character’s artist friends, to return to that writer for one last affirmation of the magical.
January 3, 2011
In 2000 my boss found this old beat up book in the conference room and asked if I wanted it. No idea what it was about, still I'm not one to turn down a book. I began reading it and it was short stories about an artist girl like me but in a fantastic world with dreamscapes and faeries and gnomes etc. all hidden in the tangles of what appeared to be the real world, you just had to look. So it shaped many of my art assignments in college as well as inspiring me to make art from my dreams.
September 4, 2023
I've been a de Lint fan for literally my entire adult life, and years ago, his stories were an instrumental part of building my own framework of art/possibility/reality.
However, after picking up The Onion Girl (an old favorite) a few months ago, I realized that it'd been years (decades) since I'd read some of his earlier work, and I likely missed some stories in that time (de Lint is prolific!)
So, I decided to start at the start, and picked this up because it collects a lot of de Lints' earliest work, short stories, and other "hard to pick up on their own" tales, that where themselves collected in three different works: Dreams Underfoot, The Ivory and the Horn, and Moonlight and Vines. Because of that format, it's both a tougher and easier read than if I was starting over with a singular novel.
Tougher, because every 3-40 pages is a new, connected-through-characters-and-setting, but unique story. Sometimes it takes a page or two to realize who the "main character" is (if they're speaking in 1st person) or if/how they relate to any of the other characters in already-read stories. Sometimes it felt a little jarring, to be dropping from one story into another, time after time, and some characters I definitely became more invested in than others.
But also easier, because these stories are like walking invisibly through Newford, eavesdropping on public and private moments, watching personal tales flow like underground rivers through the city. I have a feeling, as I dive into the novels that make up more of the "reality" of Newford, that I'm going to recognize streams, eddies, and pools that were portrayed in this collection, and feel like I already know a bit about the characters whose lives de Lint so deftly lets us peek in on...
A must for de Lint fans, but maybe not the best starting place for someone who hasn't already fallen for Newford and de Lint's way of sharing it.
However, after picking up The Onion Girl (an old favorite) a few months ago, I realized that it'd been years (decades) since I'd read some of his earlier work, and I likely missed some stories in that time (de Lint is prolific!)
So, I decided to start at the start, and picked this up because it collects a lot of de Lints' earliest work, short stories, and other "hard to pick up on their own" tales, that where themselves collected in three different works: Dreams Underfoot, The Ivory and the Horn, and Moonlight and Vines. Because of that format, it's both a tougher and easier read than if I was starting over with a singular novel.
Tougher, because every 3-40 pages is a new, connected-through-characters-and-setting, but unique story. Sometimes it takes a page or two to realize who the "main character" is (if they're speaking in 1st person) or if/how they relate to any of the other characters in already-read stories. Sometimes it felt a little jarring, to be dropping from one story into another, time after time, and some characters I definitely became more invested in than others.
But also easier, because these stories are like walking invisibly through Newford, eavesdropping on public and private moments, watching personal tales flow like underground rivers through the city. I have a feeling, as I dive into the novels that make up more of the "reality" of Newford, that I'm going to recognize streams, eddies, and pools that were portrayed in this collection, and feel like I already know a bit about the characters whose lives de Lint so deftly lets us peek in on...
A must for de Lint fans, but maybe not the best starting place for someone who hasn't already fallen for Newford and de Lint's way of sharing it.
March 4, 2020
I received this collection as a gift from my Grandfather on Christmas Day when I was 18 years old. I can recall sitting on the flowery upholstery of my dumpster couch in the living room of my first apartment which had different carpet in each room. The living room had green shag, by the way. My family had moved after I graduated high school, but I remained as a townie for a year or two, working a depressing fast food job, worrying over finances, and possibly regretting my decision to adult before I was the proper age.
That is exactly where I picked up these stories for the first time.
Since then, I've read them more times than I can count, and I have also lent the collection out countless times since to friends who needed "something good to read." One of those times, it was never returned. My grandfather gifted me another copy on my birthday in 2010. The jacket is frayed and crinkled and the pages are yellowed at the edges with perhaps, a coffee stain or two. It is worn and well-loved, and every time I pick it up, it provides me a great sense of comfort.
My Grandfather passed away in 2015, and it took me a bit to pick it up again, but when I did, it was like catching up with old friends. Some of the stories are more readable than others, but the pace never slows for me because all of the characters and stories have their part in creating this magical world.
My life now is very different now from those early apartment days, but this is still the book I return to when I need the reminder that it's okay to be 36 and still believe in magic, when I need comfort or a sense of wonder or when I'm missing my Grandfather.
I highly recommend it!
That is exactly where I picked up these stories for the first time.
Since then, I've read them more times than I can count, and I have also lent the collection out countless times since to friends who needed "something good to read." One of those times, it was never returned. My grandfather gifted me another copy on my birthday in 2010. The jacket is frayed and crinkled and the pages are yellowed at the edges with perhaps, a coffee stain or two. It is worn and well-loved, and every time I pick it up, it provides me a great sense of comfort.
My Grandfather passed away in 2015, and it took me a bit to pick it up again, but when I did, it was like catching up with old friends. Some of the stories are more readable than others, but the pace never slows for me because all of the characters and stories have their part in creating this magical world.
My life now is very different now from those early apartment days, but this is still the book I return to when I need the reminder that it's okay to be 36 and still believe in magic, when I need comfort or a sense of wonder or when I'm missing my Grandfather.
I highly recommend it!
July 7, 2015
Such a rich environment, containing both continuity of place and variety of happenings!
June 5, 2009
I love all the Newford Books. I'm always sad when it's over.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews