Into the Forest discussion

Dragons has won as the theme for the May 15-July 14 Group Read!

Everyone can nominate 3 books:
1 adult novel or collection of short stories
1 young adult novel or collection of short stories
1 traditional/original tale or collection of shorter tales or a book about traditional Fairy/folk tale and or mythology

All books should either be retellings, contain myths, fairy/folk tales or be inspired by myths or fairy/folk tales.

The book nominations can be fantasy or realistic or a combination of both but no Paranormal Romance pleases!

If you nominate a book that is part of a series please only nominate the first book of the series unless each book in the series can truly be considered standalone

This thread will stay open one week then on May 3 the polls will go up.
You will then have one week to vote for the books.
The winners will be announced May 10.

So nominate away!

Adult Book: "The Ruin of Kings" by Jenn Lyons or "The Priory of the Orange Tree" by Samantha Shannon

YA Book: "The Hobbit" by J.R.R. Tolkien

"Traditional" Tale: "The Dragon with Seven Heads" in Italo Calvino's "Italian Folktales"

Adult: The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro

YA: Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

I'll have to have a think about traditional. Maybe Beowulf? Have you read that already?

Adult: Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey

YA: The Shamer's Daughter by Lene Kaaberbøl

Collection: Dragons: A Natural History by Karl Shuker

Adult: Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs

YA (All ages really): My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett

Traditional (Classic): Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien

Adult: A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
YA: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman

Lois, I'll take The Priory of the Orange Tree off your hands and nominate it for adult. That way, you'll only have one nomination, and I want to read priory anyway. :)

YA: The Dragon Egg Princess by Ellen Oh

Traditional: The Dragon Princess, A Chinese Fairy Tale (I found this online, and it's also in The Chinese Fairy Book.

My nominations:

Adult: Harrowing the Dragon by Patricia A. McKillip
YA: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (I see this one is on our shelf, but I can't figure out when we read it) -- If it is ineligible I will nominate The Last Dragonslayer by Jasper Fforde
Traditional: Saint George and the Dragon by Edmund Spenser

Katy wrote: "My nominations:

Adult: Harrowing the Dragon by Patricia A. McKillip
YA: The Neverending Story by Michael Ende (I see this one is on our shelf, ..."

I'm not seeing any group reads for The Neverending Story, so it's fine!

This is what we have so far:

Adult:
The Ruin of Kings by Jenn Lyons
The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
Dragon Bones by Patricia Briggs
The Priory of the Orange Tree by Samantha Shannon
Harrowing the Dragon by Patricia A. McKillip
His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik

YA:
The Hobbit, or There and Back Again by J.R.R. Tolkien
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
The Shamer's Daughter by Lene Kaaberbøl
My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Seraphina by Rachel Hartman
The Dragon Egg Princess by Ellen Oh
The Neverending Story by Michael Ende

Traditional:
"The Dragon with Seven Heads" in Italo Calvino's Italian Folktales
Beowulf
Dragons: A Natural History by Karl Shuker
Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien
"The Dragon Princess" found free online and in The Chinese Fairy Book
Saint George and the Dragon by Edmund Spenser
Dragon: Fear and Power by Martin Arnold

Last call to add to this list!

I see that a Tolkien book is listed in both YA and Traditional. It doesn't bother me to consider him both and keep the list as is. Does anyone object?

Emily, I didn't see any group discussions of Beowulf, so I used that as your traditional nomination.

Also, this is a really excellent list. I feel like we could have a whole semester-long course with these books.

I love this list. I’m torn between so many great reads that voting will take some serious consideration. Tolkien in two doesn’t bother me =)

I'd like to add one title to the Traditional list. It's an essay: Dragon: Fear and Power by Martin Arnold

Maggi wrote: "I love this list. I’m torn between so many great reads that voting will take some serious consideration. Tolkien in two doesn’t bother me =)"

Agree!

Marta wrote: "I'd like to add one title to the Traditional list. It's an essay: Dragon: Fear and Power by Martin Arnold"

Added!

Thank you!

I could have sworn that this group read A Natural History of Dragons once already. Did we not?

Kelsey wrote: "I could have sworn that this group read A Natural History of Dragons once already. Did we not?"

Good catch! We did, back in 2016.

Julia, I removed A Natural History of Dragons from the list, so feel free to nominate another adult book. Also, our discussions always remain open, so feel free to read it and join our older discussion! https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

It's a fun book. I meant to read the others in the series but haven't yet. Maybe I'll check them out on audio.

Margaret wrote: "Kelsey wrote: "I could have sworn that this group read A Natural History of Dragons once already. Did we not?"

Good catch! We did, back in 2016.

Julia, I removed A Natural History of Dragons from..."

Have you read His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik? If not, I would like to nominate it. I think I will read A Natural History of Dragons nonetheless, it caught my attention recently and it looks interesting ;)

Julia wrote: "Have you read His Majesty's Dragon by Naomi Novik? If not, I would like to nominate it. I think I will read A Natural History of Dragons nonetheless, it caught my attention recently and it looks interesting ;)"

We have not! I've added it to the list. I want to read that one too.

Polls are live! Voting ends May 11th. https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/3...

Maggi wrote: "I love this list. I’m torn between so many great reads that voting will take some serious consideration..."

So true!

Wow! Choosing will be difficult. I’m sure I’ll be reading whatever wins and more.

Oh, I'm going to have to go with Dragonflight. I was obsessed with that book when I was a pre-teen. My sisters and I made hundreds of paper dragons and riders and kept them in "caves" in my dad's office and had hatchings and all kinds of things. Ob-sessed.

Last call for votes! We currently have a tie for YA: https://www.goodreads.com/poll/list/3...

The winners for our Dragon Group Read are:
Dragonflight by Anne McCaffrey
Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede
Farmer Giles of Ham by J.R.R. Tolkien

All classics! The discussion threads are here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/group...

The Group Read goes from May 16-July 15, but discussion threads always stay open.

Great!

Farmer Giles of Ham can be dowloaded as an ebook here:
https://archive.org/details/tales-fro...

(You need to make an account, but it's free)

And the same library has a few copies of Dragonflight:
https://archive.org/search.php?query=...

Emily wrote: "Great!

Farmer Giles of Ham can be dowloaded as an ebook here:
https://archive.org/details/tales-fro...

(You need to make an account, but it's fr..."

Thanks!