Literature by Place - Exodus Books

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It's kind of crazy to what extent geography can inform an author's work. Jack London spent most of his life at sea, dog-sledding across Alaska, boxing and generally being an adventurous guy who would put today's REI crowd to shame. Would he have penned some of the greatest American novels otherwise? especially ones concerned primarily with man battling the elements for survival in both a mental and physical sense? Very probably not, which explains why Oscar Wilde didn't write about wolves and crazy ship captains.

No, Oscar Wilde wrote primarily about fops and society people parrying witticisms incessantly. That's not to say his work has no place in a serious consideration of literature—au contraire, The Picture of Dorian Grey is one of the finest novels written in English. It's just more evidence that if you're an author who lives in the Canadian mountains or the clubs of London, your writing will reflect that.

Physical terrain isn't the only consideration. Sartre wrote about people lolling about with no real sense of purpose except to drink wine and smoke cigarettes and look languorous because he lived in France in the 1940s. Friedrich Nietzsche had immense mustaches and espoused a form of nihilism because he was German. The Russians wrote impossibly long novels because they lived in Russia. And Chinua Achebe was almost entirely influenced by his African upbringing.

That's not to say no one can write well about a context they haven't experienced firsthand. I'm pretty sure Robert Heinlein never visited Mars, and even if he did it wasn't as his books describe; the same goes for Bradbury. And no, Roald Dahl was never lost in a delightfully (though at times, terrifyingly) absurd chocolate factory. Yet even with these examples, the authors conveyed essentially the attitudes of the countries they came from—Heinlein and Bradbury from the U.S., Dahl from the U.K.

Our Literature by Place subcategories are admittedly Anglo-centric. North American literature features, well, American literature, and you can be pretty sure British literature reflects the same system; everything else goes in world literature. We have plenty of non-American or -British literature, we just don't have much from any one place besides those two. At any rate, we hope these categories are helpful, and if they guide you toward one book you're looking for (or maybe one you didn't even know existed), they've done their job.

Review by C. Hollis Crossman
C. Hollis Crossman used to be a child. Now he's a husband and father who loves church, good food, and weird stuff. He might be a mythical creature, but he's definitely not a centaur. Read more of his reviews here.

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	Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass Penguin Classics by Lewis Carroll from Penguin Classics Fantasy for 5th-8th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $11.00
	Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens from Bantam Books for 6th-10th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $3.95
	Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, illustrated by P.J. Lynch Unabridged from Candlewick Press Fantasy for 6th-10th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $19.99
	Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Robert Ingpen Unabridged from Palazzo Editions Limited Fantasy for 6th-10th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $24.99
	Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, illustrated by Roberto Innocenti Unabridged from Creative Editions Fantasy for 6th-10th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $35.00
	Chronicles of Narnia - Quality Softcover Boxed Set by C. S. Lewis from HarperCollins Allegorical Fantasy for 3rd-9th grade in Boxed Sets & Literature Packages (Location: FIC-BOX) $90.93
	Comet in Moominland Moomintrolls Book #1 by Tove Jansson from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.99
	D'Aulaires' Book of Trolls by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire from New York Review of Books for 3rd-6th grade in Oversized Picture Books (Location: PIC-OVER) $22.95
	Finn Family Moomintroll Moomintrolls Book #2 by Tove Jansson from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $9.99
	Hobbit There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien 2^nd edition from Ballantine Books Fantasy for 5th-9th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.99
	Hobbit There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin Fantasy for 5th-9th grade in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $35.00
	Hobbit There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin Fantasy for 5th-9th grade in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $19.99
	Hobbit There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin Fantasy for 5th-9th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $15.99
	Hobbit There and Back Again by J. R. R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin Fantasy for 5th-9th grade in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $18.99
	Hobbit & Lord of the Rings - Mass-Market Boxed Set by J. R. R. Tolkien Mti from Ballantine Books Fantasy for 4th-12th grade in Boxed Sets & Literature Packages (Location: FIC-BOX) $35.96
	Hobbit & Lord of the Rings - Softbound Boxed Set by J. R. R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin Fantasy for 4th-12th grade in Boxed Sets & Literature Packages (Location: FIC-BOX) $72.00
	Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - Deluxe Hardcover Collection by J. R. R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin Fantasy for 5th-12th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
	Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - Deluxe Hardcover Collection by J. R. R. Tolkien from HarperCollins Fantasy for 5th-12th grade in Boxed Sets & Literature Packages (Location: FIC-BOX) $136.00
	Hobbit, The by J.R.R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin for 5th-Adult in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $40.00
	Hobbit, The by J.R.R. Tolkien, author and illustrator from William Morrow & Company for 5th-Adult in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $75.00
	Just So Stories by Rudyard Kipling from Crescent Books for 1st-6th grade in 19th Century Literature (Location: LIT6-19) $7.00 (1 in stock)
	Letters to Children by C. S. Lewis from Charles Scribner's Sons Autobiographical Letters for 3rd-9th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $16.99
	Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery from Harvest House Fantasy for 3rd-Adult in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $11.99
	Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery 1^st edition from Harcourt for 3rd-Adult in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery from Harvest House Fantasy for 3rd-Adult in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $6.00 (2 in stock)
	Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery, translated by Richard Howard from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. Fantasy for 3rd-Adult in Everyman's Library Children's Classics (Location: FIC-ELC) $18.00
	Little Prince by Antoine De Saint-Exupery from Harcourt Fantasy for 3rd-Adult in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $7.50 (2 in stock)
	Little Prince - Russian language edition by Antoine De Saint-Exupery from Eksmodetstvo Fantasy for 3rd-Adult in Russian (Location: FL-GEN) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	Lord of the Rings Deluxe Hardcover Boxed Set by J. R. R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin Fantasy for 5th-12th grade in Boxed Sets & Literature Packages (Location: FIC-BOX) $125.00
	Lord of the Rings Deluxe Hardcover Boxed Set by J. R. R. Tolkien from Houghton Mifflin Fantasy for 5th-12th grade in Boxed Sets & Literature Packages (Location: FIC-BOX) $243.75
	Mio My Son by Astrid Lindgren, translated by Marianne Turner and illustrated by Ilon Wikland from Puffin Books for 4th-8th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Monster Calls Inspired by an idea from Siobhan Dowd by Patrick Ness, illustrated by Jim Kay Reprint from Candlewick Press for 5th-Adult 2012 Carnegie Medal in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $12.00
	Moominland Midwinter Moomintrolls Book #5 by Tove Jansson from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.99
	Moominpappa at Sea Moomintrolls Book #7 by Tove Jansson from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.99
	Moominpappa's Memoirs Moomintrolls Book #3 by Tove Jansson from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $5.56
	Moominpappa's Memoirs Moomintrolls Book #3 by Tove Jansson from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $9.99
	Moominsummer Madness Moomintrolls Book #4 by Tove Jansson from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $7.99
	Moominvalley in November Moomintrolls Book #8 by Tove Jansson from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $7.99
	Myths of the Norsemen Puffin Classics by Roger Lancelyn Green Reprint from Puffin Books for 5th-9th grade in Puffin Classics (Location: FIC-PUF) $8.99
	Ola by Edgar Parin d'Aulaire, Ingri d'Aulaire Reprint from University of Minnesota for 3rd-6th grade in Oversized Picture Books (Location: PIC-OVER) $16.95
	Paddington Here and Now Paddington Bear #12 by Michael Bond from HarperCollins for 3rd-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $9.99
	Pilgrim's Progress - Updated Edition by John Bunyan, edited by Donna Sundblad and Ruth Zetek from Aneko Press for 6th-Adult in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Pippi Goes on Board Pippi Longstocking #2 by Astrid Lindgren from Viking Press Humor for 2nd-6th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $10.00 (1 in stock)
	Pippi Goes on Board Pippi Longstocking #2 by Astrid Lindgren from Puffin Books Humor for 2nd-6th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.99
	Pippi in the South Seas Pippi Longstocking #3 by Astrid Lindgren from Puffin Books Humor for 2nd-6th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.99
	Pippi Longstocking Pippi Longstocking #1 by Astrid Lindgren from Puffin Books Humor for 2nd-6th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $6.00
	Pippi Longstocking Pippi Longstocking #1 by Astrid Lindgren from Puffin Books Humor for 2nd-6th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.99
	Pippi Longstocking Trilogy by Astrid Lindgren from Puffin Books Humor for 2nd-6th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)
	Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories Puffin Classics by Washington Irving from Puffin Books Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 5th-9th grade in Puffin Classics (Location: FIC-PUF) $7.99
	Tales from Moominvalley Moomintrolls Book #6 by Tove Jansson Reprint from Farrar, Straus and Giroux for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN) $8.99
	The Moomins Set by Tove Jansson from Square Fish Publishing for 1st-7th grade in Fantasy Fiction (Location: FIC-FAN)

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