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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	Bag of Moonshine by Alan Garner, illustrated by P. J. Lynch from Delacorte Press for 3rd-6th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Celtic Fairy Tales by Neil Philip, illustrated by Isabelle Brent from Viking Press for 3rd-8th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $12.00 (1 in stock)
	Children of Odin The Book of Northern Myths by Padraic Colum, illustrated by Willy Pogany from Macmillan Norse Mythology for 3rd-8th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $40.00 (1 in stock)
	D'Aulaires' Book of Norse Myths by Edgar & Ingri D'Aulaire from New York Review of Books Norse Mythology for 3rd-8th grade in Oversized Picture Books (Location: PIC-OVER) $29.95
	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
	Elvis and His Secret by Maria Gripe First American Printing from Delacorte Press for 3rd-6th grade in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA) $10.00 (1 in stock)
	Fairy Tales and Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, Edited by Signe Toksvig, Illustrated by George and Doris Hauman from Macmillan for 3rd-6th grade in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $25.00 (1 in stock)
	Fairy Tales of Hans Christen Andersen by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Reginald Spink and illustrated by W. Heath Robinson from Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. for 4th-6th grade in Everyman's Library Children's Classics (Location: FIC-ELC) $18.00
	Favourite Tales from Grimm and Andersen by Brothers Grimm and Hans Christian Andersen, illustrated by Jirí Trnka 1983 Printing from Paul Hamlyn for 4th-8th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $18.00 (1 in stock)
	Gift of the Magi by O. Henry, illustrated by Kevin King from Simon and Schuster for 4th-10th grade in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Gift of the Magi and Other Stories by O. Henry, illustrated by P. J. Lynch from Candlewick Press for 4th-10th grade in Christmas & Advent (Location: HOLIDAY) $17.99
	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) $19.99
	Hobbit and Lord of the Rings - Deluxe Hardcover Collection by J. R. R. Tolkien, illustrated by Alan Lee 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 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
	It's Perfectly True and Other Stories by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Paul Leyssac and illustrated by Richard Bennett from Harcourt, Brace & World for 5th-10th grade in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	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, 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 (1 in stock)
	Mythmakers The Remarkable Fellowship of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien by John Hendrix from Harry N. Abrams, Inc. for 3rd-Adult in The Inklings (Location: LIR-INK) $24.99
	Nightingale by Hans Christian Andersen; retold by Stephen Mitchell and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline from Candlewick Press for 2nd-6th grade in Picture Books (Location: PICTURE) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Odin's Family Myths of the Vikings by Neil Philip, illustrated by Maryclare Foa from Orchard Books for 3rd-6th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $9.00 (1 in stock)
	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
	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)
	Random House Book of Fairy Tales by Various Authors from Random House Fairy Tales, Fables, and Legends for 3rd-6th grade in Picture Book Treasuries (Location: PIC-TRE) $22.99
	Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, illustrated by Tasha Tudor from HarperCollins Realistic Fiction for 4th-9th grade in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA) $15.99
	Story of Siegfried by James Baldwin, illustrated by Peter Hurd from Yesterday's Classics for 5th-8th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $16.95
	Tom Sawyer, Detective by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) from SeaWolf Press for 4th-6th grade in Seawolf Illustrated Classics (Location: FIC-SW) $8.95
	Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Frances Brundage from Saalfield Publishing Co. for 4th-8th grade in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	Treasury of Hans Christian Andersen by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Erik Christian Haugaard 1^st edition from Barnes & Noble for 2nd-6th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $9.00 (1 in stock)

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