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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	American Folklore and Legend by Robert Dolezal from Reader's Digest for 3rd-6th grade in Short Story Anthologies for Kids (Location: FIC-ANTH) $4.00 (1 in stock)
	Andersen's Fairy Tales by Hans Christian Andersen, translated by Valdemar Paulsen from Barnes & Noble for 3rd-8th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	Andersen's Fairy Tales Illustrated Junior Library Series 2 Paperback by Hans Christian Anderson, illustrated by Arthur Szyk from Grosset & Dunlap Fairy Tales for 3rd-6th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	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)
	Children of Noisy Village by Astrid Lindgren from Puffin Books for 4th-6th grade in Realistic Fiction (Location: FIC-REA) $7.99 $4.00 (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)
	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)
	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 & Other Short Stories Dover Thrift Editions by O. Henry from Dover Publications for 4th-10th grade in 20th & 21st Century Literature (Location: LIT7-20) $5.00 $2.00 (4 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)
	Homeless Bird by Gloria Whelan from HarperCollins for 4th-7th grade in Historical Fiction (Location: FIC-HIF) $9.99 $4.50 (1 in stock)
	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)
	Jungle Doctor on the Hop Jungle Doctor #2 by Paul White Reprint from Christian Focus Publications for 3rd-6th grade in Jungle Doctor (Location: SER-JD) $4.50 (1 in stock)
	Jungle Doctor Spots a Leopard Jungle Doctor #3 by Paul White from Christian Focus Publications for 3rd-6th grade in Jungle Doctor (Location: SER-JD) $4.50 (1 in stock)
	Jungle Doctor's Crooked Dealings Jungle Doctor #4 by Paul White from Christian Focus Publications in Jungle Doctor (Location: SER-JD) $4.50 (1 in stock)
	Jungle Doctor's Enemies Jungle Doctor #5 by Paul White from Christian Focus Publications for 3rd-6th grade in Jungle Doctor (Location: SER-JD) $4.50 (1 in stock)
	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)
	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 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)
	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)
	Much Ado About Nothing for Kids Shakespeare Can Be Fun by Lois Burdett from Firefly Books for 2nd-5th grade in Shakespeare Materials (Location: LIR-SHA) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	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)
	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)
	Rip Van Winkle and Other Stories by Washington Irving, illustrated by Susanne Suba from Grosset & Dunlap for 4th-6th grade in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $5.00 (1 in stock)
	Robinson Crusoe (abridged) by Daniel Defoe, illustrated by Frank Godwin from John C. Winston for 5th-8th grade in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $16.00 (1 in stock)
	Sister Alyonushka and Brother Ivanushka & The White Duck by Irina Zheleznova (translator) from Goznak for 3rd-6th grade in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	Story of Siegfried by James Baldwin, illustrated by Peter Hurd from Charles Scribner's Sons for 5th-8th grade in Vintage Fiction & Literature (Location: VIN-FIC) $35.00 (1 in stock)
	Tales from the Mabinogion from Overlook Press for 4th-Adult in Myths, Fairy Tales & Folklore for Children (Location: FIC-MYT) $8.00 (1 in stock)
	Twelfth Night for Kids Shakespeare Can Be Fun by Christine Coburn, Lois Burdett from Firefly Books for 5th-8th grade in Classics Retold (Location: FIC-RET) $6.00 (1 in stock)
	Usborne Complete Jane Austen All the Novels Retold by Jane Austen (originals), adapted by Anna Milbourne, Mary Sebag-Montefiore, and Rachel Firth, illustrated by Simona Bursi from Usborne for 3rd-6th grade in Adapted or Abridged (Location: SER-ABR) $12.00 (1 in stock)

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