{"title":"Classic Fantasy","description":"\u003cp\u003eThese are the books the rest of fantasy is arguing with. Some are a century old, some older, and all of them established something the genre has been building on or pushing against ever since.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe Grimm brothers were philologists, not children's authors. They collected these tales to preserve a vanishing oral tradition, and the versions they wrote down still have their teeth. Lewis Carroll was a logician, which is why the nonsense in the Alice books is precise nonsense. L. Frank Baum set out to write an American fairy tale deliberately stripped of European menace, and produced something stranger than the film suggests.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWilliam Goldman's \u003cem\u003eThe Princess Bride\u003c\/em\u003e pretends to be an abridgement of a book that never existed, and runs the joke the entire length. Peter S. Beagle's \u003cem\u003eThe Last Unicorn\u003c\/em\u003e is a fairy tale that knows it's a fairy tale and grieves about it.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhere a title comes in multiple editions, we've noted which is which: scholarly apparatus, illustrated gift edition, or the cheap pocket copy meant to be read and reread.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eNo inflated list prices, no fake sales, and no membership required. US shipping is a flat $7 per order.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"the-last-unicorn-paperback","title":"The Last Unicorn - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eShe may be the last unicorn in the world, and she leaves her forest to find out.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eShelf note: A fairy tale for grown-ups who still want one. Funnier than you expect, and sadder.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe unicorn has lived alone in her lilac wood for longer than she can remember, and she has never once wondered whether others of her kind still exist. Then two hunters pass through and say, out loud, that she is the last. So she goes looking.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eWhat she finds on the road is a failing carnival with one real creature in it, a magician who isn't very good at magic but wants desperately to be, a woman who has given up on wonder, a castle where nothing grows, and a red bull that drives everything before it into the sea.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBeagle wrote a fairy tale that knows it is a fairy tale and grieves about it anyway. It's funny on nearly every page and devastating on about a dozen of them. The unicorn's transformation, and what it costs her, is the kind of thing readers carry around for decades. This edition includes a new introduction by Patrick Rothfuss.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eDetails\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e Peter S. Beagle\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIntroduction:\u003c\/strong\u003e Patrick Rothfuss\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Paperback\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780451450524\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Ace","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67967234146503,"sku":"9780451450524","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/0741\/9335\/files\/9780451450524.jpg?v=1792520341"},{"product_id":"the-princess-bride-an-illustrated-edition-of-s-morgensterns-classic-tale-of-true-love-and-high-adventure-hardcover","title":"The Princess Bride: An Illustrated Edition of S. Morgenstern's Classic Tale of True Love and High Adventure - Hardcover","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eFencing. Fighting. Torture. Revenge. Giants. Monsters. Chases. Escapes. True love. Miracles.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eShelf note: If you love the movie, you'll love this more. The book is funnier.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eGoldman's framing conceit is that he's merely abridging a much duller Florinese classic by one S. Morgenstern, cutting out the tedious parts to leave only \"the good stuff.\" There is no Morgenstern. There never was. The joke runs the entire length of the book and never stops being funny.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eUnderneath it is the actual story: Buttercup, the most beautiful woman in the world, and Westley, the farm boy who loves her. A kidnapping, a Sicilian genius, a Spanish swordsman with a twenty-year vendetta, a giant with an unexpected gentleness, the Cliffs of Insanity, the Fire Swamp, and a prince who wants a war more than he wants a bride.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eMost people come to this from the film and are startled by how much more there is. The book is stranger, sharper, and more melancholy than the movie, without ever losing its sense of play. This illustrated hardcover edition gives it the presentation it deserves.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eDetails\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e William Goldman\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eIllustrator:\u003c\/strong\u003e Michael Manomivibul\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eFormat:\u003c\/strong\u003e Illustrated hardcover gift edition\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eISBN:\u003c\/strong\u003e 9780544173767\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e","brand":"Houghton Mifflin Harcourt","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":67967234506951,"sku":"9780544173767","price":27.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0811\/0741\/9335\/files\/9780544173767-L.jpg?v=1792520539"},{"product_id":"out-of-the-silent-planet-paperback","title":"Out of the Silent Planet - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA philologist is kidnapped, put on a spacecraft, and delivered to Mars as a human sacrifice. The Martians are confused by this.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eShelf note: Gentle, strange, and a lovely way into Lewis beyond Narnia.\u003c\/em\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eElwin Ransom is walking in the English countryside when he's abducted by two men who intend to hand him over to whatever lives on Malacandra. Escaping into the landscape, he discovers a world with three intelligent species living in easy cooperation, none of whom want him dead, and none of whom can quite understand why humans behave the way they do.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eLewis wrote this as a direct argument against the assumption that colonizing other worlds is humanity's destiny, and against the men of his own era who wrote about space as territory. The Malacandrians have no war, no property disputes, and no concept of a species that would need them.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFirst in the Space Trilogy, written by the author of \u003cem\u003eThe Chronicles of Narnia\u003c\/em\u003e and shaped by his friendship with Tolkien. The two agreed that one would write about space travel and the other about time travel.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003ch3\u003eDetails\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/strong\u003e C. S. 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