Lizzie the Librarian Reads Literature

Fairytales have been in my life since before I can remember. My Dad and my brothers would read them to me out loud and I loved Disney princess movies. When I was little I loved them because of the romance, the pretty ladies, and the magic. Today, I can appreciated how important they are as a literary genre. Fairytales, like myths, are the basis of the literature and stories we have today; they reflect human nature and explain deep truths about our world.  And so, I'll be doing some posts about my favorite fairytales. I'll be taking a deep dive into the history of these tales and various versions, as well as some amazing retellings that are worth the read/watch. Starting with probably the most famous fairytale of all time: Cinderella . The History The oldest known version of Cinderella is thought to be from Ancient Greece. It is contributed to the Greek historian Strabo and is about Rhodopis, an Egyptian courtesan, whose sandal is stolen by an eagle while she is bathing. The eag...

The dreaded question for a reader is this: what's your favorite book? It's almost impossible to answer, I have a list of over 200. And yet, for the past couple years I've known my answer: War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy. Now I realize this is a really pretentious answer, and I have had people roll their eyes when I say it, but it did something to my brain when I first read it in 2019 and I've been obsessed with it ever since.  Recently, I've been worried that maybe it isn't actually my favorite book and I've just been saying so for the shock and awe, because I was having trouble pinpointing just why I love it so much. And so, I committed to doing a re-read. Which is no small feet by the way, because it's 1,200 pages long and the print is very small and the cast of characters is huge. But I'm happy to say that I have accomplished my goal and my second reading cemented it as my favorite book. And I'll tell you why. When I first read War and Peace a lo...