Why am I passionate about this?

When I was 5 years old, I remember asking my mother, since dreams can feel so real, how do I know I’m not dreaming right now? All my life I’ve been exploring—in myself and with others—the meaning of dreams, not only nighttime dreams but also real experience, especially in nature, that mirrors our inner process. The fairy tale novels I write are dream versions of our world. Sometimes dreams, like fiction, tell a truth even truer than reality! I have a Master's in Transpersonal Psychology. I started a dream-sharing circle in my community which has facilitated such deep growth and connection, I encourage you to start one too!


I wrote

After Ever After: The Ritual of Forgetting (Book One of the After Ever After Trilogy)

By Mindi Meltz,

Book cover of After Ever After: The Ritual of Forgetting (Book One of the After Ever After Trilogy)

What is my book about?

This book begins the After Ever After trilogy, a fairy tale of deep relationships beyond the "happily ever after" union…

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Buried Giant

Mindi Meltz Why did I love this book?

Dreams are for revealing what’s buried so that we can reclaim it and be healed. Half romantic dream, half subtle nightmare, this haunting tale chases buried love and identity, buried memories of children that may or may not be real, and the buried secrets and collective trauma of a civilization itself, which never come to any harsh-lit, practical conclusion but end with as much aching ambiguity as a dream itself. Thinking of this book years later, I still remember a journey of endless mist and yearning through mythic Britain, called forth by the unbroken thread of ancient, marital tenderness in the strange elder couple who are its heroes.

By Kazuo Ishiguro,

Why should I read it?

4 authors picked The Buried Giant as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

*Kazuo Ishiguro's new novel Klara and the Sun is now available*

The Romans have long since departed, and Britain is steadily declining into ruin.

The Buried Giant begins as a couple, Axl and Beatrice, set off across a troubled land of mist and rain in the hope of finding a son they have not seen for years. They expect to face many hazards - some strange and other-worldly - but they cannot yet foresee how their journey will reveal to them dark and forgotten corners of their love for one another.

'A beautiful fable with a hard message at its…


Book cover of The Fox Woman

Mindi Meltz Why did I love this book?

I wish we had more dream novels out there about animal brides and bridegrooms! Instinctual and unbound by law, with access to wild places we could never reach, animals are such a perfect way to express the id-consciousness, the dream versions of ourselves. Based on a Japanese folktale, here’s a sweet, whimsical story of a fox who turns herself human to love a human man. Which form is real, and which is the dream, and how will she free herself to live both realities as a fully formed woman of her own?

By Kij Johnson,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Fox Woman as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Based on the award - winning short story Fox Magic, Kij Johnson's THE FOX WOMAN is a haunting novel of love and magic, of Kitsune, the young fox kit who catches a glimpse of a Japanese nobleman and resolves to snare his heart. Kitsune embarks on a journey that will change her, her family, and all the humans she encounters...and the magic she conjures will transform all of their lives forever. Set against the backdrop of medieval Japanese society, THE FOX WOMAN is both a retelling of the classic Japanese animal fable and a stunning exploration of what it means…


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Book cover of A Sparrow Falls

A Sparrow Falls By Vicki Olsen,

In this book set against the backdrop of a changing America, Sarah must find the courage to confront the ghosts of her past and come to terms with her future. Sarah, a young woman from the rural town of Tolerance, Arkansas, has endured an impoverished and painful childhood.

But now,…

Book cover of Little, Big

Mindi Meltz Why did I love this book?

Genius and multi-layered, impossible to pin down, this warm yet haunting, witty yet aching, honest yet fantastical novel begins with a surreal and strangely relatable marriage in an Escher-like house that moves and lives and then extends in every direction back and forth across the veil between worlds. You will actually step foot into Fairy-land, and be drawn into that fabled dance that is neither exactly maleficent nor in any way kind, but always seductive, always precariously beautiful. Somehow Crowley’s breathtakingly unique, lyrical, and yet unpretentious story-telling wraps romance, fairy tale, mytho-philosophical questioning about space and time, and allegorical critique of modernization all into one very deep and unpredictable story—but without ever losing touch with characters whose simple human longings are just heartbreaking and real.

By John Crowley,

Why should I read it?

3 authors picked Little, Big as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Edgewood is many houses, all put inside each other, or across each other. It's filled with and surrounded by mystery and enchantment: the further in you go, the bigger it gets.

Smoky Barnable, who has fallen in love with Daily Alice Drinkwater, comes to Edgewood, her family home, where he finds himself drawn into a world of magical strangeness.

Crowley's work has a special alchemy - mixing the world we know with an imagined world which seems more true and real. Winner of the WORLD FANTASY AWARD, LITTLE, BIG is eloquent, sensual, funny and unforgettable, a true Fantasy Masterwork.

Winner…


Book cover of Piranesi

Mindi Meltz Why did I love this book?

In both Clarke’s exhilarating novels, you actually feel that you’ve crossed over a line into the amoral wilderness of another world, both beautiful and ominously eerie, and might not come back again. Piranesi’s story begins inside what feels like someone’s dream, a literally endless house filled with an ocean that he refers to as the World. There is only one other person in it besides himself—or is there? Why doesn’t he believe trees exist, yet somehow he knows what they are? As you begin to discover, with goosebumps, what’s really going on, you realize it’s not only his dream but everybody’s dream, filled with all the beauty the real world has lost. And you have to ask yourself, might it be better never to wake up?

By Susanna Clarke,

Why should I read it?

19 authors picked Piranesi as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Winner of the 2021 Women's Prize for Fiction
A SUNDAY TIMES & NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

The spectacular new novel from the bestselling author of JONATHAN STRANGE & MR NORRELL, 'one of our greatest living authors' NEW YORK MAGAZINE
__________________________________
Piranesi lives in the House. Perhaps he always has.

In his notebooks, day after day, he makes a clear and careful record of its wonders: the labyrinth of halls, the thousands upon thousands of statues, the tides that thunder up staircases, the clouds that move in slow procession through the upper halls. On Tuesdays and Fridays Piranesi sees his friend,…


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Book cover of Subjugation: Zanchier

Subjugation By S.G. Boudreaux,

Harper Brinley is running for her life.

After escaping from a government holding facility where she, along with other scientists, was being forced to build a deadly weapon. She headed for the most remote place she could think of, the wild Xantifal Mountains.

The one place where no one would…

Book cover of Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype

Mindi Meltz Why did I love this book?

This nonfiction classic reminds us that every fairy tale is a collective dream, and by exploring, retelling, and sharing its wisdom, we develop our calling as individuals and societies. Other great Jungian authors have done similar interpretations of fairy tales like dreams of how to live. But I love this one for its deep dive into feminine archetypes—because the wisdom of the feminine is what leads us to that watery, creative, inner world where dreams are made, a world sorely neglected in our achievement-focused world. Written with the haunting cadence of a fairy tale itself, this book is so much more than analysis—it is a wolf’s howl directly to the soul.

By Clarissa Pinkola Estés,

Why should I read it?

11 authors picked Women Who Run with the Wolves as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

First published three years before the print edition of Women Who Run With the Wolves made publishing history, this original audio edition quickly became an underground bestseller. For its insights into the inner life of women, it established Dr. Clarissa Pinkola Estes as one of the most important voices of our time in the fields of Jungian psychology, myth, and women's mysteries.

Drawing from her work as a psychoanalyst and cantadora ("keeper of the old stories"), Dr. Estes uses myths and folktales to illustrate how societies systematically strip away the feminine spirit. Through an exploration into the nature of the…


Explore my book 😀

After Ever After: The Ritual of Forgetting (Book One of the After Ever After Trilogy)

By Mindi Meltz,

Book cover of After Ever After: The Ritual of Forgetting (Book One of the After Ever After Trilogy)

What is my book about?

This book begins the After Ever After trilogy, a fairy tale of deep relationships beyond the "happily ever after" union where most love stories end. Cinderella overcomes childhood self-denial to stand equal beside her king; Belle yearns secretly for the passionate Beast her prince used to be; Snow White, raised in the wilderness by demigods of old, seeks her own human self in that trickster mirror; and Sleeping Beauty wakes to find her primeval land destroyed—but her forgotten, hundred-year dream holds the key to renewal.

In this first book, the Wicked Witch lures them all closer, across mountains and kingdoms, through shadowy rituals, dreams, and letters of longing, to discover the forbidden feminine magic that will transform them into queens and reconnect a broken world.

Book cover of The Buried Giant
Book cover of The Fox Woman
Book cover of Little, Big

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