As a writer and performer, I’ve always loved live storytelling! Stories really come alive when performed and there’s an unexplained magic that bonds an audience with the storyteller and connects us to our collective past. Having performed countless times in plays, murder mysteries, and storytelling, the joy and excitement felt crackling in the air is like nothing else. I’ve plenty of fond memories of storytelling over the years, from terrifying ghost stories around the campfire of Camp Wing in America to the fantastical folktales of my stage play The Storyteller’s Apprentice at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. So, next time you’re sitting at a campfire, give it a go!
I wrote
The Legends of Grimous Ironblood: Curious Bottle Book 1
I fell in love with these folktales after watching the television series of the same title when I was a child. I was ecstatic to be hypnotised all over again by the magic, charm, and wisdom contained within each gem. I found each story conjured up a sense of wonder, mystery, and the need to know what happened next within me.
I loved how the characters were beautifully portrayed. Each faced their own intriguing quest and struggled to overcome outlandish obstacles, and I was fascinated by how they would eventually achieve their goal no matter what the cost to themselves whilst learning a valuable lesson along the way.
The behind-the-scenes look at the show’s production from the Jim Henson Archives at the back of the book is a nice touch too.
The official novelization of Jim Henson's Emmy Award-winning television series along with a behind-the-scenes look at the show's production from the Jim Henson Archives.
Timeless tales, beautifully told. Presented in a stunning new edition, Jim Henson's The Storyteller features nine folktales based on Henson's Emmy Award-winning television series, written by Academy Award winner Anthony Minghella. This edition features stunning new illustrations by Hannah Christenson and Eva Eskelinen and photographs from the Jim Henson Archives that provide a rare look behind-the-scenes of JIM HENSON'S CREATURE SHOP during the filming of the beloved series.
When I found my second-hand copy for £5 in Acorn Antiques in 2006 (I still have the receipt!), little did I know I was holding the most magical, exquisite, resourceful, fascinating, beguiling, and immersive book on fantasy!
Each page is filled to the edges with intriguing folktales, legends, myths, and old wives tales (more than I could have wished for) and beautifully illustrated throughout. What more could I, an avid reader and writer of fantasy, want?
I still take joy in flicking through the pages until my eyes rest on another intriguing entry to be inspired by. I love losing track of time just reading about all aspects of fantasy, whether it’s the Broth of Oblivion, Floating Islands, the Hammer of Thor, The Bottle Imp, or Fomorians.
This Victorian classic sent shivers down my back when the ghost of Jacob Marley rattles his spectral chains to send a dire warning to Ebenezer Scrooge about the perils of his miserly life.
I was gripped from the first word as his tragic life is revealed by the narrator in the most effective and emotive way. I remember feeling anger as Scrooge mistreats his underpaid clerk, Bob Cratchit, dismisses his kind and generous nephew, Fred, and believes Christmas to be a “Bah!” and a “Humbug!” However, as Scrooge was shown the error of his ways by three phantoms, my anger transformed into sadness and pity.
How could someone be given so many chances at redemption and spurn them all? Happily, Scrooge learned his life lesson before it was too late.
Tom Baker reads Charles Dickens' timeless seasonal story.
Charles Dickens' story of solitary miser Ebenezer Scrooge, who is taught the true meaning of Christmas by the three ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, has become one of the timeless classics of English literature. First published in 1843, it introduces us not only to Scrooge himself, but also to the memorable characters of underpaid desk clerk Bob Cratchit and his poor family, the poorest amongst whom is the ailing and crippled Tiny Tim.
In this captivating recording, Tom Baker delivers a tour-de-force performance as he narrates the story. The listener…
These stories run deep in my blood! I remember my Mum reading "Cinderella," "Hansel and Gretel," "Rapunzel," and "Snow White," to name a few, and being totally enthralled, captivated, and scared all at once.
Reading this edition as an adult evokes the same feelings, but I also experienced a sense of wonder and intrigue as I read the lesser-known stories such as "The Boy Who Left Home to Find Out About the Shivers," "The Girl with No Hands," "The Nixie of the Millpond," and "Hans-my-Hedgehog."
I loved discovering these stories, closer to the originally published ones in their first collection, Children's and Household Tales in 1812, as they are much darker and scarier in nature than modern versions, and reading what Philip Pullman says about each one is an unexpected delight!
A phenomenal bestselling author meets the most magical stories ever told, now in a beautiful clothbound classics edition
In this stunningly designed book of classic fairy tales, award-winning author Philip Pullman has chosen his fifty favourite stories from the Brothers Grimm and presents them in a 'clear as water' retelling, in his unique and brilliant voice. These new versions show the adventures at their most lucid and engaging yet. Pullman's Grimm Tales of wicked wives, brave children and villainous kings will have you reading, reading aloud and rereading them for many years to come.
As a child, I struggled with reading, but this changed when I opened the magical pages of this gem! Not only packed with adventure, magic, and monsters, it’s also part game. The reader chooses how the story unfolds, and I remember being amazed as I decided which path to take, which potion to buy, whether or not to open a treasure chest or to stand and fight the Minotaur by rolling dice or to flee in terror to live another day!
Packed with gorgeous black and white ink illustrations by Russ Nicholson, that drew me in, I would spend ages staring at a mad, crazed prisoner, a couple of ugly goblins playing cards, or a huge, majestic dragon, lost in the fantastic imagery.
FIGHTING FANTASY is the brilliant series of adventure gamebooks in which YOU are the hero! Decide which monsters to fight, which paths to take, who to trust and when to run. Can you survive the clutches of the hideous Bloodbeast, or defeat a noxious inhuman Orc? Deep in the caverns beneath Firetop Mountain lies an untold wealth of treasure, guarded by a powerful Warlock -or so the rumor goes. Several adventurers like yourself have set off for Firetop Mountain in search of the Warlock's hoard. None has ever returned. Do you dare follow them?
Grimous Ironblood has a desire to heal. Not just one or two people, not just in his village, and not just in the Kingdom but all over the realm of Edra. However, the Arch-Mage has a secret: he has found the cure to all ills. He can cure anyone of anything!
With his band of flying iron monkeys, Grimous sets off to fulfil his destiny and cure the sick and the needy. He travels from hamlet to hamlet, village to village, and town to town, and the more people he heals, the more his fame grows. This is a disaster! Bandit Bracus McGint discovers the healer’s secret, a curious bottle containing a magical liquid. Once stolen, Bracus is unaware of what deadly consequences he has unleashed.
Growing up in New England, my mother had a set of books that she kept in the living room, more for display than anything else. It was The Works of Edgar Allen Poe. I read them and instantly became hooked on horror. In the seventh grade, I entertained my friends at a sleepover by telling them the mysterious clanking noise (created by the baseboard heater) was the ghost of a woman who had once lived in the farmhouse, forced to cannibalize her ten children during a particularly bad winter. And I’ve been enjoying scaring people ever since.
In 1939, on a remote Pacific island, botanical researcher Irene Greer plunged off a waterfall to her death, leaving behind a legacy shrouded in secrets. Her great-niece Julia, a struggling journalist recovering from a divorce, seeks answers decades later.
Tasked with retrieving Dr. Greer’s discovery–a flower that could have world-changing properties–Julia unearths a story rife with hidden agendas and a missionary community unwilling to share the truth. As she confronts the eerie legends and a fellow traveler with his own motives, Julia finds that the longer she stays, the thinner the line between reality and the fantastical becomes until she…
From the award-winning author of Dead Souls and Poe comes an all-new bone-chilling novel where a mysterious island holds the terrifying answers to a woman's past and future.
In 1939, on a remote Pacific island, botanical researcher Irene Greer plunges off a waterfall to her death, convinced the spirits of her dead husband and daughter had joined the nightmarchers-ghosts of ancient warriors that rise from their burial sites on moonless nights. But was it suicide, or did a strange young missionary girl, Agnes, play a role in Irene's deteriorating state of mind?
