Little, Big

There is a 25th anniversary edition of this book. which is one of the most sumptuous tomes I've ever had the pleasure of owning... or reading. It's a monster of a work, 750 pages of heavy paper, that weighs in at over 2-1/2 kg, profusely and perfectly illustrated, as well as beautifully designed and typeset. The end papers offer up a genealogy of the extended and intertwined families that populate the story.

It's a rich and complex story, deserving of the magnificent treatment.

The same way hearing “soap opera” used as a pejorative upsets me so much I want to fake my own death, frame my estranged father for murder, and wrest control of his business empire, hearing “fairy tale” used that way makes me want to wave a wand and turn the detractors of science fiction and fantasy into horny toads.

John Crowley’s Little, Big, winner of the World Fantasy Award, is not only a fairy tale with actual fairies, but also one that’s an actual tale. So many novels described as literary forget to tell a story. This is not… show more.

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… show more.