Here's a page of contemporary Irish writing on the Web, Irish Literature, the Corpus of Electronic Texts (CELT), and here's a site for Irish Drama, Literature, Folklore and Mythology, and another. Here's Luminarium, a beautiful starting point for the study of Medieval, Renaissance and 17th century English literature.

Samuel Pepys, one of the most fascinating diarists in history, can be sampled here.

I absolutely adore this site on 17th Century English Literature. If you love the old pulp adventures as much as I do, this is the site for you! This site is a companion to the Fantastic, Mysterious, and Adventurous Victoriana site.

Here is a simply awesome site of Chinese Classics, in multiple translations (and not just to English) with the Chinese text. Mouse over the Chinese characters for the definition. Speaking of translations, here's a list of translated books. The top 50 most translated authors list is fascinating--Danielle Steele and Shakespeare are side by side, both below Jules Verne.

Andrew Lang's multi-colored Fairy Books are available online! Speaking of fairytales, don't miss the Museum of Make Believe!

Read a banned book!

Other good reads...

This is a terrific online Library of the Fantastic. You'll find some great stuff there, so don't miss it. On a related note, here's a terrific site for retro and historic science fiction.

The Internet Speculative Fiction Database is a community effort to catalog works of science fiction, fantasy, and horror. It links together various types of bibliographic data: author bibliographies, publication bibliographies, award listings, magazine content listings, anthology and collection content listings, and forthcoming books.

The FireBlade Coffeehouse is a cozy place to curl up with some on-line fiction. Blackmask offers a vast library of online books of all sorts. The pulp section is really good. The Moonlit Road is an intriguing collection of Southern ghost stories.

This is a fascinating page on English Literature and Religion with the usual lists of links.The centerpiece is a very large bibliographical database (more than 4,800 records) about religious aspects and backgrounds of English literature from the Middle Ages to the present. There are also shorter bibliographies devoted to particular writers.

Didaskalia: Ancient Theater Today is an excellent resource on Greek and Roman drama, dance and music. Looking for something more recent? No problem. Anywhere, at any hour, experience a modern play on the Web. Bravo!

This site branches beyond literature into all sorts of Celtic lore, including art, religion, myth, and music.

Alchemica Erotica takes a look at sensual art from a mythic and archetypal/psychological point of view.

Lovers of ancient lore won't want to miss the Poetic Edda.

Recommended by my friend Lee Verner: Arts and Letters Daily is daily collection of articles from a wide variety of publications covering almost very topic and from almost very point of view. It's a rare day when I can't spend a half hour or so just deciding what to read.

The Directory of Open Access Journals covers free, full text, quality controlled scientific and scholarly journals covering all subjects and languages. When I added this link, there were 1260 journals in the directory with more than 320 journals searchable on article level and more than 60090 articles included. My friend Lee Verner sent the link, warning that even reading the abstracts sucks far more time than most of us have available.

Intellectbooks.com publishes books and journals of both scholarly and general interest, tracking the newest developments in digital creative media - such as art, film, television, design and the Web. Intellect examine theories in education, language, gender study and international culture. Intellect also has a long record of publishing in AI, Computer Science and Human-Computer Interaction. You can find amazing and unexpected things here.

Earthpages offers essays, articles, links, and references on politics, culture, religion, myth, psychology, and much, much more.

My favorite newspapers, The Boston Globe, The Washington Post, The Chicago Tribune, and The Times of London, are all available online.

LibrarySpot.com is a free virtual library resource center for educators and students, writers, librarians and their patrons, families, businesses and just about anyone exploring the Web for valuable research information.

Click here for links to sources on MYTHOLOGY and FOLKLORE or the ARTHURIAN LEGENDS or here for RELIGION and PHILOSOPHY texts.

This is just plain amazing, and lovely:fanned book spines as art!

"All right, I will learn to read. But when I have learned, I never, never shall."
                            -- British novelist David Garnett at age 4, to his mother.

"I like libraries.  It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words, 
beautiful and wise, all around me.  I always feel better when I can see that there is 
something to hold back the shadows." 
                            -- Roger Zelazny


"There's stories and there's stories....the ones with any worth change your
life forever, perhaps in a small way, but once you've heard them, they are
forever a part of you. You nurture them and pass them on and the giving only
makes you feel better. The stories are just stories, they make one laugh or cry--
but if they have any worth, they carry within them a deeper resonance that remains 
long after the final page is turned...or the storyteller has come to the end of 
her tale."  
                            From "The Conjure Man," collected in 
                            Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint

Some of my favorite Authors on the Web:

First, visit Charles de Lint, an author who has managed to blend elements of Celtic and Native American mythology, folklore, magic, and fantasy with the harsh realities of the modern world. The result? Some absolutely beautiful novels and a whole new genre: Contemporary or Urban Fantasy. Charles de Lint's characters are people you'll want to spend time with. Charles is also a good friend and a terrific person. There must be something in the water up there in Canada. Guy Gavriel Kay is also amazing, even if the rascal has committed the unforgivable sin of being a Yankees fan. God will forgive him. Probably.

And speaking of Mr. de Lint, Endicott Studio is home to a number of modern mythmakers, including authors Teri Windling, Ellen Kushner, Delia Sherman, and artist Tom Canty. It's well worth a visit! The essays and readding list alone are priceless.

T.H. White wrote The Once and Future King, the first King Arthur book I fell in love with.

My pal Connor Cochran operates Conlan Press, a small publisher working with, among others, Peter S. Beagle. Speaking of Peter S. Beagle, he is a terrific writer and a good friend. If you get a chance to meet him, you are in for a night of terrific conversation.

Lord Dunsany, one of the grandfathers of fantasy and one of the most poetic writers who ever lived, wrote this marvelous wonder tale, The Bride of the Man-Horse. Here you can find his entire amazing Book of Wonder.

Have you visited the official Mervyn Peake Web site, home of the astonishing Gormenghast trilogy? These amazing books deserve to be much more well-known.

I'm very impressed by Dan Simmons, author of the brilliant Hyperion and its sequels. Tim Powers is always a fun read.

I've recently discovered and thoroughly enjoyed the atmospheric and lush literary mystery thrillers of Matthew Pearl. I can't rave enough about Isabel Allende, Alice Hoffman, and Louise Erdrich.

J.V. Jones, author of a fun trilogy of fantasy novels which begins with The Baker's Boy, has a page of her own. Ms. Jones provided some of my resources for writers as well! Patricia McKillip writes like an angel.

I also adore Umberto Eco, Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Pat Conroy. Harlan Ellison is... well, Harlan Ellison. Antoine-Marie-Roger de Saint-Exupery's book The Little Prince is a special favorite.

Lloyd Alexander (author of The Black Cauldron , The Beggar Queen, and several other favorites), Madeleine L'Engle, and Dr. Suess are in a special class all by themselves. Here's more cool Suess stuff on the Web. I am very, very proud to have met all three of them.

If you love the Winnie the Pooh books, click here! Be sure to visit Shel Silverstein's clever and delightful site.

Here is the official site for J.K. Rowling and the Harry Potter books. The Leaky Cauldron is a wonderful Harry Potter fan site, as is Mugglenet. Find Harry Potter rumors here!

If it weren't for a workshop with Orson Scott Card, I doubt I'd be close to finishing my own novel. Thank you, Scott! If you ever get a chance to take one of his 1000 Ideas in an Hour classes, don't you dare miss it. Author C.J. Cherryh has a fine page with loads of cool links and resources to explore. George R. R. Martin's Song of Ice and Fire is terrific.

I love the writing of Mark Helprin and Wilton Barnhardt, although the latter is hard to find on the Web. Check him out, though. Thank me later.

Now then. What can I say about John Myers Myers? Myers' book Silverlock is one of my favorites of all time. It may not the best I've ever read, but I can't remember enjoying one more. Ever. Here is my pal Lee Verner's Silverlock reading journal, and here is a spot where you can meet the women of the Commonwealth. A beautiful new version has just been published, complete with new essays, sheet music, and annotations. It may take away some of the joy of reference hunting, but there are worse problems to have. Savor and enjoy.

On an similar note, imagine Douglas Adams writing Silverlock, and you'll have an idea of what to expect from Jasper Fforde's delightful The Eyre Affair and its equally wonderful sequels.

The Masters...

No one has had more of an influence on my life than the three authors who taught me, all the way back in the fifth grade, to fall in love with books and reading, and the wonders waiting inside dusty covers. They are J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and Ray Bradbury.

There are about a million Tolkien pages out there... as well there should be. This is an especially good one, and it has a world of links to other pages. This is an amazing collection of the ancient texts that inspired Tolkien as a writer and a scholar. The Tolkien Fanatics site is quite good, and the Encyclopedia of Arda is just plain amazing.

This article does an amazing job of analyzing The Lord of the Rings from a Jungian perspective.

The One Ring and War of the Ring both focus on Tolkien media (like the films and games). This page offers a comprehensive bibliography and publishing history of Professor Tolkien's work.

Click here to learn Elvish! This is the definitive site for Professor Tolkien's invented languages.

Here's an excellent C.S. Lewis page. Into the Wardrobe is a terrific Narnia page. I'm also very found of Virtual Narnia, The Stone Table, and Narnia Web.

C.S. Lewis also spoke often about the "inconsolable longing." This lovely page looks at what he meant by that phrase, and how in manifests in his work. Aslan's Country is also very good.

Here's a terrific page devoted to C.S. Lewis, J.R.R. Tolkien and their famous writers' group, the Inklings. The Mythopoeic Society is an excellent source for the mythic influences of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. Like Narnia Web, The Mythopoeic Society is a great place to find a warm and insightful online community.

Speaking of the masters, Radio Rivendell plays great music to read them, and anything else, by. Recommended!

I wish I could have met these gentlemen in person and said a word of thanks. I wish I could have told them how much they meant to me, what a profound and wonderful influence their work has had on my life. Alas, I never got that chance. I was born too late.

I DID, however, have a chance to say thanks to Ray Bradbury. We've corresponded and met a few times over the years, most recently at the Swissotel in Atlanta. In fact, I'm the "young, unknown writer" he refers to in his book Zen and the Art of Writing. He even bought me my first Guiness. If you've followed Ray's career pretty well, you'll know what I mean when I say he's been my Mr. Electrico. Thanks, Ray. For everything.

"An ordinary man can surround his home with two thousand books, and
thence forward have at least one place in the world where it is always
possible to be happy."

                            -- Augustine Birrell

"Stories make us more alive, more human, more courageous, 
more loving.  Why does anybody tell a story?  It does indeed 
have something to do with faith, faith that the universe has 
meaning, that our little human lives are not irrelevant, that 
 what we choose or say or do matters, matters cosmically."

                             -- Madeleine L'Engle


"whenever I get a little money, I buy books, and if there's any left, I buy food."

                            -- Erasmus

---

My favorite online Bookshops:

Three Geese in Flight specializes in mythic, Celtic, and Arthurian books. They are terrific.

If you're looking for hard-to-find used, rare or out of print books, try ABE, The Advanced Book Exchange, offering database searches of the complete inventories of bookshops all across the nation. They are amazing. In fact, you can oten find signed copies of new books for the same price, or even less, than you'd pay in your local big box bookstore.

Or, when looking for something out of print or hard to find, let someone else do it for you. Send an e-mail message to the agents at Booklynx!

Here's another top source for rare and out of print books and media.

Here's a service that offers a new free book search agent which finds out the best offer for one or more books across all important internet bookstores. Since there are huge differences in prices, shipping costs and delivery times between the various internet bookstores, you may be able to save time and money by giving them a try.

Powells is the most amazing independent I know of.

For cheap stuff, you can't go wrong with Book Closeouts.

For mail order British books, especially science fiction and fantasy, try Porcupine Books, a mail order shop, or Fantasy Centre. The latter also has a shop in Camden, North London.

Last but not least, if you're one who likes to browse by something other than subject, title, or author, here's a bookshop arranged by the colors of the spines.

"I have abandoned my search for truth, and am now looking for a good fantasy."

                            -- Stage direction in William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

Religion and Philosophy on the Web.

How about some Music or Mythology and Folklore?

Send me an E-mail and let me know what you think!