Fantasy is a creation of the Enlightenment and the recognition that excitement and wonder can be found in imagining impossible things. From the ghost stories of the Gothic to the zombies and vampires of twenty-first-century popular literature, from Mrs Radcliffe to Ms Rowling, the fantastic has been popular with readers. Since Tolkien and his many imitators, however, it has become a major publishing phenomenon.

Archetypal symbols in ancient myths as well as the folktales, nursery stories, and fairytales of the Middle Ages are the blueprints of modern fantasy literature. This book explores the modern dreamscape of present-day fantasy, using the ancient myths and traditional fairytales as guides and shining the light of psychological insight onto every symbolic figure and theme encountered.

This is the first comprehensive history of America's involvement in the Middle East from George Washington to George W. Bush. Drawing on thousands of government documents and personal letters, this book reconstructs the diverse and remarkable ways in which Americans have interacted with this alluring yet often hostile land. Covering over 230 years of history, "Power, Faith, and Fantasy" is an indispensable work for anyone interested in understanding the roots of America's Middle East involvement today.

What Makes This Book So Great: Re-Reading the Classics of Fantasy and SF

As any reader of Jo Walton's Among Others might guess, Walton is both an inveterate reader of SF and fantasy, and a chronic re-reader of books. In 2008, then-new science-fiction mega-site Tor.com asked Walton to blog regularly about her re-reading--about all kinds of older fantasy and SF, ranging from acknowledged classics, to guilty pleasures, to forgotten oddities and gems. These posts have consistently been among the most popular features of Tor.com. Now this volumes presents a selection of the best of them, ranging from short essays to long reassessments of some of the field's most ambitious series.

Island of Fantasy - A Memoir of an English Teacher in Korea

In this fascinating memoir, the author says goodbye to a mundane existence in America and, given a free air ticket and apartment, ventures to teach English on a remote island off the coast of South Korea. Dubbed The Island of Fantasy by its inhabitants, Koje-do is a mixture of charm and peaceful beauty. But in its city center sits Wonder School, a place of frantic chaos and disorganization.