#haroun and the sea of stories

[with-reverence]

Nothing comes from nothing; no story comes from nowhere; new stories are born from old — it is the new combinations that make them new.

Salman Rushdie, Haroun and the Sea of Stories

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

Books of 2023. HAROUN AND THE SEA OF STORIES by Salman Rushdie.

Back on my backlist bullshit! I love stringing books together with ~Connections~ for readerly continuity purposes, so please witness the hoopoe on this cover (which I'm carrying over from THE SINGING HILLS).

HAROUN is currently adrift in a sea of my own story, featuring the revision pages on my desk today.

[beanbowlbaggins]

My friend from out of town came to visit, so a group of us got together and ended up doing a b&n book browsing date and boba tea. I got a pink pear green tea with lychee jelly, pink honey tapioca, and pink heart shaped boba.

I picked out Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie. I have no idea what this is about, but the cover is a very pretty design in yellow, and there is a 'Sea of Stories' which I'm bound to love.

I also just had to pick up a Magic: The Gathering booster pack for my partner.

[zelihatrifles]

Luka and the Fire of Life

Life is not wet, young man. Life burns.

These are not only Nobodaddy's words, but taken from the mouth of the author himself, The Salman Rushdie whom haters still fear, decades after a controversial book was published that shook their fragile faiths in a religion that means much more than taking easy offence and issuing fatwas. Perhaps not the best of his writing, yet filled to the brim and overflowing with Rushdie's eccentric neologism and brilliant humour. Had a lot of fun when i first read this, without much deep thinking, had fun this time too, more, as i can better appreciate the twists and turns of young Luka's journey to find the Fire of Life and save the magical world's god his father the famous Shah of Blah. This short novel serves as yet another testament to how it's always the stories that provide power, be it too ancient gods, modern demons or timeless emotions.

[nanoland]

And in the depths of the city, beyond an old zone of ruined buildings that looked like broken hearts, there lived a happy young fellow by the name of Haroun, the only child of the storyteller Rashid Khalifa, whose cheerfulness was famous throughout that unhappy metropolis, and whose never-ending stream of tall, short and winding tales had earned him not one but two nicknames. To his admirers he was Rashid the Ocean of Notions, as stuffed with cheery stories as the sea was full of glumfish; but to his jealous rivals he was the Shah of Blah. To his wife, Soraya, Rashid was for many years as loving a husband as anyone could wish for, and during these years Haroun grew up in a home in which, instead of misery and frowns, he had his father’s ready laughter and his mother’s sweet voice raised in song. Then something went wrong. (Maybe the sadness of the city finally crept in through their windows.) The day Soraya stopped singing, in the middle of a line, as if someone had thrown a switch, Haroun guessed there was trouble brewing. But he never suspected how much.

Haroun and the Sea of Stories, by Salman Rushdie

[fictional-worlds-are-exquisite]

which book should I read first someone pick for me

[simptasia]

LOST reading list

a list of books read by characters in lost for you to enjoy (or not). this isn't every book referenced in lost. for all that and more, see the "literary works" page on lostpedia, where im getting my info

no, my criteria for this list is that it's been read by a lost character. i'll tell you who (you'll see sawyers name a lot), and i'll add if it's somebody's fave book. this list will not include things like the bible or the qur'an or historical texts, as that while that can technically be recreational reading (it seems to be for ben), i'd rather not

Alice's Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll (read by Jack)

Are You There God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume (read by Sawyer)

A Brief History of Time by Stephan Hawking (read by Ben)

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky (read by Ben)

Caravan of Dreams by Idries Shah (read by Ben)

Carrie by Stephen King (Read by Juliet, Ben and various other Others. This is Juliet's favourite book)

The Chosen by Chaim Potok (read by Sawyer)

Dark Horse by Tami Hoag (read by Jack)

The Dark Tower I: The Gunslinger by Stephen King (read by Ben)

Dirty Work by Stuart Woods (read by Jack)

Everything That Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor (read by Jacob)

Evil Under The Sun by Agatha Christie (read by Sawyer)

Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury (read by Ben)

Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes (read by Ben)

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand (read by Sawyer)

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by JK Rowling (read by Jack)

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salmon Rushdie (read by Desmond)

Hotel by Arthur Hailey (read by Ben)

The Invention of Morel by Adolfo Bioy Casares (read by Sawyer)

Lancelot by Walker Percy (read by Sawyer)

Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov (read by Hurley)

Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky (read by Ilana)

The Oath by John Lescroart (read by Ben)

Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck (read by Sawyer. This is Sawyer's favourite book and author)

Roots by Alex Haley (read by Ben)

A Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda (read by Ben)

The Sheltering Shy by Paul Bowles (read by Ben)

Ulysses by James Joyce (read by Ben)

Valhalla Rising by Clive Cussler (read by Ben and Jack)

VALIS by Philip K. Dick (read by Ben)

Watership Down by Richard Adams (read by Boone and Sawyer)

A Wrinkle In Time by Madeleine L'Engle (read by Sawyer)

Every work by Charles Dickens other than Our Mutual Friend (read by Desmond. This is his favourite author)

I encourage you to speculate on the character implications put forth by these reading choices. This can raise such questions as: Jack is a Harry Potter fan? What is Desmond's favourite book by Charles Dickens? Boone can read??

Thank you for your time

[studyblr-perhaps]

02/02/24 || Friday

Forgot to post yesterday so I will be posting for 2nd Feb right now. I didn't really study all that much yesterday, just a little bit of condensed matter for class, and then I went back to my room and binged watched a kdrama. I did sleep at 3am and my eyes are drooping close but at least I had fun.

Day 4/30 of 30-Day New Year Momentum Challenge

What book are you reading right now?

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie! At least I'm about to start it, but this is for an assigned reading. For leisure, I last read the translated web novel Qing Kuang, an mlm high school slice of life novel and it was fun!

[bookcub]

Books I Read for My SFF Class Rated from Worst to Best

clearly this is the most objective list ever obviously (jk this is based on how much I got from reading the text to how useful it was in context)

also while this syllabus included movies and tv shows, I am focusing on the books cause this is a book blog

19. Islands at the End of the World by Austin Aslan- The worst of the worst. Contains racist ideology and a magic system that makes no sense. This is a book clearly written by a white outsider about Hawai'i. I am also far too old for dystopias. One upside is that there were no random romances and it was about familial love.

18. Survive the Dome by Kosoko Jackson- Despite agreeing with the ideology of this book, this was truly a horrible reading experience. Poorly written, annoying and bland characters, and very inconsistent.

17. Blazewrath Games by - You wouldn't guess that a book that's essentially The World Cup with Dragons could be boring, but you'd be wrong. Nothing significant in this text rip.

16. Peter Pan by J M Barrie- Unfortunately, this book makes sense being included in this context of children's SFF so I can’t say it shouldn't be included, but this book was agonizing to read. Beautiful writing. And yet, some of the most racist and sexist content I have ever read in my life!

15. Charlotte's Web by EB White- Pretty painless to read and interesting to discuss in the context of sff literature cause uh, not generally a book I would categorize as such. I didn’t think our discussions were particularly notable and I would have preferred another text.

14. The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline- *sighs* There are some incredibly important concepts in this text but woof. Again, I am too old for dystopias but unexpectedly I had a real problem with the way women were written in this.

13. The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L Frank Baum- Again, this is helpful in context of a children's fantasy class and it was fun to read in context as a Wicked fan. If I didn't know it from related media, this would be super forgettable.

12. Bunnicula by Deborah Howe and James Howe- Fun, and a fantastic audio but there wasn't much to talk about here in our class but there's potential. Very funny.

11. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by JK Rowling- I am dreading the class on this but I am very excited for the critical readings and it was exciting to re examine the text as an adult with the knowledge I have now. I do think that we could have done a magic school section with books responding to HP instead. Again, interesting in the context of the genre.

10. The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen- One of my classmates had a lot of issues with the portrayal of Judaism in this text, so ideally this would be replaced with a text written by an author who did more research.

9. Feed by MT Anderson- I did NOT like this but incredibly relevant and scary to think this was written about 20 years ago. Good for the syllabus, not good for me!

8. The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien- I didn't mind listening to this and it was another sensible inclusion. Occasionally boring but I'm supportive.

7. Haroun and the Sea of Stories by - I liked the perspective this book provided and it was a pretty fun read. I think this would work best as a readaloud text. It was also beneficial to read a book written by an author who wasn't American or British for comparison to the other texts.

6. A Wrinkle in Time by - Another classic that makes a lot of sense in its inclusion in the syllabus. Sparked really good conversations about the definition of genre. I enjoyed resisting this text as well, incredibly nostalgic for me.

5. Labyrinth Lost by Zoraida Cordova- A lot of fun! I love portal fantasies and this had a classic adventure but didn't feel trite at all. I actually enjoyed the love triangle and will consider reading the books later in the series.

4. American Born Chinese by Gene Luan Yang- This was a difficult book to read but it was incredibly rewarding. I had to sit with it a lot to process and I think the author asks really interesting questions. I would recommend this to most people.

3. Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo- Shockingly, the adult novel ranks 3 on my list. .. hmmm . . this was largely both because I loved it and hated many of the other books. Absolutely stunning as a novel, engaging, and downright magical. I love books centering family and slowly finding how much I enjoy multigenerational novels. However, it is interesting considering this class is about children's lit. . . I would highly recommend this to readers who want a story that isn't afraid to challenge normal.

2. Kindred (graphic novel) by Octavia Butler- I love Kindred and if this was the novel and not the graphic, it would be #1. An amazing book that does not stray from intense topics and makes history very accessible. The only time travel book I love. I adored presenting on this book and still believe Kindred is one of the best books I have read. Such a good inclusion on this syllabus.

1. Nimona by ND Stevenson- NIMONA MY BELOVED what is there to say. This is perfect for this class. It is certainly marketed to young adults, and uses elements of scifi and fantasy masterfully. Challenges conventions of the genre, asks the age old question of who is a monster and who is human. . .beautiful found family. . .funny as hell. Perfect.

[bracketsoffear]

Can I ask how many different incarnations of Death have been submitted?

The media from which variations on the Grim Reaper or associated psychopomps have been submitted:

Black Butler

Death & Taxes

Dimension 20 (2 versions)

Discworld

Elizabeth (German play)

Good Omens

Greek Mythology (Thanatos definitely counts)

Haroun and the Sea of Stories

Horrible Histories

Kirby

Madoka Magica

My Chemical Romance

Persona 3

Pokemon

Puss in Boots: The Last Wish

Sandman

Supernatural

The Adventure Zone: Balance

The Book Thief

Viva Pinata

For a total of 21 iterations of Death!

[best-childhood-book]

worlds submissions: world of Watership Down; world of the Septimus Heap books; Kahani from Haroun and the Sea of Stories; the Valley from the Bone books by Jeff Smith; world of the Amulet books by Kazu Kibuishi (there's a map if you want to use a picture to accompany the poll)

Ok, I'm fairly certain Watership Down has no official "name" for its world, so I'll go ahead and put it on. If Septimus Heap and Amulet also have no official titles, please respond to this post with whether there is a 'main' setting/country/part and I will refer to it as [insert name here] and Surrounding Lands on the list. If not, I'll just call it The World of [title]. I've added all the others :)

[bookquest2024]

100 Books to Read Before I Die: Quest Order

The Lord Of The Rings by J. R. R. Tolkien

In Search of Lost Time by Marcel Proust

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

Under The Net by Iris Murdoch

American Pastoral by Philip Roth

The Unbearable Lightness of Being by Milan Kundera

Animal Farm by George Orwell

Housekeeping by Marilynne Robinson

Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

Atonement by Ian McEwan

Crime And Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The Grapes Of Wrath by John Steinbeck

Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie

Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis

Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

A Passage to India by EM Forster

Of Human Bondage by W. Somerset Maugham

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller by Italo Calvino

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams

1984 by George Orwell

White Noise by Don DeLillo

The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

The Stranger by Albert Camus

Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov

Oscar And Lucinda by Peter Carey

The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami

Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

Lord of the Flies by William Golding

The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

The Call of the Wild by Jack London

Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy by John Le Carré

Austerlitz by W. G. Sebald

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh

Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton

Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

Ulysses by James Joyce

Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

Haroun and the Sea of Stories by Salman Rushdie

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

Middlemarch by George Eliot

Are You There, God? It’s me, Margaret by Judy Blume

Clarissa by Samuel Richardson

Moby-Dick by Herman Melville

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

Herzog by Saul Bellow

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes

A Bend in the River by V. S. Naipaul

A Dance to The Music of Time by Anthony Powell

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson

Go Tell It On The Mountain by James Baldwin

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence

Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

I, Claudius by Robert Graves

Nostromo by Joseph Conrad

The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass

Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

Charlotte’s Web by E. B. White

Tom Jones by Henry Fielding

His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman

Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll

Little Women by Louisa M Alcott

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens

Portnoy’s Complaint by Philip Roth

Watchmen by Alan Moore

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne

On the Road by Jack Kerouac

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

The Trial by Franz Kafka

Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

Money by Martin Amis

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

[ghostfeather]

hi, hope this is okay to ask :) I saw that liked salman rushdie and was wondering if you had a fave book of his? I read the satanic verses for an english class and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it

of course, i don't mind at all! my favorite is haroun and the sea of stories which is a children's novel he wrote for his son. i just love the playful, whimsical style of writing. it's a cute, fun read.

i actually haven't gotten around to reading the satanic verses yet but it's been on my list for ages! someday lol

[kneadingwater]

14 + 18? 💓

14. what books do you want to finish before the year is over?

well, i just started everybody by olivia laing this morning, but apart from that i would like to read small things like these by claire keegan, moon of the crusted snow by waubgeshig rice, slouching towards bethlehem by joan didion, & lanny by max porter. not sure if i'll manage that before the end of the year though because finals are keeping me busy!

18. how many books did you buy?

i'm not sure, but probably no more than ten because most of the books i read are from the library or from my bookshelf. i think most of my purchases this year were for my post-colonial literature course in the winter: discourse on colonialism by aimé césaire, haroun & the sea of stories by salman rushdie, baumgartner's bombay by anita desai & a burning by megha majumdar.

[sabinekorth]

Telling myself stories. and never ending gratitude for the exciting adventures in my studio. This is a part of my recent project on Salman Rushdie.From his book “Haroun and the sea of stories”. For years I worked on and off with his novels. I was lucky to meet Rushdie in person and got a signed book in 2017 at a reading in Cologne, Germany. Then I sent some samples of my collages with his words to his office and got a friendly reply that he appreciated my artistic work and I was free to use his books. Now I'm coming back to this generous offer. 😉📚 #literature #salmanrushdie #harounandtheseaofstories #salmanrushdiequotes #salmanrushdiebooks #collage #analoguecollage #cutandpaste #cutandpastecollage (presso Piombino, Italy) https://www.instagram.com/p/CpmrtIgKput/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=