The Book Ferret: Podcast on Caribbean Folkore

I was rather lax in my review-writing this morning and I’ve got a lot of reading scheduled for today, so I thought I’d just do a quick post to share something nice with you. Last night I listened to a wonderful podcast of Karen Lord and Nalo Hopkinson chatting about Caribbean folklore with Karen Burnham at the World Fantasy Convention in 2011.

Aside from one or two short stories, I have no knowledge of Caribbean folklore, so I loved listening to these two authors swap tales and compare regional differences (Lord is from Barbados and Hopkinson is from Jamaica). So many of the stories were fantastically creepy – does anyone know of any good horror anthologies based on folklore? The authors also talk about how these tales are influenced by cultural and social concerns – sugar production and slavery, protecting your children, alcoholism, etc. giving a great sense of how folklore is developed and used. So informative and entertaining 🙂

The Book Ferret is a Violin in a Void feature that showcases interesting book-related finds – gadgets, websites, book stores, events, cover art, quotes, new releases, etc.; anything the bookish would enjoy hearing about.

Introducing: The Book Ferret

ferret to search for something; a person who searches assiduously and tenaciously

Welcome to The Book Ferret, a weekly feature on Violin in a Void that will showcase a cool or interesting book-related find every Thursday. Notable new releases, great bookshops, events, cover art, websites, gadgets and accessories – anything to feed a bookworm’s happy addiction.

 

Lu from Lu’s Bloody Big Book Blog suggested I open up The Book Ferret to other bloggers, so I will provide a linky at the bottom of each post, allowing you to link your own Book Ferret find back here and browse the other discoveries. The concept for the post is very simple, but very flexible:

1. The Content: anything related to books and reading that you want to share, especially something that other readers can read/use/buy/attend.
2. The Length: your call. Go slapdash and copy and paste a favourite quote, or spend the week researching and writing an essay on an obscure novel.

The first post will be on Thursday 20 January (tomorrow), so think about what you’d like to post if you want to join in. My little Ferret is just a baby, so any suggestions are welcome, and I hope you will share the idea with fellow bloggers to help it grow. At the same time, have lots of fun with your own!