Five For Friday 36: Five Off-The-Beaten-Track Inspirational Books for Table-Top RPG Gamers (Appendix N)

If nothing else, I think I set a new personal best with the length of this post title. Here is an eclectic collection of books that were great reading and, for the purposes of this blog, surprisingly inspirational for gaming. Presented in alphabetical order:

• Atlas of Remote Islands by Judith Schalansky. This book is perfectly described by its title. It is an atlas of fifty of the world's most remote islands.
• The Book of Legendary Lands by Umberto Eco. Italian scholar and novelist (The Name of the Rose) Umberto Eco's fascinating description of the legendary lands that we humans have come up throughout the course of our history. Eco's writing is, as usual, amazing and the illustrations are worth the price of the book.
• The Golem and the Jinni by Helene Wecker. This novel is set in the city of New York at the very end of the nineteenth century and tells of the unlikely friendship between a golem and a jinni, both of whom find themselves lost and friendless in a foreign land. Just a really great read.
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski. This book has a lot going on, more than I can even attempt to capture in a brief description. Just two things: (1) I absolutely loved this book and (2) there is a house that grows a megadungeon at the heart of the story. Oh, and it is really creepy.
• Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino. Calling this book a novel might be a  bit of a stretch. A fictional dialogue between Marco Polo and Kublai Khan, with Marco Polo describing fictional cities of Kublai Khan's empire, each city more fantastical than the one before it.

Related Post

Five For Friday 2: A Modern Literary Appendix N

Five For Friday 2: A Modern Literary Appendix N

Here are five books that I have influenced how I think about gaming that fall outside of the sci-fi and fantasy genres (with the possible exception of Bones of the Moon, which could be shelved with the fantasy books at your local bookstore).

• Bones of the Moon (by Jonathan Carroll): A whimsical dreamworld gradually turns creepy (a Carroll hallmark). I discovered Jonathan Corroll through his first novel, Land of Laughs.
• The Historian (by Elizabeth Kostova): This is one of my all-time favorite novels, right up there with The Name of the Rose and To Kill a Mockingbird. Creepy turns to horror in this historically detailed literary suspense novel. I read it one sitting...at 720 pages, it was a bit of a sit for me.
• The Lock Artist (by Steve Hamilton): An award-winning suspense novel that will have you rethinking your lockpicking characters. A plus for me is that much of the action takes place in Milford, Michigan, one of the places where the teen-aged Rusty Battle Axe used to hang out.
• The Night Circus (by Erin Morgenstern): A dark, dreamy, and evocative tale of magic and romance, set in western Europe and North America (c. 1900) that has me rethinking all sorts of gaming things.
• The Shadow of the Wind (by Carlos Ruiz Zafón): A dark literary suspense novel, set in post-WW2 Barcelona. I was able to sleep soundly until I finished the book.