TRENDING NEWSENTERTAINMENTFOOD & DRINKPETSSHOPPINGHEALTHY NOW HOME BEST READS ON PARADE BOOK PICKS SEE MOREAuthor Roshani Chokshi’s Favorite Books Updating Fairy Tales Acclaimed Writer Roshani Chokshi Picks 6 Favorite Books Updating Fairy Tales.</p><p> MICHAEL GILTZ • JUL 8, 2024 Best-selling author Roshani Chokshi names her six favorite book recommendatio ns for people who want modern fairy tales.</p><p> Chokshi’s fourteenth novel–and rst for adults–is The Last Tale of the Flower Bride and it’s just out in paperback.</p><p> Like many of her previous books for kids and young adults, it echoes previous masterworks like the gothic classic Rebec ca by Daphne du Maurier and a thousand folk stories, though it’s also a warning about the dangers of believing in fairy tales.</p><p> Every one of Chokshi’s titles has been a bestseller and Time named her middle grade book Aru Shah and the End of Time one of the 100 Best Fantasy Novels of All Time.</p><p> In an exclusive article for Parade, Chokshi shares why “Snow White” and the like have such a magnetic pull on readers.</p><p> She also picks six of her favorite novels that are modern updates of classic myths and fairy tales.</p><p> But she begins with a story….</p><p> Author Roshani Chokshi's Favorite Books Updating Fairy Tales This article by Roshani Chokshi.</p><p> Copyright © 2024 by Roshani Chokshi.</p><p> Used with permission.</p><p> All rights reserved.</p><p> Once upon a time, a sultan asked his three daughters how much they loved him.</p><p> The rst replied that she loved him as much as his weight in rubies and emeralds.</p><p> The second replied that she loved him as much as his weight in gold and silver.</p><p> The third daughter fell quiet.</p><p> Finally, she said: “Father, I love you as much as your weight in salt.” The sultan was furious at his younger daughter’s answer.</p><p> He banished her from his sight and married her o to the rst prince who asked for her hand.</p><p> Many years later, the sultan and his retinue were invited to a beautif ul, distant land.</p><p> When they arrived, a feast was set before them.</p><p> There were mounds of glistening rice studded with rare herbs; whole pheasants cooked in a sauce of plums; bronzed haunches of meat and every manner of iced cakes, honey tri es and elaborate fruit pies one might imagine.</p><p> The sultan took a bite and scowled.</p><p> For all that the food was beautif ul, it was…rather tasteless.</p><p> He sampled another dish, then another and another.</p><p> All the food was bland and unmemorable.</p><p> It tastes of unbaked dreams and lopsided delig hts, and the sultan was miserable. “It is missing salt!” one of his courtiers declared, and they fell upon themselves to extoll the humble mineral.</p><p> Oh, what avors it could draw out! What riches it might wrest from a humble cut of meat! What was worth eating without it! The sultan thought of his youngest daughter and wept into his napkin: “Now I unders tand how my youngest daughter loved me!” At that moment, the youngest daughter–now the queen of this strange land– stepped into the hall with a great smile.</p><p> Father and daughter reconciled.</p><p> A dish of salt was brought out and they all feasted happily.</p><p> Related: Love at First Lick: Romance Author Kristy Woodson Harvey Falls Hard…for a Puppy I love this tale.</p><p> As I wrote it out, I thought about googling whether or not I’d gotten the details right.</p><p> Was it a sultan or a duke? His youngest daug hter or middle son? In the end, I’ve decided it doesn’t really matter.</p><p> Retelling s of myth and fairytale are rarely preoccupied with the details.</p><p> That is not the reason why we tell them.</p><p> They are, if you’ll forgive me for this, the unsung salt of stories.</p><p> Essential.</p><p> Enhancing.</p><p> Taken utterly for granted for they are basic and blank and mutable.</p><p> Often, I’m asked why I revisit and retell myths and fairytales.</p><p> Surely, it’s gotten old.</p><p> Surely, there’s nothing new to say…and yet, in every resurrection and reincarnation of an old tale, it is not the tale that becomes more illuminated, but ourselves.</p><p> A myth explores the unknowable, and I can think of nothing more inscrutable than the human soul.</p><p> We need myths the way we need salt.</p><p> Without sodium, we cannot live, and without myths, we cannot continue living.</p><p> When we retell such stories we are not only participating in the grand tradition of celebrating how humans have always moved through the world…we are also centering ourselves within it.</p><p> I am delighted to share, below , the tales that have moved me.</p><p> My hope is they illuminate a corner of your heart as well. 1.</p><p> Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel To me, nothing is more sweeping, tragic and rich as the Sanskrit epics.</p><p> In Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel, the author takes a queen reviled from the days of legend and makes her gloriously human.</p><p> Reading it was a breathless exploration, like prying open a window into the Ramayana itself and watching the story unfurl from a whole new vantage point.</p><p> To read it is like hearing a secret not meant for you, and I can’t imagine anything more delic ious.</p><p> Kaikeyi by Vaishnavi Patel ($19.99; Red Hook) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org 2.</p><p> Forest of a o usand Lanterns by Julie C.</p><p> Dao “Snow White” has always been a favorite fairytale of mine.</p><p> Macabre and unsettling, it is the evil queen who has long held my fascination.</p><p> Perhaps it is her viciousness.</p><p> How did she become a villain in the rst place? In Julie C.</p><p> Dao’s Forest of a Thousand Lanterns–an opulent East Asian reimagining of the evil queen’s origins–readers are led down the blood- ecked path of one young woman’s desire for power.</p><p> Magic dazzles on every page, but it is the choices of 18-year-old Xifeng that will mesmerize readers for years to come.</p><p> Forest of a Thousand Lanterns by Julie C.</p><p> Dao ($12.99; Speak) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org 3.</p><p> Marikit and the Ocean of Stars by Caris Avendaño Cruz I read Marikit and the Ocean of Stars by Caris Avendaño Cruz in a single sitting.</p><p> When my Filipino mother told me stories, they were not…gentle.</p><p> They were full of angry ghosts and monsters that sat in trees and smoked cigars.</p><p> They were, as one might imagine, a product of the scars left by colonialis m.</p><p> Four hundred years of Spanish rule gutted the Philippines of the practice of its native religions and erased the stories once told.</p><p> But in Cruz’s assured and vivid prose, readers will wander through a kinder pathway, one lit by the alitaptap ( re ies) into a land ruled by the engkanto and diwata of Filipino folklore.</p><p> It is the story I wish I had when I was younger, a nightlight for the soul.</p><p> Marikit and the Ocean of Stars by Caris Avendaño Cruz ($16.99; Farrar, Straus and Giroux) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org 4. e Seventh Bride by T.</p><p> King sher I am as inspired by what is on the page as what is not.</p><p> Perhaps what is most often missing from a fairytale is logic.</p><p> If I were to chance upon a glass co n in the woods, I can tell you with utmost certainty that my rst thought would not be: “I am lled with the urge to kiss a corpse.” But I digress.</p><p> The loophole of a tale that has deliciously angered me the most comes from Bluebeard, the tale of the man who slew his wives for reasons only the dead women knew.</p><p> In T.</p><p> King sher’s The Seventh Bride, we are treated to a deft examination of power and fortitude, wit and humor.</p><p> If nostalgia and autumn sunlight could be distilled to a story, it would be this one.</p><p> The Seventh Bride by T.</p><p> King sher ($14.95; 47North) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org 5. e Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea As a shameless magpie, I have gravitated to books whose covers haunt me.</p><p> Nothing gave me more profound delight than discovering that what lay within was equally arresting.</p><p> And no cover is as beautiful to me as The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea, which features a painting by the incredible K.Y.</p><p> Craft.</p><p> No tale is more arresting either.</p><p> Rich with Irish mythology, old gods, terrible hellhounds and wild humor, it’s the rare tome of a novel that looks like a door stopper but feels like a single held breath of magic.</p><p> The Hounds of the Morrigan by Pat O’Shea (Buy a used copy when you nd one or head to your library!) Related: Author Kate DiCamillo on the Book That Changed Her Life and Other Favorites 6. e Forever King by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy And nally , a tale I have recently rediscovered but which left quite an impression on me when I was twelve years old was The Forever King by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy.</p><p> I can no longer tell you what happens in it, but I can tell you what happened to me after I read it.</p><p> I became obsessed with Arthurian lore and convinced that every boulder hid a gleaming sword.</p><p> I felt with utter certainty that wizards could be trapped in the hollows of great oaks and that heroes and heroines could be reborn to take up their part in quests that never end.</p><p> The Forever King by Molly Cochran and Warren Murphy ($3.99 e-book; TKA Distribution) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble For those interested in further reading, I recommend F.</p><p> Landa Jocano’s Outline of Philippine Mythology.</p><p> It’s a tricky book to get your hands on, but it is well worth the e ort.</p><p> I also recommend Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and R.K.</p><p> Narayan’s The Ramayana, both of which I rst found on the shelves of my parents’ library.</p><p> While “Bluebeard” comes to us from the collected tales of Charles Perrault, it is Angela Carter’s version from The Bloody Chamber which endures i n my mind.</p><p> May your daydreams be delic ious and all your food well seasoned.</p><p> The Last Tale of the Flower Bride by Roshani Chokshi ($18.99; William Morrow) Buy now on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Bookshop.org 15 Books You Must Read if You’re Obsessed With Taylor Swi ’s New Album Read MorePhoto ©2024 by Aman Sharma Content continues below Content continues below Content continues below Courtesy of Red Hook Content continues below Courtesy of Speak Content continues below Courtesy of Farrar, Straus and Giroux Content continues below Courtesy of 47North Content continues below Courtesy of Holiday House Content continues below Courtesy of TKA Distribution Courtesy of William Morrow Sponsored Stories Here Are 23 of the Coolest Gifts for This 2024 23 Insanely Cool Gadgets You'll Regret Not Getting Before They Sell Out Trending Gadgets | SponsoredToenail Fungus ? 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