"Carter’s sensual, erotic retellings of fairy tales and folk tales blend Snow White, Red Riding Hood, and Beauty (of “Beauty and the Beast”) into shape-shifting creations that are Carter’s own. A girl attacked by a wolf can love the wolf or even become a wolf herself; the beauty can be beastly, too."

"A collection of magical, supernatural Japanese folk tales, first recommended to me by a well-traveled and well-read friend, this collection has a special significance as a four line footnote from this book about a young boy training to be a samurai inspired the screenplay of my first feature film, “The Warrior.”"

"Generally accepted as Mizoguchi’s greatest work, Ugetsu is based on supernatural Japanese folk tales by the celebrated eighteenth-century author Ueda Akinari. Mizoguchi is most concerned with a compassionate telling of human sorrow, and he finds plenty of substance in Akinari’s short stories. Infamously uncompromising, Mizoguchi was a perfectionist when it came to all aspects of the process. His visual compositions, the production design, the special effects, the lighting, the performances by the actors (especially Machiko Kyo, who adheres in this case to a more traditionally Japanese theatrical style of performance), and the sound design are all so finely tuned and executed, it’s as though Mizoguchi had the ability to be in multiple places at once."

"Throughout my writing life I have relied on Marina Warner to guide me through the hidden realms of literature and culture. She has a wast knowledge of folk stories, religious tracts, legends and classical works from all points of the globe and her analysis of how they continue to be present in our lives and work is always inspiring. In Stranger Magic she tells the story of how Scheherazade’s tales in The Arabian Nights were embraced and appropriated by western culture without ever loosing their original power. As I am working my way towards a new novel which includes the influence of Arabic culture on medieval Icelandic writing Warner has once again provided me with her keen insight into the mechanisms of how stories travel."