October 2022 List of the Month: Mythical Monsters of the World

Another month, another list! It's time to select a theme for our October List of the Month.

What theme or topic would you all like to highlight, in this month's list?

1. Non-English language works (this would need to be made far more specific)
2. Desert Island Books (not clear whether this means books you'd take to a desert island, or books about people on desert islands, i.e.: the Robinsonade)
3. The First Book(s) You Remember Reading
4. Best Books of a Certain Decade or Other Time Period
5. Best Youth or YA Fiction of a Certain Period
6. Your Country/State's Bestseller/Classic/Best/Most Recent Book
7. Best Sports Writing
8. Noirvember - Best Noir (for next November)
9. Best Graphic Novels
10. Best Books about Immigrants
11. Best Surreal Books
12. Books Made Into Great Movies
13. Australian Literature
14. Gardening Books
15. Books about sex work / sex workers
16. Books addressing mental health
17. Books about the "wrong side of the law"

As always, additional suggestions are always welcome, and if not adopted, will be added to the list above, for future consideration.

How about "Spooky October"? :)

>2 AnnieMod: We did "Scary Stories for the Season" last October, as the List of the Month. But if people wanted to do something in the same vein, but maybe a little more focused—just vampire fiction?, just ghost stories?—I'm sure that would be fine.

"Spooky stories from the last decade" or "Spooky stories published in the 21 centuries" or "The Modern Spooky October: stories published in the 21st century" or something along these lines?

I'll be different and vote for books about sex work/sex workers.

I’d like to know LTer’s best gardening books. I’m too old for sex, almost too old for gardening come to that!

Awesome Mythical Monsters from around the World? That could accomodate scary stories as well as spiritual, romantic, educational, and types of stories while perhaps encouraging participants to share books that don't usually make it to lists.

>6 abbottthomas: But not too old to read about it!

>7 aspirit: That sounds fun!

My top 3:

Ghosts; sex work/ers; mental health - addiction

I like the idea of a Global Monsters / Cryptids list. Not only might it highlight creatures that don't get as much attention, but it might also reveal that the same kinds of creatures are viewed differently, in different cultures. I was just commenting, somewhere else, that mermaids are considered horrific, in Inuit culture. Those looking for a scary mermaid tale might consider something like Kiviuq and the Mermaids.

I feel like October is already "spooky" enough everywhere. My top picks would be:
1. best graphic novels
2. best biographies
3. the movie was better than the book

I do like the creatures around the world idea. I could do without the word spooky.

OK, our October list is up, and will be devoted to "Mythical Monsters of the World."

Mythical Monsters of the World

Please vote for your ten top titles in this category, and feel free to add additional non-voted titles, if they fit thematically. Please only downvote titles that do not fit the theme.

ETA: It's an auspicious day for this particular list to launch, as it is Myths and Legends Day!

I don't know whether it was the intention to have this one be a mix of fiction and non-fiction (albeit regarding putatively fictional entities), but it's turning out that way--which I like. My own picks combine six books of fiction and four of non-fiction.

Some of the monsters listed aren't very mythical or legendary, but I'm not gonna squander my ammunition on thumbs down.

I have a lot of books about dragons (for instance), and while dragons are certainly mythical monsters in some books (The Hobbit say) they are not "monsters" in the Dragonriders of Bern (for example). What do people think about that? Yea to the Hobbit and Nay to the Dragonriders of Pern? That might be how I interpret "monsters".

I think new spins on old monsters are perfectly acceptable. But sui generis monsters with no tradition behind them are hardly matters of "myth" or "legend."

I'm giving a pronounced side eye to Grover the Sesame Street muppet for this category, no matter how much I like The Monster at the End of This Book.

>17 paradoxosalpha: a pronounced side eye

That goes for me with the Calvin and Hobbes, as well -- two of my favourite characters in all literature, but no traditional monster unless we include babysitters.

Arguably I am guilty myself in listing Narby's The Cosmic Serpent. I went ahead in the interest of posting a non-fiction title. Myth, yes; monsters, perhaps; but mythical monster, that's a stretch.

>18 elenchus:

I liked your inclusion of the Narby, and I would have been tempted to list it myself if I didn't have a full ten that I felt were both more monstrous and more legended.

>18 elenchus:

Calvin's monsters have no foundation in fact, are fictitious, and imaginary. Thus, they are a perfect fit for Definition 1c of "mythical" in the Oxford English Dictionary.

>17 paradoxosalpha: I have removed Grover. It was a joke. I am not responsible for anyone else adding it.

This is a category that I am not the least bit interested in so, no participation for me. Carry on...

>16 al.vick: I myself would draw the line differently. I don't really see a meaningful clear line between a kind-of-Earth (Middle Earth) and a not-Earth (Pern, Discworld), so I'd tend to allow clear authorial nods to legendary monsters from our planet.

That said, I don't care for the definition of "monsters" which include all supernatural beings. I don't agree that demons and angels, or Death personified, are "monstrous". (So Pratchett's dwarves, golems, vampires and werewolves, etc., are in, but Death, the Hogfather, and the Tooth Fairy are out. IMO.) I've avoided adding ghost stories, for example, for precisely that reason.

I agree with paradoxosalpha and elenchus that Muppets and generic "things that go bump in the night" aren't the kind of monsters which I envisioned as having the historical "mythic" status for this list. (Though I appreciate them as gentle jokes.)

I also don't feel strongly enough about any of this to use my down-votes.