Neko Case

The author of the memoir 'The Harder I Fight the More I Love You'

Watership Down By Richard Adams (1972)

1 This hero's journey stars wild rabbits in the English countryside. I was 8 years old when I first picked up Richard Adams's "Watership Down" from my mother's nightstand. It was my gateway to storytelling as a magical escape and journey through fantastical worlds. The novel not-sodistantly echoes the horrendous cruelties and complexities of World War II, yet Adams maintained that his work was no metaphor but simply a story of "some rabbits." The book follows the plight of Hazel and Fiver, two rabbit brothers who, with a group of likeminded friends, leave their warren to find another. The move comes about because Fiver, the mercurial younger sibling, has a dark vision of what will befall their home in the coming days. Fiver is prone to fits and flights of prophecy: "Then from between two great tussocks of hair grass came Fiver, his eyes blazing with a frantic urgency. He growled and gibbered at them like a witch hare and those nearest to him fell back in fear." The book includes the rabbits' mythology and origin stories, and each chapter begins with a quotation, such as chapter 3's line from Xenophon's "The Anabasis"-"Am I waiting until I become a little older?"

There There By Tommy Orange (2018)