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fungivibes's review
informative
medium-paced
5.0
Loved this one. A fun little non-fiction book about different literary worlds/universes. Gives descriptions of the worlds, what makes them memorable/unique, and the historical context of where/when the author was living
multilingual_s's review
funny
informative
inspiring
medium-paced
4.0
a nice and easy read, the quality of the chapters is mixed owing to the different authors, but it's definitely a great resource to pick out the next book to read!A
eeb123's review
4.0
I bought this ebook at some point based solely on the title and cover. Based on those I somehow expected this would be a maybe pseudo-academic exploration of place in fantasy literature—geographical and possibly psychological place. And it actually is that, sort of, but instead of an extended essay exploring how place functions and looks and feels in these books, it’s a collection of summaries of fantasy literature with interesting settings. Sometime the summaries are interesting (whether or not they actually even address the setting), sometimes they’re full of spoilers (don’t read the Never Let Me Go summary before reading the book), sometimes they’re a little too clever. Overall though, after some initial disappointment that the book was not what I wanted it to be, I enjoyed revisiting books I’ve loved, reading about books I’ve been meaning to read, and getting a long list to add to my to-reads.
aliciamae's review
3.0
Visually stunning. It earned an extra star for that. The essays are by a variety of people, listed in the back. I found the works highlighted in here to be an interesting sample. It's fascinating to see what people choose isn't it? My own 'Literary Wonderlands' would've looked different, but that's part of the fun. I've discovered some very interesting new books for my TBR list. I didn't read this word-for-word. I looked at all the pictures, and read the essays for the works that I've already read/am pretty familiar with, or wanted to learn more about. It varies essay to essay, but if you don't like spoilers, you may be happier avoiding this book. But it sure is beautiful to look at!
kellswitch's review
5.0
This book ended up not being what I initially thought it was going to be, I thought it was going to be a sort of cutesy, let’s pretend these places are real look at the different worlds in fiction. Instead it was a surprisingly informative (for the relatively short entries per world) look at what influenced the creation of these worlds and how they have influenced our culture.
The book covers both the well known and many somewhat obscure works of fiction and both ancient and surprisingly current stories.
There were a nice variety of images accompanying each entry with a lot of color plates (when applicable), which I always appreciate.
Overall I learned a lot and enjoyed myself while doing so, though I will say this is a book better read in spurts vs. all at once as it can get a bit repetitive feeling after a while. Definitely a good resource and reference book.
The book covers both the well known and many somewhat obscure works of fiction and both ancient and surprisingly current stories.
There were a nice variety of images accompanying each entry with a lot of color plates (when applicable), which I always appreciate.
Overall I learned a lot and enjoyed myself while doing so, though I will say this is a book better read in spurts vs. all at once as it can get a bit repetitive feeling after a while. Definitely a good resource and reference book.
booktrotting's review
4.0
A well-researched coffee table book for book lovers with a few additions you've probably not heard of before. The main strength of Literary Wonderlands is in its aesthetic design, incorporating and embracing both illustration and photography from adaptation. Whilst the gender balance is definitely more skewed towards men than necessary, there is a clear effort to expand beyond the accepted 'Western canon' into world literature and the problems with older texts are clearly addressed throughout. A few reviews have criticised some omissions (The Tale of Genji, in particular, is missing), though they often seem to miss the point of the whole work, which necessitates that the works contain a setting which is at least a little removed from of our everyday lives- i.e. 'Wonderlands'. It's not just a catalogue of significant texts but a testament to the human imagination. Not perfect, but clearly a labour of love for all involved.