A review by booktrotting
Literary Wonderlands: A Journey Through the Greatest Fictional Worlds Ever Created by Jared Shurin, Lev Grossman, John Clute, Adam Roberts, Kat Howard, Mahvesh Murad, Lisa Tuttle, Tom Shippery, Abigail Nussbaum, Laura Miller, Laurie Penny, James Smythe, John Sutherland, Mary Hamilton

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.