Liz Bourke
Mar. 6th, 2018 10:28 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bibliogrammaAqueduct Press has released a collection of reviews and essays by Liz Bourke. This fascinating collection, Sleeping with Monsters: Readings and Reactions in Science Fiction and Fantasy, is must reading for anyone interested how intersectional feminist analysis of media products should be done. Bourke’s readings of science fiction and fantasy novels, and her essays on such things as how literary canons are created, are both fun to read - Bourke has an engaging, easy style - and important to understanding where the genre, which I love dearly, has been and where it needs to go.
I have a certain fondness for reading collections of book reviews. Even reviews about books I haven’t read. There are two fundamentally wonderful things about reading good essays about books. The first is that, if one has read the book in question, it often gives you a deeper understanding of what you’ve read, which adds greatly to one’s enjoyment. The second is, that, if one has not read the book, it can lead you to a new friend, a new reading experience. Both pleasures were to be had in the essays of this volume, and considering the breadth of texts Bourke explores, I think most people will be able to say the same.
Bourke’s essays have reminded me of the brilliance of writers like Barbara Hambly and Kate Elliott, Nicola Griffith and Melissa Scott, reminded me that I’ve been meaning to read the books by authors like Jaqueline Koyanagi, Stina Licht, and Kameron Hurley that have been sitting in my TBR pile for far too long, and introduced me to authors whose work I’ve somehow missed entirely, like Violette Malan, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Susan Matthews. As I read, I found myself making notes to look online for a certain volume to acquire, or to move another one to a higher position on my TBR list, and if you decide to indulge yourself with this book, I think you will find yourself doing much the same.
I have a certain fondness for reading collections of book reviews. Even reviews about books I haven’t read. There are two fundamentally wonderful things about reading good essays about books. The first is that, if one has read the book in question, it often gives you a deeper understanding of what you’ve read, which adds greatly to one’s enjoyment. The second is, that, if one has not read the book, it can lead you to a new friend, a new reading experience. Both pleasures were to be had in the essays of this volume, and considering the breadth of texts Bourke explores, I think most people will be able to say the same.
Bourke’s essays have reminded me of the brilliance of writers like Barbara Hambly and Kate Elliott, Nicola Griffith and Melissa Scott, reminded me that I’ve been meaning to read the books by authors like Jaqueline Koyanagi, Stina Licht, and Kameron Hurley that have been sitting in my TBR pile for far too long, and introduced me to authors whose work I’ve somehow missed entirely, like Violette Malan, Nicole Kornher-Stace and Susan Matthews. As I read, I found myself making notes to look online for a certain volume to acquire, or to move another one to a higher position on my TBR list, and if you decide to indulge yourself with this book, I think you will find yourself doing much the same.