prelim review: I love essay collections about pop culture. Be it about books, movies or tv shows I'm hooked. Alice in Wonderland, the books, terrify me. Actually with few exceptions the movies also terrify me. But this essay collection was intriguing and well thought out, with a lot of 'ah-ha!' moments (such as Alice rejecting the female ideal of her time period). ( )

This is another book in the Blackwell Philosophy of Pop Culture series. In this book, Alice’s adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass are used to discuss ideas in philosophy. I thought this would be a good book, given that almost everyone is familiar with the subject and many people have read one of the two. This book may well encourage you to reread them.

Since Lewis Carol was interested in logic and word games, that provides a lot of the material for this book. The queen, who sees time backwards and who wants to remove people’s heads, and Humpty Dumpty, who reserves the definition of words he uses to suit his immediate needs, along with many others, provide a wealth of fodder for these philosophers to help educate the reader in different philosophical ideas.

Many parts of the book were concerned mostly with logic, or the lack thereof. I found these sections a bit tedious with little new for those who are well-founded in logic.

Another large portion concerned language and words. Looking at what a language is, word definitions and context. Can you readily fix a language with dictionaries and grammars when they are always changing?

Other philosophers (in the collection), addressed feminism, social contracts and nuclear strategy. It is clear that Lewis Carol thought a lot on these ideas after seeing what these authors have found among the works.

These subjects make you rethink what you knew about the books. They are full of some interesting ideas that are lost on the young reader. The book has a lot of interesting information in small bites that make it easy to read and worth the time. ( )

This book came out right around the time the newest 'Alice in Wonderland' movie came out, I doubt a coincidence but it is still a welcome book. This book is a collection of stories, or essays if you will because of the non-fiction pieces, the delve into the minute details of the well loved story, 'Alice in Wonderland'.

The essays are each vastly different all taking on elements of the original story and giving different insights, historical facts, and other various tidbits. After reading this book I want to re-read the original story just so I can get a truly see with my own eyes what each of these writers were saying in their pieces. If you like 'Alice in Wonderland', please pick up this book, you won't regret it!

P.S. I also think the cover is very well done, and super cute. ( )

William Irwin's Alice in Wonderland and Philosophy: Curiouser and Curiouser (The Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series) was not what I was expecting or hoping it would be, so I admit from the outset that my less-than-favorable review might be attributed to the strong preference of one's hopes over openness to another's offering. The best thing I can say about this book is that it probably belongs on a list of supplemental reading material for the philosophy college major.

I agree with the other reviewer who said this collection was "uneven" and so I haven't assigned it a "star rating", it just seems like that wouldn't be fair. I had hoped that this would be a more serious examination of "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" and "Through the Looking Glass" from a philosophical perspective, but once I gave up on that notion it was an enjoyable enough read though disappointing and dry in spots.