What a difference there is between reading paper copies of books over their digital counterparts!  I first read Alice in Wonderland on a kindle many years ago, whilst I didn't enjoy it much I could see it was a clever book,  I felt that Alice was a bit of an obnoxious brat who had no respect for anybody else.  Reading this beautiful Penguin clothbound version was a very different experience.  It was a joy to read, very clever usage of words and riddles and this time Alice came across as a girl with a smart imagination, somebody who finds joy in everything but who gets easily annoyed by the bizarre characters she finds herself hanging out with.  I especially enjoyed the Queen of Hearts this time, demanding everybody gets executed and then conveniently forgetting that fact when she needs some friends...I can see who President Trump has modelled himself on.

This was the first read through of Through The Looking Glass for me and it is ok, a very strange story.  Carroll being able to create a fantastical story based around a game of chess was impressive, I fear for the next person to challenge me to a game of chess cos I have found new rules in this book.

The longest part of this book was the introduction, it seemed to go on and on, way too in-depth to be included in this book.  It starts off quite shocking, the real life relationship between Alice and Carroll would raise all kinds of alarms these days,  it was very very dodgy and crazy that he got away with it.   

I have enjoyed this and I reckon that maybe Lewis Carroll was the father of Bizarro fiction, I certainly haven't read much that is crazier than this.

Blog review: felcherman.wordpress.com/2020/04/30/alices-adventures-in-wonderland-and-through-the-looking-glass-by-lewis-carroll/