Alice In Space

The award-winning literary critic takes readers down the rabbit hole of Victorian cultural and intellectual influences on Lewis Carroll’s Alice books. In Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, Lewis Carroll created fantastic worlds that continue to live in the minds of readers today. Carroll conceived his Alice books during the 1860s, a time of intense intellectual upheaval, as new scientific, linguistic, educational, and mathematical ideas flourished around the world. Alice in Space explores these historic currents, revealing essential context for Carroll’s jokes, concerns, and hidden references. Parody and Punch, evolutionary debates, philosophical dialogues, educational works for children, math and logic, manners and rituals, dream theory and childhood studies—all fueled the fireworks of Carroll’s restless imagination. In this lively investigation, Gillian Beer convincingly shows him at play in the spaces of Victorian cultural and intellectual life, drawing on then-current controversies, reading prodigiously across many fields, and writing on multiple levels to please both children and adults in different ways. With a welcome combination of learning and lightness, Beer reminds us that Carroll’s books are essentially about the risks and pleasures of curiosity. Along the way, Alice in Space shares Alice’s exceptional ability to spark curiosity in us, too.

Going boldly forth as a pioneer in the fledgling field of space archaeology, Dr Alice Gorman (aka Dr Space Junk) turns the common perception of archaeology as an exploration of the ancient on its head. Her captivating inquiry into the most modern and daring of technologies spanning some 60 years — a mere speck in cosmic terms — takes the reader on a journey which captures the relics of space forays and uncovers the cultural value of detritus all too readily dismissed as junk. In this book, she takes a physical journey through the solar system and beyond, and a conceptual journey into human interactions with space. Her tools are artefacts, historical explorations, the occasional cocktail recipe, and the archaeologist’s eye applied not only to the past, but the present and future as well. Erudite and playful, Dr Space Junk reveals that space is not as empty as we might think. And that by looking up and studying space artefacts, we learn an awful lot about our own culture on earth. She makes us realise that objects from the past — the material culture produced by the Space Age and beyond — are so significant to us now because they remind us of what we might want to hold onto into the future. ‘As charming as it is expert, as gripping as it is surprising, Dr Space Junk vs The Universe deftly threads together the cosmic and the personal, the stupendousness of space with the lived experience of human beings down here.’ — Adam Roberts, author of Gradisil

Did you know that one of the first computers used water to solve equations? Or that the International Space Station orbits the Earth every 90 minutes? This book is packed with 101 eye-opening facts about all sorts of advanced machines, from computers to cars, and from spaceships to medical devices. The perfect book for kids aged 8+ who want to know more about the world of the future.

Longair (Astronomer Royal, Scotland; Lewis Carroll fan) explains the nature, capabilities, and mission of the Hubble Space Telescope, scheduled for launch into Earth orbit in 1990. Suitable for junior high and high school. Well illustrated. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

An examination of Carroll's books about Alice explores the contextual knowledge of the time period in which it was written, addressing such topics as time, games, mathematics, and taxonomies.

New essays engaging with the developing field of literary geography to devote attention to the regional settings of Munro's stories and how they affect her characters' development or stasis.

In search of the mysterious element known as aether, Claire Dulac flew her hot air balloon toward the edge of our stratosphere—and never returned. Her husband, genius engineer Archibald Dulac, is certain that she is forever lost. Her son, Seraphin, still holds out hope. One year after her disappearance, Seraphin and his father are delivered a tantalizing clue: a letter from an unknown sender who claims to have Claire’s lost logbook. The letter summons them to a Bavarian castle, where an ambitious young king dreams of flying the skies in a ship powered by aether. But within the castle walls, danger lurks—there are those who would stop at nothing to conquer the stars. In Castle in the Stars, this lavishly illustrated graphic novel, Alex Alice delivers a historical fantasy adventure set in a world where man journeyed into space in 1869, not 1969.