Fantasy and Science Fiction Reading List and Notes

The reading list below is for the Fantasy and Science Fiction course I'm taking at Coursera which so far looks like it's going to be the most vigorous course so far at an estimated 8-10 hours a week for 11 weeks. At least it's not for credit and I won't lose any money if I am not able to keep up at any point. Anyway, the specifics can be found upon login at Coursera, and links to the books that can be downloaded.

The real reason I created this post, however, is because I was struck by a section entitled "Reading Advice" written by the professor, Dr. Eric Rabkin.

"Reading Advice
Should you read the works for this course as they come up each week or in advance? Different people work best different ways. I like to read slowly, underline, write in the margins, and make up an index to a work when I've finished reading it. For me reading in advance often works nicely because I can, just before the moment when I need to discuss the work, review the underlinings and the index to fully refresh my memory and get an overview of the work. For other people, particularly those who don't take extensive notes, reading quite close to the moment of discussion or of writing about the work is crucial. I think individuals will need to judge for themselves which way to read for this course."

He also later states that one of the things a student will learn in this course is how to read more deeply. Lately, I've been considering that I need to read more closely, and I guess I had figured that "deeply" came along with closely, but after reading his advice and thinking about it for a bit longer, I don't think that's true. I need to approach literature and any text more closely AND more deeply. We can always become better, more thorough, readers.

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The Syllabus

1. Grimm — Children's and Household Tales
2. Carroll — Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass
3. Stoker — Dracula
4. Shelley — Frankenstein
5. Hawthorne & Poe — Stories and Poems
6. Wells — The Island of Dr. Moreau, The Invisible Man, "The Country of the Blind," "The Star"
7. Burroughs & Gilman — A Princess of Mars & Herland
8. Bradbury — The Martian Chronicles
9. LeGuin — The Left Hand of Darkness
10. Doctorow — Little Brother