Pondering Bookish Things; Or, Wearing Many Hats
So, I've been reading a lot of books over the last few years, and I've been writing reviews, researching for my PhD, and working on various award committees. I just wanted to take a few moments to talk through some of the difficulties of wearing these hats. When I write a review, I am reviewing a single book. I am looking at the characters, setting, writing, and possible socio-political implications of events and representation within that particular text. I'm not necessarily looking at the publisher's track record or the author's previous works, or even the larger body of work within a given genre or age-range. In my scholarly work, however, I am suddenly looking not only at representation in a single book, but also in terms of a larger context. In my particular field for instance, I read a lot of books featuring trans characters. I look not only at representation within a particular text, but also explore the implications of these representations in the larger...