The Frumious Consortium hunts bandersnatches as a day job, and writes book reviews in the evenings. We come from a wide-range of places, ranging from Venezuela to New Zealand to Germany to the United States.
Word Origin and History for frumious – adj. 1871, coined by Lewis Carroll, who said it was a blend of fuming and furious. He used it in both “Jabberwocky” and “The Hunting of the Snark” (1876).
As a group, we are fond of pie.
Al Singh
Doug Merrill
Doreen Sheridan
John Pitzel
Lars N. Goldschlager
Laura Eilers
Professor X
Robert Maedgen
Sylvere Ap Leanan
The Shire
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Yay!
Thank you for the introduction, am glad to know y’all are here!
Belated howdy! Glad you had a look in!
HellO! I just discovered you and would love to know more of the history of your blog. For what age ranges do you review books, just kids? YA? Or adult, too? How long have you been together contributing reviews? What is the history behind your gathering/creation? I would love to share with my students (I teach a children’s literature graduate course) but want to ensure you’ll be around for a while so I can also include you in the children’s literature textbook I just completed for Bloomsbury (coming Aug. 2025). Can I get a bit more information?
Hi there!
Doreen reviews most of the books for young people, so an answer from her on the topic will be more definitive than one from me. Her recent reviews have included both children’s and YA. The tag cloud in the right-hand column can take you directly to reviews on a particular topic, including children’s and Young Adult.
I mostly review books for adults, with tendencies toward the history of Central and Eastern Europe, science fiction & fantasy, and German literature. But also whatever strikes my fancy.
Frumious started in 2014 as more of a collective — friends of our late founder Laura Eilers who had things to say, especially about books — but many of the authors have since drifted into other projects and hobbies. Doreen also reviews (mainly mysteries and thrillers) professionally at Criminal Element. The two of us have been steadily writing reviews for nearly 10 years now, so I think it’s fair to say that we are as likely as anyone to be around for a while. And you needn’t worry that upper management will try to replace us with LLMs.