This is a fascinating history of religion in Europe. It would have easily been a five star read for me, were it not for the fact that some of the infoThis is a fascinating history of religion in Europe. It would have easily been a five star read for me, were it not for the fact that some of the information is sorely outdated now. The book functions well as an overview of pagan practices, although now and again the authors will drop a proverbial bombshell that is never elaborated on. Think of it as a vast introduction to a variety of cultures and belief systems than its own in-depth history.
The book is divided into sections based upon geography rather than time. It omits middle eastern practices for the most part, which is a bit of a shame since the Scythians did have a rather large impact upon a variety of peoples. Each geographic area is divided into two chapter chunks focusing upon the early history of the region, and then the later history. Think Rome, and then the Roman Empire. This allows for a decent amount of time in each area, with the notable exception of the Baltic and Russian area due to the fall of the Soviet Union being so recent to when the book was written - it was a bit too difficult to research at that time.
I learned a great deal from this book. So close to finishing it, one of my main takeaways was how interesting Lithuanian indigenous beliefs are and how badly I want to learn more about them. One of the big areas I found the book lacking was in the Celtic section, although arguably I might feel that way solely for having so recently read works by Miranda Aldhouse-Green so it's all a bit fresh in my mind.
So, all in all, a very good book that will serve as a useful gateway for you to explore any area that might be of particular interest to you. It can be a bit dry, but never overbearingly so. Also, look elsewhere if you want a history of modern Pagan beliefs as this book came out right when neo-paganism was truly beginning in earnest so there are more up to date histories elsewhere....more
The Kaiju Preservation Society. If that title doesn't grab you, what would? I can't imagine anyone who wasn't rivetedThis was such a delightful book!
The Kaiju Preservation Society. If that title doesn't grab you, what would? I can't imagine anyone who wasn't riveted by Godzilla, King Kong, or Pacific Rim not absolutely devouring this book. I know I did. I was delighted from the first page to the last, even as it resulted in me wincing a bit by how real some of it was - taking place as it did during the Pandemic.
This book is pretty much a remedy for all of those Pandemic blues. Our main character, Jaime, was laid-off during the Pandemic and desperate for a job. Luckily, they had a friend in the KPS who was one person short for their team... so in Jaime went. Over the course of the book we get to see just how kind people can be, even in the face of forces desiring them to do wrong. We get a wonderful bit of speculative biology for how kaiju might work, and we get to be thrust into some hilariously fun action adventure romps.
It's great. It's escapism at its purest and most fun, and I'm really glad we got to read it for book club.
I am being generous with my stars. This book is more around a 3.5 from me, but I'd rather round up than round down since I genuinely enjoyed this readI am being generous with my stars. This book is more around a 3.5 from me, but I'd rather round up than round down since I genuinely enjoyed this reading experience.
I'm not typically a reader of romance, let alone historical fantasy romance, but after a brief adjustment period I really got into the book. I found the characters well written, and with compelling depth and motivations behind their actions. The depiction of being LGBT during the time period felt well done to me. In particular, I found the magical world that was created a particularly good one. There was good attention paid to how magic would be treated based upon class and gender within Victorian society, which created some good discussions between the members of my book club.
While I agree with other reviewers that I badly want to hear more about what happened with the four girls sixty years prior to the events of this book, I genuinely think more of that has potential to be revealed. I trust the author, and will be following them with interest.
I also genuinely want to read more in this genre. It was such a delight! ...more
The Green Knight is a favorite story of mine, as it is for many people interested in folklore and the occult. There is so much to dig into wiGorgeous.
The Green Knight is a favorite story of mine, as it is for many people interested in folklore and the occult. There is so much to dig into with this story. Even before Gawain goes off to find the Green Chapel with the pentagram emblazoned on his shield you know you're in for a treat. There's the Celtic cult of the head there, the beheading game, the friction between nature and man - not to mention simply man's own nature and the dictates of society. There is just so much. All of this, all of this is wrapped up in the most beautifully compelling rhyming scheme.
Even now the words jump off the page and paint the most vivid pictures. Even now you can laugh at the jokes, and be bewildered by some of the more baffling aspects of it all. Gawain's speech to the the Lady of the Castle in particular and just what it might mean. Proto-Feminist poem? Pure misogyny? It's as baffling as The Taming of the Shrew and can be taken so many ways.
This translation is extremely accessible and beautiful. It's electrifying, and some passages are just begging to be read aloud. I was happy to read this for my book club and I hope that all my friends that read it also enjoyed it. Thank you for the recommendation, Rachael. ...more
The Body Fantastic, Frank Gonzalez-Crussi’s new book from MIT Press, implores the reader to move away from Cartesian Dualism to an understanding of the body through the concept of Valery’s Fourth, or quantum, body. Our conception of our bodies, Gonzalez-Crussi argues, is not solely informed by its mechanical functions or how others see us. Our corporeality instead is partially moulded by our native folklores, history, and myriad other influences we encounter and absorb throughout our lives.
Every chapter is dedicated to a different part of the human body, although not necessarily the parts one might expect. Reams of paper have been dedicated to the heart and the brain, after all, but what of the stomach? What of saliva and urine, hair and feet? And in spite of us all having once spent time in the uterus, it seems to be a distressingly underexplored subject of folkloric study - but this book delves deep into the past where it was once considered a sentient animal and the source of all female thought.
Gonzalez-Crussi intersperses his medical history with fascinating asides, and uses the many varied parts of our bodies to better understand ourselves and our place in the universe. While one might expect a discussion on the uterus to devolve into sexism in medical practice, one would less expect it to reveal Casanova to be outed as an early champion of women’s rights. Similarly, discussions of disordered eating end up showing the excesses of American culture. The feet pave the way for discussions on death, foot fetishes in the 1500s, and the development of literary fairy tales. Through a discussion of orality Gonzalez-Crussi examines why we are drawn to eat food that hurts us and what that might say about both our psychology and our cultural conceptions of masculinity.
As a long time reader of books on both medical history and folklore I was both delighted and surprised by how much of this book was completely new to me. Gonzalez-Crussi draws from unique and numerous primary sources -- most would know about the man who ate a plane over the course of two years and the gluttinos Tarrare, but how many would know about Madame D’Aulnoy’s travels in Spain in the 1500s and the Spanish court’s manifold rituals surrounding feet? Likewise, people are fairly familiar with the practice of urine therapy these days - but how many are familiar with the Roman’s obsession with saliva as a healing salve and its connections to early Christianity?
I cannot recommend this book enough. While the book is a treasure trove of information, it is not a difficult one to read unless you are particularly squeamish. I guarantee that the book will contain information you’ve not read before, and that it will fascinate and delight any new reader. It is impossible to come away from it without a new curiosity about the most familiar thing to all of us: our own body....more
I don't care that people find it boring, I thought it was riveting from start to finish. I fell into the world like sThis book was like catnip for me.
I don't care that people find it boring, I thought it was riveting from start to finish. I fell into the world like slipping into bed at the end of a difficult day. It was soothingly familiar and fascinatingly different. It was the progenitor of so much of present Nerd Culture, and it did it better than so many of the later attempts to capture that lightning in a bottle. Sci-Fi Exodus? Oh, it's that, too. The ecological and esoteric angles of it were riveting to me and kept me engaged and have me wanting to read the rest of the series now.
I badly want to see just how strange it all gets and how deeply embedded mycology is to the whole thing.
And, yes, there are problems with the book but you know what? There aren't as many problems with it as I found with, say, GRRM's work or like... almost all scifi/fantasy in the 70s and 80s. So hey, that counts for something, doesn't it? ...more
Reading this book in 2021 was quite a different experience to what reading it when it first came out must have been. We're in the midst of a pandemic Reading this book in 2021 was quite a different experience to what reading it when it first came out must have been. We're in the midst of a pandemic now, and with the protests that rocked the United States last year the entire narrative hits with a potency that I'm not sure any of us really saw coming. Or maybe Joe Hill did. He's like that, you know.
A plague has hit not just the United States, but the entire world and altered it completely. Mycological in nature, it causes people to ignite seemingly at random into flames and the whole world is burning up. Our protagonist is a nurse, and has recently become infected herself. She joins a group or erstwhile survivors who claim to have discovered a way to work with the infection rather than against it and have never seen a single member burst into flames. This is where she meets The Fireman. Things... go from there, as they tend to in small groups. Everything has to fall apart at some point, right?
This book is gorgeous and heartbreaking. It broke my heart at multiple points at least. Nevertheless, it still burns bright in my mind and I want more.
I just also want to ask Hill to his face how he could possibly break my heart as deeply as he did with this one. ...more
Picture TITLE: Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797-18My review of this book originally appeared on The Folklore Podcast's website.
Picture TITLE: Gothic Chapbooks, Bluebooks and Shilling Shockers, 1797-1830 AUTHOR: Franz J. Potter PUBLISHER: University of Wales Press ISBN: 9781786836700 PODCAST EPISODE: None REVIEWER: Hilary Wilson
Gothic Chapbooks, Blue Books, and Shilling Shockers, 1797 - 1830 by Franz J. Potter is part of the Gothic Literary Studies series by University of Wales Press. This groundbreaking series offers readers the most up-to-date scholarship concerning both Gothic literature and film. Every volume of this series focuses upon questioning the traditional views of the genre through studying how issues such as gender, religion, nation and sexuality have informed previous studies as well as the public perception of the genre itself. The series is invaluable for anyone deeply interested in the field.
In the latest entry in the series, Franz J. Potter explores the often overlooked importance of the Gothic chapbook in detail. He contextualizes chapbooks as the powerhouses of popular culture that they were when first issued, and explores how their popularity waxed and waned throughout the years. Potter places these publications firmly within the context of the time in which they were written and through a careful analysis of their development, marketing, distribution, and eventual decline in popularity asserts their importance in the history and future of Gothic Studies. Furthermore, in the latter section of the book, Potter treats readers to well-researched biographies of the most important publishers, booksellers, and writers of these chapbooks and details how their positions within society affected their legacy within popular studies of this genre.
This is the first in-depth study of chapbooks published since the 1960s, and it corrects the errors that had been perpetuated by its predecessor as well as compiling decades worth of new knowledge. The book is carefully sourced throughout, and indeed nearly half of the pages make up the appendices and sources. The largest appendix is, perhaps unsurprisingly, an accounting of every currently known chapbook–who wrote it and where it was written, as well as where it is currently held today. This resource will prove invaluable for those who wish to study the contents of the actual pamphlets themselves.
One of the most interesting aspects of the book was the analysis of how class and sex affected the way that chapbooks were viewed both in their own time as well as by later scholars. Chapbooks were primarily marketed to the lower class, and some of the most prominent known writers and publishers were women; these two facts in conjunction have caused them to be disparaged rather than properly studied despite the fact that they have influenced Gothic literature up to the modern day.
This book is a must for anyone studying this truly fascinating field, and would be an invaluable addition to any academic library. The Appendix alone will aid in future studies of these chapbooks and their contents, and hopefully will aid the particularly intrepid folklorists who hope to scour the texts to uncover undiscovered spells or forgotten local legends. ...more
Akwaeke Emezi has created a world in which the good guys, called angels, have won and monsters no longer exist. No more brutality or racism, sexiPet.
Akwaeke Emezi has created a world in which the good guys, called angels, have won and monsters no longer exist. No more brutality or racism, sexism or hate. This is the perfect town of Lucille and you don't need to worry anymore. The monsters are all gone, being rehabilitated and taken care of. We can move forward in love now that the revolution is over and live our best lives. Right? Right...?
That's not what Pet says.
What do you do if you're a kid and you know that there is a monster out there, a monster that might be hurting your very best friend? What kind of choices do you make, and how do you make the right ones so that your friend can be safe and your friendship not hurt? Or your relationship with your parents, who firmly believe the monsters are all gone?
Pet is a book about a difficult topic. The topic is only alluded to carefully, with language that is age appropriate and easy to understand. It's still, man, a hell of a book. It was difficult to read at times, but the writing was riveting enough to keep me fully engaged in spite of wanting to look away now and then. Akwaeke Emezi's language is brilliant and their mind a truly glorious thing. I want to read more of their books, and am just absolutely on the edge of my seat for the prequel to this one that's coming out soon.
Pet would be a hard book for me to recommend to kids, but it's a very necessary one considering that we do still live in a world with monsters in it.
Can't wait to see what else this particular publishing imprint releases, too....more
The Final Girl Support Group is exactly what it says on the tin. The book answers the question that perhaps you've already asked before. What happens after the crazed slasher is killed and only the final girl remains? Does she go back to her day to day life, or is it too hard to integrate back into society? The killer is dead (or is he?) after all... at least until the sequel. Then what, if she has to go through it twice? Well, according to Hendrix, they form a support group. They do the best they can.
Lynette is our final girl in question, and she is a bit of a mess. Sure, she's not on drugs like Heather is after her experience with the Dream King. She's not in denial about what she went through like others are either. She's doing her best, at least until the killings start again... and someone seems to be focused on picking off the final girls. Then again, she is a paranoid mess. Who will believe her?
This book goes quickly.
It's not as hardhitting as Hendrix's other works, and I agree with other readers who think this book might have been in the works since the early 2010s. That having been said? It's still a worthy addition to Grady Hendrix's output and something I enjoyed greatly. I just breezed through it, unable to put it down. I think you will, too. ...more
Rachael prescribed this book to me, and everyone else, shortly after finishing it. It took me a little while to get to it - but I am so very happy thaRachael prescribed this book to me, and everyone else, shortly after finishing it. It took me a little while to get to it - but I am so very happy that I did.
This book is an absolute delight. Like The Kaiju Preservation Society it is a delightful escape from the horrors of the world we presently live in. While KPS works to entertain in the way an action adventure movie might, A Psalm For the Wild-Built does the same thing in a much gentler way. It eases you away from modern society and into the wilds of nature, while also allowing you to wonder about your place in it all.
KPS is about letting you learn to be part of a community and that community still matters. A Psalm for the Wild-Built lets you know that you, just being you, is enough. It is a book about self-acceptance, and about learning to understand the world around you and yourself through that. It is beautiful and as comforting as a fresh mug of tea on a cool autumn morning.
This book was precisely what I needed, and I think I'll be returning to it time and time again. It easily slid into my favorites, and I found myself tearing up thinking about it now and again. Just a gorgeous little philosophical book that will warm your heart and leave you thinking about what you owe to others around....more
This book pairs well with The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaVelle and further cements the following notion that that book first put in my mind: HThis book pairs well with The Ballad of Black Tom by Victor LaVelle and further cements the following notion that that book first put in my mind: H.P. Lovecraft focused/inspired stories are best when they directly address race issues. Race was a prominent theme in Lovecraft's cosmic horror, the entire notion of the unspeakable Other itself more or less the notion of race itself, to the point that when you strip it out the narratives fall apart to a strong degree. LaVelle, and now Ruff, both address that entire idea head-on. Their books are better for it.
Lovecraft Country is a collection of novellas that together form the story of a family during the Civil Rights era in the American South. The stories stitch together neatly, although each has a different protagonist, and together paint a picture that is both terrifying and all too real. The Lovecraftian influence is more slight than I at first expected, as so many of the horrors are human and believable even with the cosmic trappings. There are stories with the topics as simple as the difficulty of getting a house (complete with a racist ghost). The stories skew back through time, albeit not all that far. There are questions of bloodlines and ancestry, of sex in addition to race.
I'm curious as to how the HBO show measures up to the book, as I did really enjoy the book. I've been told it's more difficult to watch than read - think First Episode of Watchmen difficult - but it's something I'm really curious about all the same.
It's a good read, and I'm glad I took the time to read it. ...more
I expected this book to be a parody of Harry Potter after everything that went down with Rowling over the past few years. Something satirLove is Real.
I expected this book to be a parody of Harry Potter after everything that went down with Rowling over the past few years. Something satirical and something funny, the normal fare of the esteemed Dr. Chuck Tingle. Even though I've previously read his stories and knew his penchant for hard hitting sincerity and sweetness, good messages and surprisingly heartwrenching moments... I still wasn't expecting it with this book.
I was very much proven wrong.
Harriet Porber is a surprising tour-de-force. It's a touching story about a wizard spell-creator who is afraid she's nothing more than a one hit wonder getting back in touch with her creativity, and a bad boy bard finding out that there is more to life than he expected. It's a love story, and has all the trappings of the typical romance tropes but acknowledges them all through the clever use of... meta magic. It's also a bit of a mystery with a few moments of surprisingly taut suspense that makes me rather excited to read Straight at some point later this year.
Harriet Porber hit me harder than I expected, and I'm really happy that I got to read it along with my book club. I'm eagerly anticipating reading Chuck's horror novel and his sequel to this one at some point later this year and continuing to follow his career with baited breath. There's no other author out there quite like Chuck, and the world is a much brighter place for him existing in it.
My Heart is a Chainsaw was a book chosen for my book club back in 2021 when it first came out. No one else in the club reaOh, this is just fantastic.
My Heart is a Chainsaw was a book chosen for my book club back in 2021 when it first came out. No one else in the club really stuck with it, I don't think, but it was itching at the back of my mind even as we moved on to other things. So I waited... patiently... and when given a chance picked it up again. Cue reading it until I could no longer keep my eyes open. Cue sinking my teeth back into it immediately upon waking the next day, cursing myself for not starting it earlier the day before so it could've been digested in a single sitting. Yeah, it's that type of book.
It begins a bit slowly, but man when it picks up does it pick it. It isn't holding back any punches, either. It hits hard and it hits fast and it hits you where it hurts - only laying off just long enough for you to think you're safe before landing another blow right into that soft spot once more to make sure that you feel it nice and good. So, yeah. That final chapter made me cry a lot. It's going to stick with me a long, long time. Like every good book should.
Jade is an amazing protagonist and one I saw a lot of myself in. I felt her. I felt her, maddeningly, even when I most desperately didn't want to feel her. I felt all of the love and trust and adoration she put in a teacher. I felt the resentment she had towards others, towards herself, towards the town. I felt her obsession and saw it mirrored so much in my own life in so many ways.
Thank you, Stephen Graham Jones, for bringing us Jade and Letha and Mr. Holmes and Hardy and all the rest. Thank you for this book, and for all of the rest. I feel so lucky to be living in a time where I get to read it all.
Riley Sager has done it again, another incredibly quickly paced book that I just couldn't put down. Another book that is a solid 3-stars from me. I'm Riley Sager has done it again, another incredibly quickly paced book that I just couldn't put down. Another book that is a solid 3-stars from me. I'm enjoying these books a ton, and they seem perfectly suited for my little book club.
Survive the Night is what it says on the tin. Charlie's roommate Maddy has become the latest victim of the Campus Killer at Olyphant University. In spite of her relationship with Robbie, Charlie just can't stay one more night. So she accepts a ride home with Josh, a virtual stranger she met at the board at university. When things take a dark turn in the car can she survive the night? It'll take all of her strength and wits, but all she's really got is some solid movie know how...
This is like a Hitchcock movie montage. We have the least reliable narrator imaginable, and an ever-shifting cast of strange characters to contend with. Nobody is who they seem to be, least of all our narrator. The pace is quick - many chapters ending on cliffhangers - so you just kind of tear through the pages.
It's a fun read, although likely far less of a fun read for any unfamiliar with the movies being referenced.
My friend Rachael has been trying to get me to read T. Kingfisher for an astonishingly long time. The first time I tried to take the dive into readinMy friend Rachael has been trying to get me to read T. Kingfisher for an astonishingly long time. The first time I tried to take the dive into reading Kingfisher's work, I had an difficult time finding any copies of her books. They were always checked out from the library, what few books they had. It was such a pain... I'm really glad we decided to run this book for the book-club. The only downside is that now I want to read more.
The Hollow Places is, in essence, an updated version of The Willows by Algernon Blackwood. It's that delicious type of weird fiction that gets under your skin. Things are wrong, but you can't entirely put your finger on why. By the time you can, it very well might be too late.
Kingfisher's writing feels a bit like sliding into a conversation on AIM or Discord with a friend. It's conversational, and familiar enough that by the time the twists and turns get you you've been lulled into a false sense of security. It all creeps up on you, and that's just the way I like it. Her characters were extremely relatable, and by the end of the book I was a bit disheartened that I couldn't visit the museum of Wonder and Glory to God in Hog's Chapel. Then again, such museums are all over the place as Kingfisher says. Just have to find the odd nooks of the world yourself now and then, or make your own.
All of this is to say, I've another favorite author to add to my list. Can't wait to read more!!...more
I reserve five star ratings for books that are either especially well written and intriguing, or books tThis is an odd five star book from me, I know.
I reserve five star ratings for books that are either especially well written and intriguing, or books that manage to significantly affect my perspective of the world around me. Invisible Women did an incredibly good job of highlighting the problems that face women within the modern world around us. Whether medical, social, political, or simply practical - this book manages to address them all in concise and compelling ways.
This book managed to explain not only the problems that women face, but why particular problems exist and how to best combat them. While the changes that need to happen are widespread and not exactly easy, at the very least there is a good path forward. It was interesting to see how even things such as public transport and snow-clearing schedules can impact women more than man, not to mention problems like luxury taxes upon female sanitation products - the fact those are still not given away for free as condoms are is terrible.
This book made me think, and I appreciate it for that. I'll likely be picking up some long overdue Roxane Gay in the coming months to further fill in this blindspot in my reading patterns. I appreciate Tori for recommending this title to me....more
Hilary "Fox"
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