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What I Just Finished Reading
Witches Of America – Bridget Collins
Collins’ exploration of modern American witchcraft and ceremonial magic is far from comprehensive, but it hits some of the major names—Anderson, Crowley, Buckland, Budapest—and while Collins is certainly a tourist in these spaces, she’s not credulously or sneeringly so. This book straddles the line between anthropological study and personal spiritual memoir, which will frustrate readers who come to it looking for absolutes, be they value judgments of specific traditions or a conversion narrative with a definitive conclusion, but the volume makes for well written and engaging reading for all else.
Juniper – Monica Furlong
I love this book so much. It enthralled me when I first read it and now, years later, it still does. Only now I’m also able to appreciate Furlong’s eye for detail, deft characterizations, deep sympathy for her protagonists, careful foreshadowing, and vast imagination.
Also, that Leo and Diane Dillon cover.
The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
Twenty-six years after I first read it, this book is still everything I look for in a gothic romance.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Northern Fiddler – Allen Feldman & Eamonn O’Doherty
In their introduction, the authors reference “modern mass culture, particularly musical culture, with its vast passive audiences ministered to by artificial creations of the media,” the “passive cultural consumer, alienated by electronics,” and “the few performers chosen by promoters and the media to be the spokesmen for millions”...and this was published in 1979. Plus ça change.
Opium – John Halpern & David Blistein
I will have more to say on this one next week, once I’ve finished it. But for the time being: ugh.
The Half-Drowned Prince – Linnea Hartsuyker
I’m only a tenth of the way in, but so far Hartsuyker has done an admirable job of writing female characters who chafe at their social lot in life without crossing the line into anachronism.
The Ninefox Gambit – Yoon Ha Lee
Chapters eight through ten. The calendrical heresy thickens.
What I'm Reading Next
The weather is fast growing cooler and greyer, which prods me toward my seasonal comfort reads: Ciaran Carson, J.R.R. Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, Monica Furlong, and Martin Millar.
In other subjects, I am...not deeply enthusiastic for this year's Yuletide tag set, but will probably still sign up assuming I can meet the minimum request/offer requirements. We shall see come the 27th.
これで以上です。
Witches Of America – Bridget Collins
Collins’ exploration of modern American witchcraft and ceremonial magic is far from comprehensive, but it hits some of the major names—Anderson, Crowley, Buckland, Budapest—and while Collins is certainly a tourist in these spaces, she’s not credulously or sneeringly so. This book straddles the line between anthropological study and personal spiritual memoir, which will frustrate readers who come to it looking for absolutes, be they value judgments of specific traditions or a conversion narrative with a definitive conclusion, but the volume makes for well written and engaging reading for all else.
Juniper – Monica Furlong
I love this book so much. It enthralled me when I first read it and now, years later, it still does. Only now I’m also able to appreciate Furlong’s eye for detail, deft characterizations, deep sympathy for her protagonists, careful foreshadowing, and vast imagination.
Also, that Leo and Diane Dillon cover.
The Master of Blacktower – Barbara Michaels
Twenty-six years after I first read it, this book is still everything I look for in a gothic romance.
What I Am Currently Reading
The Northern Fiddler – Allen Feldman & Eamonn O’Doherty
In their introduction, the authors reference “modern mass culture, particularly musical culture, with its vast passive audiences ministered to by artificial creations of the media,” the “passive cultural consumer, alienated by electronics,” and “the few performers chosen by promoters and the media to be the spokesmen for millions”...and this was published in 1979. Plus ça change.
Opium – John Halpern & David Blistein
I will have more to say on this one next week, once I’ve finished it. But for the time being: ugh.
The Half-Drowned Prince – Linnea Hartsuyker
I’m only a tenth of the way in, but so far Hartsuyker has done an admirable job of writing female characters who chafe at their social lot in life without crossing the line into anachronism.
The Ninefox Gambit – Yoon Ha Lee
Chapters eight through ten. The calendrical heresy thickens.
What I'm Reading Next
The weather is fast growing cooler and greyer, which prods me toward my seasonal comfort reads: Ciaran Carson, J.R.R. Tolkien, Diana Wynne Jones, Susan Cooper, Monica Furlong, and Martin Millar.
In other subjects, I am...not deeply enthusiastic for this year's Yuletide tag set, but will probably still sign up assuming I can meet the minimum request/offer requirements. We shall see come the 27th.
これで以上です。