Fall publishing season is in full swing and so many new books are out this month. Let's do some mini-reviews of a few October new releases, shall we? Vanity Fair's Women on Women, edited by Radhika Jones with David Friend, October 29 This book is full of women who are not like anybody else --... Continue Reading →
Recipe for a Zombie: Science Immerses in Haitian Magic
Book review: The Serpent and the Rainbow, by Wade Davis Book Depository The Serpent and the Rainbow is a modern classic, a story that flirts with a deep-seated fear out of one of humanity's collective darkest nightmares - that of being buried alive, and of being raised to live as "undead". But the book isn't strictly... Continue Reading →
The Epicenter of Silly: Light Looks at Modern Magic and Magical Thinking
Book review: Not in Kansas Anymore, by Christine Wicker (Amazon / Book Depository) Forty years ago, when the current occult revival was beginning to gain strength, the wisest thinkers in the land predicted that faith in the supernatural was shriveling and would soon die back to insignificance. The scientific worldview demanded such a shift. Who could... Continue Reading →
Poison in the Sun King’s Paris
Book review: City of Light, City of Poison, by Holly Tucker (Amazon / Book Depository) In the late 1600s during the reign of Louis XIV, the Sun King, a network of witches, fortune tellers, apothecaries, priests, charlatans and magic and medicine people operated in the shadows of Paris. They provided desperate customers with the medicinal powders and... Continue Reading →