Book Hauls!

[j. d. worthington]

No, I've not read that one and, given my reading of that set of Irving, I really ought to. I'm also curious about that Trevor-Roper book -- any idea of its value on the subject? (That is: how well researched, written, etc.?)

[Connavar]

Space Captain Smith by Toby Frost

I thought i was done with book hauls but when i saw a brand new copy of that book for pennies in second hand bookstore....

OMG im becoming Gollum

[dask]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

I'm also curious about that Trevor-Roper book -- any idea of its value on the subject? (That is: how well researched, written, etc.?)

Not yet. I'll look it over and see what it says.

[dask]

Originally Posted by j. d. worthington

I'm also curious about that Trevor-Roper book -- any idea of its value on the subject? (That is: how well researched, written, etc.?)

Originally Posted by dask

Not yet. I'll look it over and see what it says.

Actually it looks pretty good. First off he's a professor so that's a good sign. It doesn't have a bibliography but along with a well-rounded index it has no shortage of those thick, formidable footnotes historians love to use when they have so much scholarly material they can't seamlessly work it into the text. Most annoying is the title, which seems to indicate this is a collection of essays when in fact it's the first four chapters of a larger work, THE CRISIS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: RELIGION, THE REFORMATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE. Not quite the critter you'd expect to creep out of Grub Street.

[j. d. worthington]

It does sound interesting, and I really ought to look it up. I know that there are still plenty of debates about what lay behind the Salem witchcraft panic, and it has long been debunked that it was simply an outbreak of superstitious hysteria but rather had many sociological as well as environmental dimensions which made such a thing almost unavoidable, sooner or later. Add to this the possibility (which has also been hotly disputed by several historians) of ergot poisoning, and you'd really have a nasty cauldron brewing. It is certainly interesting to compare something like this with Cotton Mather's Wonders of the Invisible World....

[GOLLUM]

Originally Posted by Connavar

OMG im becoming Gollum

You'll have to stand in queue behind the other impersonators first....

On a side note I am planning on tracking down a copy of Hammett's Red Harvest, although I still think Chandler is the better writer...

Good night.

[Fried Egg]

Just picked up a couple of bargins in a charity book shop:

"Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" by Kate Wilhelm
"Gateway" by Frederik Pohl

[J-Sun]

Originally Posted by Fried Egg

Just picked up a couple of bargins in a charity book shop:

"Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang" by Kate Wilhelm
"Gateway" by Frederik Pohl

Are these first reads or just new copies? If the former, have fun with Gateway - I didn't care for the Wilhelm (though many people think highly of that award-winning work), but the Pohl is a true classic.

[Fried Egg]

Originally Posted by J-Sun

Are these first reads or just new copies? If the former, have fun with Gateway - I didn't care for the Wilhelm (though many people think highly of that award-winning work), but the Pohl is a true classic.

I've not read either before.

[D_Davis]

Originally Posted by J-Sun

Are these first reads or just new copies? If the former, have fun with Gateway - I didn't care for the Wilhelm (though many people think highly of that award-winning work), but the Pohl is a true classic.

I agree. Love Gateway, which was a lot different than what I expected. Didn't like Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang at all.

[No One]

Another haul for my SF Masterworks series. Oh the pride of seeing a budding collection...

A Scanner Darkly - Philip K. Dick
Ubik - Philip K. Dick
The Centauri Device - M. John Harrison
The Space Merchants - Pohl & Kornbluth

Add to that Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, which I picked up a few weeks ago, and I now have nine unread Masterworks. Yummy.

[Extollager]

Originally Posted by dask

Actually it looks pretty good. First off he's a professor so that's a good sign. It doesn't have a bibliography but along with a well-rounded index it has no shortage of those thick, formidable footnotes historians love to use when they have so much scholarly material they can't seamlessly work it into the text. Most annoying is the title, which seems to indicate this is a collection of essays when in fact it's the first four chapters of a larger work, THE CRISIS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: RELIGION, THE REFORMATION AND SOCIAL CHANGE. Not quite the critter you'd expect to creep out of Grub Street.

Looks like T-R's got it right, that the witchcraft mania was not a medieval thing (contra what a lot of people think) but a post-Reformation-era thing.

I don't know if we have any adherents of the idea of the "Great Burning" of 9 million witches here, but while this idea is attractive to some for ideological reasons, it is not good history. Also in error is the idea, which has been held even by scholars, of extremely high rates of conviction and execution for witchcraft. Interested persons might check The New York Review of Books for 12 August 1992. For example, according to Steven T. Katz (Dept. of Near Eastern Studies, Cornell), "in Spain, out of 4,000 witch trials heard by the Inquisition between 1550 and 1750, there were 11 death sentences." An interesting 2-part article by Norman Cohn appeared in the much-missed British magazine Encounter, "Was There Ever a Society of Witches" (Dec. 1974) [no], and "Three Forgeries: Myths and Hoaxes of European Demonology" (Jan. 1975). An article that might be of interest in Jacqueline Simpson's "Margaret Murray: Who Believed Her, and Why?" in the journal Folklore 105:1 (1994). Simpson has been president of the Folklore Society and, by the way, contributed stories and articles to Rosemary Pardoe's fanzine for the M. R. James tradition, Ghosts and Scholars; I'm quite fond of Simpson's "Three Padlocks."

There is a recent reference book that probably deserves attention by those interested in these matters, William Burns' Witch Hunts in Europe and America: An Encyclopedia, reviewed favorably in the (London) Times Literary Supplement 13 Feb. 2004.

Just some stray notes from someone who doesn't really have an interest in these things but notices items of interest from time to time.

[j. d. worthington]

Some of those sound right down my alley, Dale. I'll have to look them up when (if) I get the chance....

Larry Roberts of Bloodletting/Arcane Wisdom Press sent me a copy of an early publication of theirs, Ouroboros, by Michael Kelly & Carol Weekes. In his letter to me he says, in part: "It is a spooky little Southern ghost story that I think you'll enjoy. The authors are not well known but I think if they can continue to put out this quality of fiction that it won't be long until they are recognizable name[s] in the genre".

The book certainly looks beautiful, and very intriguing, so I may have to make room for it in my schedule soon....

[Connavar]

Im on a lucky break when it comes to second hand hauls. It seems like books i want keep falling in my lap.


A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
The King's Gold by Arturo Pèrez-Reverte
The Profissional by Robert. B Parker
Litteraturvetenskap - en inledning( A literary science course book) by Staffan Bergsten.

The literary science book was the reason i went to the chain bookstore i never go to and got lucky with 3 cheap exciting impulse buys

[thatollie]

Desolation Road - Ian McDonald
We Who Are About To - Joanna Russ
The Light Fantastic - Terry Pratchett