ivymoon
2005-07-08 07:58 pm UTC (link)

I personally have never read any of them, but have you checked on amazon.com? Some of the books you can actually read passages from to see if it interests you and they all have at least one review (yes, I checked) from someone who has read them. I always say, if all else fails... check the reviews at Amazon. ;)

Hope that helps a little in the event that no one else has read them. It's better than nothing, right?

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	celtic_ankh 2005-07-09 07:34 pm UTC (link)
	Yeah, I did take a peek on Amazon actually, but I was hoping for some reviews from people I could harass into giving me details. ^^ Thanks, though. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	taliszanna 2005-07-09 12:32 pm UTC (link)
	Unfortunately, no, I have read none of those books. For about the past 5 years I haven't bought any new witchcraft-related books. This would be because of how disappointed and bitter I became towards the industry. After all, it is the same industry which supports Llewellyn Books. (Reply to this) (Thread)

celtic_ankh
2005-07-09 07:41 pm UTC (link)

After all, it is the same industry which supports Llewellyn Books.

I think that's a broad and rather silly generalization. People with no critical thinking skills support crap books - the book industry itself doesn't say "let's encourage this one publisher who doesn't generally put out very much that's good." Working in a major bookstore, I can attest to this basic retail fact: shit sells. If we as an audience demanded better books, we'd get them.

Having said that, not everything to fall out of Llewellyn is utter crap. A lot of it is, especially their Wicca books, but some of their other stuff is pretty good.

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taliszanna
2005-07-11 02:21 am UTC (link)

Hi. :)

I'm not talking about the book industry, I'm talking about the New Age/Neopagan industry, (which I consider the customers to be included in, since they end up writing the same trash that gets printed). This is not to say that I have read every book Llewellyn puts out. I'm far too unimpressed to bother with that company especially, at this point, to look into their "line-up" at this point.

Out of curiousity, what do you recommend as a good Llewellyn book? *sincere*

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celtic_ankh
2005-07-11 10:31 am UTC (link)

I still think we as consumers have the power to demand better product; good pagan/magic books still get printed, after all. Yes, a lot of crap gets printed as well, but that's because half the consumers are morons. *laughs* Industries are thoughtless critters - they just exist to make money. So if we spent our money on better product, they'd make more of it. In theory.

what do you recommend as a good Llewellyn book?

The Forest of Souls by Rachel Pollack remains the best tarot book I've ever read.

The Scared Magic of Ancient Egypt by Rosemary Clark. (so far anyhow - I've yet to finish it. That baby is dense.)

Embracing the Moon by Yasmine Galenorn is a shockingly decent text on witchcraft.

Monsters by John Michael Greer. Marvellous look at non-physical critters through the eyes of a CM.

Making Talismans by Nick Farrell is full of info. Not MY cup of tea personally, but still pretty good,

Magical use of Thought-Forms by Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki & J.H. Brennan is thus far very good and thought-provoking.

Those are some I own, anyhow. I've also heard good things about Simplified Qabala Magic and Tarot Shadow Work, for example. And let's not forget that Buckland's 'Big Blue' was published by Llewellyn.

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	taliszanna 2005-07-11 10:20 pm UTC (link)
	Guh. I hate Bucky's Big Blue. But the other titles have me intrigued... Hm. Thank you. :) I still think we as consumers have the power to demand better product I do agree here. (Reply to this) (Parent)