Paganism Persisting

Robin Douglas and Francis Young. Paganism Persisting: A History of European Paganisms since Antiquity (Exeter New Approaches to Legend, Folklore and Popular Belief. University of Exeter Press (8 October 2024)

Paganism in Europe was not defeated by Christianity: it never went away. From the fourth century to the twentieth, against the background of a largely Christian culture, people repeatedly attempted to revive various kinds of pre-Christian religion – beliefs and practices that we have come to label as ‘paganism’.

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Conjuring the Spirit World

David Copperfield, George Schwartz. Conjuring the Spirit World: The Art and Objects of Mediums and Magicians. Rizzoli International Publications (17 September 2024)

Spirits were in the air and the dead weighed heavily on the minds of Americans and Europeans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Mediums and magicians from Houdini to Margery the Medium delved into the supernatural and offered communication with the departed at seances and magic shows, two interrelated forms of popular culture that relied heavily on works of art. 

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Maps of Mystery

Evelyn Hollow. Atlas of Paranormal Places: A Journey to the World's Most Supernatural Places ‎ Ivy Press (5 September 2024)

Set out on a uniquely dark armchair journey and witness the shocking supernatural events, ghosts and unexplained phenomena that have captivated humankind for as long as we have told stories to each other, looked to the skies, and wondered whether we really are alone.

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Shukernature

Karl P.N. Shuker. ShukerNature (Book 4): Tijuana's Zebras, Turkana's Dancing Worms, and Other Impossible Blog Beasts. Coachwhip Publications (9 September 2024)

From quagga queries and a dancing worm debacle to hodag horrors and beastly bewilderment of the Gévaudan variety, veteran cryptozoologist Dr Karl Shuker is back with a fourth compendium of cryptid curiosities . . .

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Below the Deck

Caroline Diezyn The Pixie and the Sorcerers: The Untold Story of Pamela Colman Smith, Tarot, and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Repeater (11 December 2024)

Diezyn The Pixie and the Sorcerers: An investigation into the unsung tarot deck artist and creator of the Rider Waite Smith deck, Pamela Colman Smith, and her relationship with the secret society, the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. 

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Ghost Stories and Stories of Ghosts

Jay Gilbert. Haunted: Ghost Stories and Their Afterlives. Manilla Press (12 September 2024)

Part-chilling tale, part-memoir, part-cultural exploration, Haunted: Ghost Stories and Their Afterlives takes us through some of the most chilling and enduring ghost stories, and discusses what they reveal about the listener, the teller and the times we live in. 

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Today's Druids

Ethan Doyle White, Jonathan Woolley (Editors) Modern Religious Druidry: Studies in Paganism, Celtic Identity, and Nature Spirituality. Palgrave (2 September 2024

Over the past three decades, the academic study of modern Paganism has gone from strength to strength. Scholars now have access to a plethora of studies available on such new religions as Wicca, Heathenry, and the Goddess Movement - but despite its prominence, modern Druidry has been much neglected. 

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The Saucer Story

Greg Eghigian. After the Flying Saucers Came: A Global History of the UFO Phenomenon. ‎ OUP USA (3 September 2024)

In the summer of 1947, a private pilot flying over the state of Washington saw what he described as several pie pan-shaped aircraft traveling in formation at remarkably high speed. Within days, journalists began referring to the objects as "flying saucers." Over the course of that summer, Americans reported seeing them in the skies overhead. 

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Meeting the Monsters

Natalie Lawrence. Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meanings. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. (29 August 2024)

The hydra rears its many heads in a flurry of teeth and poisonous fumes. The cyborg lays waste to humanity with a ruthless, expressionless stare. From ancient mythology to modern science fiction, we have had to confront the monsters that lurk in the depths of our collective imagination. 

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"What's Wrong With You?"

Anna Bogutskaya. Feeding the Monster: Why Horror Has a Hold on Us. Faber & Faber (15 August 2024)

Horror has been embraced by mainstream pop culture more than ever before, with horror characters and aesthetics infecting TV, music videos and even TikTok trends. 

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Supernaturally Social

Simon Young and Davide Ermacora. (Editors) The Exeter Companion To Fairies, Nereids, Trolls And Other Social Supernatural Beings. Exeter University Press. (20 August 2024)

For centuries, Europeans believed in a parallel supernatural realm inhabited by these beings who lived much like humans in their own communities. This ‘social supernatural’ world mirrored ours with troll weddings, pixy battles, nereid picnics, dwarf migrations, and the like. 

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Maidens or Monsters?

Chantry Westwell. Maidens or Monsters? Amazons and Goddesses, Queens and Temptresses in Medieval Legend. British Library Publishing (22 August 2024)

Chantry Westwell has used her profound knowledge of the Library’s unrivalled Medieval and Renaissance illuminated manuscript collections to explore some of literature’s most enduring and multi-layered stories, together with the deep history of the books and chronicles in which they were first preserved. 

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Eastward Look, the Land is Scary

Edward Parnell (editor). Eerie East Anglia: Fearful Tales of Field and Fen. British Library Publishing. (22 August 2024)

A seaside honeymoon holiday is plagued by the mystery of bells which never stop ringing – and the uncanny force which answers the call. The echoes of undying druidic rites spell disaster at a Norfolk golf course. An ancient relic found on the Suffolk coast summons a relentless spectral pursuer to its discoverer.

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UFOs in my Life

Mike Fiorito. For All We Know: A UFO Manifesto.  Apprentice House (7 May 2024)

For All We Know is a literary excursion into the lived experience of the UFO phenomenon, interwoven into a tapestry of music, psychedelics and the flux-and-flow of everyday life. 

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Threatening Perceptions

Jacob-W-Glazier. Paranormal Ruptures: Critical Approaches to Exceptional Experiences. Beyond The Fray Publishing (12 September 2023)

The paranormal is more than just scary. It threatens our normal perceptions of reality and cuts to the core of human experience. This book and each individual chapter, in its own unique way, make this case by bringing together scientific research and scholarship from cultural and critical studies. 

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Alien Encounters

Jeremy Harte. Fairy Encounters in Medieval England; Landscape, Folklore and the Supernatural. University of Exeter Press. (3 September 2024)

What is it like to meet a being from another world? This book collects testimony from eight hundred years of witnesses baffled by the supernatural breaking into their lives. Close reading of miracle collections, chronicles, saints’ lives and sermons shows how they depended on first-hand vernacular voices, never quite suppressed in the Latin of the clergymen who transcribed them.

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Clashing Symbols

Keith Thompson. The UFO Paradox: The Celestial and Symbolic World of Unidentified Aerial Phenomena. Bear & Company (24 Aug. 2024) 

In case after case related to UFO encounters and other unknown aerial phenomena (UAP), the same impasse is reached: testimony from witnesses on one side, dismissive responses from the authorities on the other. 

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Deep Space

Nathalie A Cabrol.  The Secret Life of the Universe: An Astrobiologist's Search for the Origins and Frontiers of Life. Scribner. (13 August 2024)

One of the world's leading astrobiologists takes us on an awe-inspiring journey across the cosmos to investigate some of humanity's most profound questions: Are we alone in the universe? And, how did life on Earth begin? 

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The Green Children

John Clark. The Green Children Of Woolpit. Chronicles, Fairies and Facts in Medieval England. University of Exeter Press. (13 August 2024)

Two medieval chroniclers, William of Newburgh and Ralph of Coggeshall, reported the mysterious appearance of a pair of ‘Green Children’—with green skins and speaking an unknown language—in the Suffolk village of Woolpit in the mid-twelfth century. 

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The Dybbuk and Its Stories

Morris M. Faierstein. The Dybbuk, its Origins and History. SUNY Press. (June 2024)

The Dybbuk is the first comprehensive study of the historical and kabbalistic sources of the dybbuk phenomenon, from the first recorded case of dybbuk possession in Safed in 1571 onward. Dybbuk possession differs from possession by demons or Satan. 

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Tapestry of Tales

Dee Dee Chainey and Willow Winsham. The Treasury of Folklore. Batsford (1 August 2024)

An entertaining and enchanting collection of myths, tales and traditions surrounding the seas, skies and woodlands that make up our natural world. Enter an enchanting world where the mysteries of the seas, skies and woodlands come alive through shared myths, legends and folk tales. 

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