Tagged “review”

1. Book Review - The Serviceberry, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

   Wed 08 Apr 2026 20:03 review

   Sometime last year, a friend of ours bought a copy of Robin Wall Kimmerer's The Serviceberry for one of my housemates. I'd just finished reading Braiding Sweetgrass so I was excited to read this newer book too. But life went as life tends to do and I forgot about it. Then, a month or so ago, I saw a copy of the book in the Little Free Library in front of my house.

   "Huh," I thought, "my housemate must've finished reading it and decided to share it on. Well, I want to read it, so I'll take it and put it back in the box when I'm done." I grabbed it, and asked if he'd finished and put it in next time I saw him.

   "Nope, got it right here," he said. "Gonna be sharing it with other folks."

   "Well then!" I replied. "I guess we have two copies! I'll extra-especially put this one back when I'm done!" I didn't know it yet, but we'd already been doing a wonderful job of just what the book describes.

2. Book Review - Psychic Witch, by Mat Auryn

   Fri 27 Feb 2026 19:32 review

   Sometimes I more-or-less know what I’m getting into when I start reading a book, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to read it. Mat Auryn’s Psychic Witch was one of those. It’s a Llewellyn book, meaning I knew that it was likely to have the same witchcraft 101 structure that I was extremely familiar with since before the whole market pivoted from the word “pagan” to the word “witch”. It also uses the word “psychic” which led me to expect even more new-age framings than usual in this sort of book. With a setup like that, you might expect this review to be a rough one. It’s not. Everything I said above is true about this book, but I also found enough valuable in it to be very glad I read it.

3. Book Review - Gods-Speaking, by Judith O'Grady

   Wed 08 Oct 2025 22:37 review

   Gods-Speaking is a book of thoughts on polytheism and ritual by Judith O’Grady, put out by Gods & Radicals Press, a small publishing group that put out a lot of really interesting stuff in the 2010’s relating to the intersections of paganism and leftist politics. This was around the time I was delving deep into pagan philosophy and polytheism, and I bought more books than I read. Now I feel like the beneficiary of my prior scatterbrainedness, since newly-written books of this sort are hard to find, but here was one waiting for me on my shelf.

4. Book Review - The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram

   Wed 30 Jul 2025 22:48 review

   To talk about this book, I have to talk about how I got it. Over the past few months I’ve been trying to make a habit of what I call “spirit walks”, walking around my neighborhood and really focussing on engaging my senses, listening to the world around me, and active visualization of the spirits and energies around me. At dusk on a day shortly before the Summer Solstice, I was on one of these walks that took me a bit further afield than my usual route. had been feeling capricious and energetic, and just kept walking north, saying goodbye to the day and hello to the night, and my attention was drawn to a Little Free Library that was built into a set of mailboxes. I usually make a point to peek into new ones when I notice them, so I did. It was a good haul at first glance; I found a book on urban homesteading that I knew one of my housemates would enjoy, and I noticed there was a second row of books behind the first. Then I got a very distinct and playful mental ping, just about as much “in words” as anything I’ve ever heard: “Look closer, you might find a nice surprise…” I looked, and I found a copy of Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram, a book that had been on my to-read list for ages, but never quite rose to the top. My response was an immediate, out loud, “You have got to be kidding me,” followed by gratefully taking the book and having a very happy walk home after the sunset.

5. Book Review - Elements of Magic, by Jane Meredith and Gede Parma (Editors)

   Mon 09 Jun 2025 22:35 review

   Elements of Magic is a book that I read on a whim, since I saw it on Kindle Unlimited (as many if not most Llewellyn books seem to be these days) when I was looking for a new pagan book to read. I’ve seen a lot of value in elemental work, and I’ve been curious about the Reclaiming tradition for a while, so it seemed like a good one to delve into. I’m glad I did; even though the book was certainly entry-level and not a perfect fit for my own practice, I still found helpful tidbits that made it worth the read.

6. Book Review - How to Read Nature, by Tristan Gooley

   Mon 05 May 2025 21:08 review

   This book is maybe a bit further afield of what I usually review in my spiritwork blog, but it felt like it fit well in with some of the things I’m focusing on this year. My read of Braiding Sweetgrass made me want to turn more attention to the world around me, and my morning ritual for the land spirits involves a thoughtful walk through our lush suburban neighborhood, which has made me want to understand better what the land is telling me. It also didn’t hurt that the book was a rather serendipitous find; my eyes just landed on it during an unplanned bookstore trip, and the above connections made me decide to pick it up.

7. Book Review - Liber Indigo, by Justin Kirkwood

   Wed 02 Apr 2025 19:35 review

   It felt like I came across Liber Indigo by chance, though it really may have been a good call by the YouTube algorithm (where the companion videos are posted). I was instantly intrigued; the subtitle “The Affordances of Magic” may just sound like word salad to many folks, but someone who works both in UX design and in magical practice, it jumped out at me as something combining both of my special interests. What I found wasn’t quite what I expected, but was still a very worthwhile excursion into esoteric thought.

8. Book Review - Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

   Mon 03 Mar 2025 22:06 review

   A year or two ago, it seems like everyone in my pagan circles was reading Braiding Sweetgrass, but it took me a while to get to it. Now, having read it, I’m sorry it took so long. This book struck me, challenged me, and inspired me. I can already feel how it’s reframing my approach to how I talk about and interact with the world around me. I only wish I hadn’t read it during a cold winter, since what it really made me want to do is go outside and sink my paws into the dirt.

9. Book Review - Visual Magick, by Jan Fries

   Mon 27 Jan 2025 22:09 review

   This weekend I finished reading Visual Magick, by Jan Fries, and I had enough thoughts about it that I thought I’d do a review, of sorts. This is an interesting one to review because one thing that became very clear while reading the book is that it’s not really “for me.” But that being said, I still came away from it with a lot of stuff that I found helpful and valuable, even if there was plenty of other stuff that made me roll my eyes or wince.

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