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New & Soon To Be Published Books

I'm not sure what's going on with the price. £205.00 is absurd even for a (non-technical) academic publication. I expect to see it change.

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The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror offers a comprehensive guide to this popular genre. It explores its origins, canonical texts and thinkers, the crucial underlying themes of nostalgia and hauntology, and identifies new trends in the field.

Divided into five parts, the first focuses on the history of Folk Horror from medieval texts to the present day. It considers the first wave of contemporary Folk Horror through the films of the ‘unholy trinity’, as well as discussing the influence of ancient gods and early Folk Horror. Part 2 looks at the spaces, landscapes, and cultural relics, which form a central focus for Folk Horror. In Part 3, the contributors examine the rich history of the use of folklore in children’s fiction. The next part discusses recent examples of Folk Horror-infused music and image. Chapters consider the relationship between different genres of music to Folk Horror (such as folk music, black metal, and new wave), sound and performance, comic books, and the Dark Web. Often regarded as British in origin, the final part analyses texts which break this link, as the contributors reveal the larger realms of regional, national, international, and transnational Folk Horror.

Featuring 40 contributions, this authoritative collection brings together leading voices in the field. It is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in this vibrant genre and its enduring influence on literature, film, music, and culture.
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (9 Oct. 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 454 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1032042834
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1032042831
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.99 x 2.69 x 24.41 cm
Source:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Routledge-Companion-Horror-Literature-Companions/dp/1032042834
 
Yithian said:
I'm not sure what's going on with the price. £205.00 is absurd even for a (non-technical) academic publication. I expect to see it change.

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The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror offers a comprehensive guide to this popular genre. It explores its origins, canonical texts and thinkers, the crucial underlying themes of nostalgia and hauntology, and identifies new trends in the field.

Divided into five parts, the first focuses on the history of Folk Horror from medieval texts to the present day. It considers the first wave of contemporary Folk Horror through the films of the ‘unholy trinity’, as well as discussing the influence of ancient gods and early Folk Horror. Part 2 looks at the spaces, landscapes, and cultural relics, which form a central focus for Folk Horror. In Part 3, the contributors examine the rich history of the use of folklore in children’s fiction. The next part discusses recent examples of Folk Horror-infused music and image. Chapters consider the relationship between different genres of music to Folk Horror (such as folk music, black metal, and new wave), sound and performance, comic books, and the Dark Web. Often regarded as British in origin, the final part analyses texts which break this link, as the contributors reveal the larger realms of regional, national, international, and transnational Folk Horror.

Featuring 40 contributions, this authoritative collection brings together leading voices in the field. It is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in this vibrant genre and its enduring influence on literature, film, music, and culture.
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (9 Oct. 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 454 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1032042834
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1032042831
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.99 x 2.69 x 24.41 cm
Source:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Routledge-Companion-Horror-Literature-Companions/dp/1032042834
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A preview with introduction and full contents and references here.
 

Attachments

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Dom Joly's new one:

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Dom Joly sets off on his travels again, immersing himself in the strange world of conspiracies. On his journeys he meets conspiracy theorists galore in destinations all over the world, some famous, some rather less so.

In The Conspiracy Tourist Dom Joly sets out on a global journey to find out what’s going on. His travels see him meeting followers of QAnon, hunting for UFOs in Roswell, chasing Alex Jones of Info Wars around Austin, trying to prove that Finland exists and taking a flat-earther to the edge of the world.

On the way Dom inevitably finds the funny and the quirky, but he also tries to understand what makes people so drawn to conspiracy theories. What if those he has long dismissed as crazed loonies actually have a point? What if we are the sheeple and they’ve been right all along?

Join a wide-eyed, slightly jaded, adventurous tourist on a very different kind of sight-seeing trip.
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There's a book tour next year, plus a livestream interview on Nov 1st:

https://howtoacademy.com/events/adrian-chiles-meets-dom-joly-the-conspiracy-tourist/

 
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The secret book of the cunning man of Denbighshire, a Welsh magical notebook from the 1830s, was published in part in the 1970s but is now lost. Andrew Phillip Smith reconstructs and translates the notebook. The cunning man, or dyn hysbys, straddled two worlds, providing magical services to his community, preserving traditional charms and magical techniques yet eager to discover other techniques or spells that were coming to light. Smith digs into a lost world of first-hand accounts and folklore in which Welsh magicians had a particular command over fairies, and were regularly sought out for charms against malign witchcraft. Chapters provide a mass of information on the wise women and fraudulent rogues of Denbighshire, the relationship between magicians and fairies in tradition and folktale and the methods of unwitching cattle, and a possible author for this lost notebook.

More Details:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pages-Welsh-Cunning-Mans-Nineteenth-Century/dp/B0CJSYS6VZ
 
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Medieval Monstrosity: Imagining the Monstrous in Medieval Europe​

By Charity Urbanski
Routledge ISBN: 978-0-367-198742-1

An examination of monster theory and how it applies to the Middle Ages, this book covers the way people looked at the monsters of literature and imagination (dragons, werewolves, revenants and monstrous races) and how they made monsters out of the other (women, children with disabilities, non-Christians). About half the book is analysis and the other a collection of primary sources.

Excerpt:​

Modern monster theory provides us with the tools to investigate monsters as cultural creations that do meaningful work, but the study of monsters is transhistorical and transregional. In order to understand the monsters produced by medieval Europeans, we also need to examine how they defined the monstrous, and how they theorized the functions of the monster. Medieval Europeans derived their views about monstrosity from their cultural ancestors, the ancient Greeks and Romans, but interpreted monstrosity within a Christian framework. For them, monsters carried philosophical and theological meaning. Monsters were representatives of alterity that helped medieval Europeans define their own identities and explore the dialectics of good and evil, civilized and barbaric, self and other, but they were also regarded as portents, as manifestations of God’s ineffable power and part of a divine plan.

Who is this book for?​

This book serves as a good introduction to the idea of monsters in the Middle Ages, giving a nice blend of analysis with the actual sources themselves. While aimed at undergraduates, the book will be useful for those interested in a wide range of topics of folklore and how medieval Europeans approached other peoples. The large selection of translated primary sources will also help introduce readers to even more material.

The author:​

Charity Urbanski is a Teaching Professor at the University of Washington, where she focuses on the political and cultural history of twelfth-century France and England. Click here to view her university webpage.

Charity explains there are two reasons for writing this book:

The first is that I’ve always been fascinated by monsters, and I’m constantly running across them in my sources. I wanted to explore what monsters like revenants, werewolves, and dragons meant in medieval Europe and how they functioned, and use them to explore how the medieval worldview differed from our own. The more important reason is that this book is really a return to the questions that drew me to medieval European history in the first place. I wanted to understand my own world and understand how and why certain cultural attitudes and assumptions had come into being. Specifically, I wanted to know why things like racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, and homophobia existed. I’ve spent much of my career thinking about those questions and this book is in part an attempt to answer them. That’s why I devoted so much of the book to the rhetoric of monstrosity and how it was used to demonize others. I really hope that people in general will find that part useful, and that it helps explain how we got to where we are as a culture.

See also her article: How to Make a Monster

You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website

You can also buy this book from Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk

Source:
https://www.medievalists.net/2023/10/new-medieval-books-medieval-monstrosity/
 
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Bigfoot to Mothman: A Global Encyclopedia of Legendary Beasts and Monsters​

Margo DeMello
Bloomsbury Publishing USA, Jan 25, 2024 - Social Science - 320 pages
This one-volume encyclopedia introduces readers to the world's cryptids-those hidden or secret animals believed to exist at the margins of human society-including Bigfoot, Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Mothman.

Comprehensive in its scope, this book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to know more about well-known creatures of myth and legend, such as the Chupacabra and the Jersey Devil, and discover lesser-known animals, such as the Bunyip of Australia and the Mamlambo of South Africa. Rather than purport to prove or deny the existence of these creatures, however, this volume classifies them within their respective cultural, historical, and social contexts, allowing readers to appreciate cryptids as cultural artifacts important to societies around the globe. Finally, this book goes beyond the study of the unknown to investigate who believes in cryptids, why they do, and why the study of cryptozoology is as much about understanding cryptids as it is about understanding ourselves.
 
Sharon Hill said:
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Bigfoot to Mothman: A Global Encyclopedia of Legendary Beasts and Monsters​

Margo DeMello
Bloomsbury Publishing USA, Jan 25, 2024 - Social Science - 320 pages
This one-volume encyclopedia introduces readers to the world's cryptids-those hidden or secret animals believed to exist at the margins of human society-including Bigfoot, Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster, and the Mothman.

Comprehensive in its scope, this book is a valuable resource for anyone who wants to know more about well-known creatures of myth and legend, such as the Chupacabra and the Jersey Devil, and discover lesser-known animals, such as the Bunyip of Australia and the Mamlambo of South Africa. Rather than purport to prove or deny the existence of these creatures, however, this volume classifies them within their respective cultural, historical, and social contexts, allowing readers to appreciate cryptids as cultural artifacts important to societies around the globe. Finally, this book goes beyond the study of the unknown to investigate who believes in cryptids, why they do, and why the study of cryptozoology is as much about understanding cryptids as it is about understanding ourselves.
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Whew; £67.50 / £75.00 for hardback £54.00 for an e book. It looks good but I'd want to see a copy and have a ten minute browse before deciding on parting with that.
 
Tunn11 said:
Whew; £67.50 / £75.00 for hardback £54.00 for an e book. It looks good but I'd want to see a copy and have a ten minute browse before deciding on parting with that.
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It's an academic book, created for classes and libraries. It's ridiculous what publishers charge compared to what authors get.
 
Sharon Hill said:
It's an academic book, created for classes and libraries. It's ridiculous what publishers charge compared to what author's get.
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Agreed, I don't know how authors manage, and given the state of public libraries here in the UK it's going to be hard to get hold of. I used to buy for a public library service in the UK. I'd try to buy copies of academic tomes and was told that it actually encouraged further sales as it gave interested parties a chance to see a book they then wanted to own.
A lot of our public libraries are now franchised out to charitable/private organisations......... I could go on!:chain:
 
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The Exorcist Effect is a fascinating historical study of the ongoing relationship between horror movies and Western religious culture, with a focus on the period from 1968 to the modern day. Taking its name from the 1973 film The Exorcist, which was widely understood to be based on a true story, this book outlines a cycle in which religious beliefs and practices become the basis of films that in turn inspire religious beliefs, practices, and experiences in response. Authors Joseph P. Laycock and Eric Harrelson draw heavily from archival research to shed new light on the details of this phenomenon, in addition to incorporating interviews with horror authors, film writers, and paranormal investigators.

Drawing on psychology, sociology, and folklore studies, Laycock and Harrelson theorize how film informs religious experience and shapes religious culture. The Exorcist Effect examines the production and reception of Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976) as seminal films in the genre; figures as Malachi Martin as well as Ed and Lorraine Warren, who inserted themselves directly into the spotlight, and the horror films that influenced and were inspired by their careers; and areas of culture where the influence of this cycle was most apparent-the Satanic Panic, religious exorcisms, and moral panic over heavy metal and the messages it was purported to spread. The final chapter considers the QAnon conspiracy theory and its numerous allusions to film as a contemporary manifestation of “The Exorcist effect.”
 
Not a book, but a publication--my new favourite--out today.

As ever, superb design and fantastic photography.

Weird Walk Zine Issue Seven
48 page A5 zine
Printed on high quality PEFC certified recycled stock
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With the sun at its lowest ebb, and the night stretching to its longest duration of the year, we offer up Weird Walk Issue Seven as a symbol of the continuing cycle of rot and renewal, death and new life.

Taking inspiration from the woodland, author Nadia Attia explores the folklore surrounding some of Britain’s iconic tree species, while leafy associations abound as we reflect upon the Hastings Jack in the Green festival, and the suitably named Verdant Wisdom collective walk us through a rural take on dungeon synth music. Elsewhere two mavens of weird walking, Alice Lowe and Benjamin Myers, lead separate quests in two very different locations, each filled with magick and memory.

And if trees can emotionally connect us to the landscape, then so can the old stone monuments that so entrance us; in this issue, we explore phenomenological approaches to ancient sites (and, also, cheese).

Includes photos by Sarah White, Rachel Adams and Freddie Miller.

Available direct from here (word to the wise: the previous six editions are all available and well worth it):
https://shop.weirdwalk.co.uk/collec...sue-seven?mc_cid=dd088b1c4e&mc_eid=7075799fc2
 
Yithian said:
I'm not sure what's going on with the price. £205.00 is absurd even for a (non-technical) academic publication. I expect to see it change.

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View attachment 70103

The Routledge Companion to Folk Horror offers a comprehensive guide to this popular genre. It explores its origins, canonical texts and thinkers, the crucial underlying themes of nostalgia and hauntology, and identifies new trends in the field.

Divided into five parts, the first focuses on the history of Folk Horror from medieval texts to the present day. It considers the first wave of contemporary Folk Horror through the films of the ‘unholy trinity’, as well as discussing the influence of ancient gods and early Folk Horror. Part 2 looks at the spaces, landscapes, and cultural relics, which form a central focus for Folk Horror. In Part 3, the contributors examine the rich history of the use of folklore in children’s fiction. The next part discusses recent examples of Folk Horror-infused music and image. Chapters consider the relationship between different genres of music to Folk Horror (such as folk music, black metal, and new wave), sound and performance, comic books, and the Dark Web. Often regarded as British in origin, the final part analyses texts which break this link, as the contributors reveal the larger realms of regional, national, international, and transnational Folk Horror.

Featuring 40 contributions, this authoritative collection brings together leading voices in the field. It is an invaluable resource for students and scholars interested in this vibrant genre and its enduring influence on literature, film, music, and culture.
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Routledge; 1st edition (9 Oct. 2023)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 454 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1032042834
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1032042831
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 16.99 x 2.69 x 24.41 cm
Source:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Routledge-Companion-Horror-Literature-Companions/dp/1032042834
Click to expand...

I've been reading this and although nobody in their right mind is going to pay two hundred quid for it (I have a .pdf), it is a fantastic publication.

It's huge and tightly formatted and covers everything you could possibly expect from the title as well as a few things you won't. The writing is of a very high quality and I'd go as far as to say it may well be the best book on the genre available.
 
This is getting strong recommendations.

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An award-winning historian’s examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance

“Historically rich and superbly written.”—David J. Davis, Wall Street Journal

Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era—tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft—even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals.

Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life as the religious turmoil of the age, and as much a part of history as Newton’s scientific discoveries. Relying on an array of firsthand accounts, and focusing on exceptionally impossible cases involving levitation, bilocation, witchcraft, and demonic possession, Eire challenges established assumptions about the redrawing of boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity.

Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural’s relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores—such as why and how “impossibility” is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science—have resonance and lessons for our time.

Source (lacks preview):
https://www.amazon.com/They-Flew-Impossible-Carlos-Eire/dp/0300259808
 
It's really hard to bridge the gap of understanding between their era and our own. So much testimony seems curious and quaint; take this, a tradition deemed credible, about the death of Saint Mary of Egypt:

'The next year, Zosimas went to the same spot where he first met Mary, some twenty days' journey from his monastery. There, he found her lying dead; an inscription written in the sand next to her head stated that she had died the very night he had given her Communion, her incorrupt body miraculously transported to that spot. He buried her body with the assistance of a passing lion.'
 
Magus by Anthony Grafton

'The magus, in Grafton’s estimation, is “a less respectable figure than the artist or the scientist … but he belongs in a dark corner of the same rich tapestry”. He – and it is always he – is perched at the intersection of magic and technology; he might rise to status and influence; there may or may not be a vein of real charlatanry running through his career. Most of all, however, he is a voracious collector of rare books in obscure languages: the Picatrix, an Arabic work from the 11th century; The Secret of Secrets, supposedly Aristotle’s advice to his pupil Alexander the Great; the works of Zoroaster and Hermes Trismegistus, conjuring fantasies of Persia and Egypt respectively.'

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/jan/03/magus-by-anthony-grafton-review-spellbound
 
Does anyone follow Allan Barton, on his Antiquary YouTube channel? He has a monthly publication associated with the programme and I've been tempted because it looks wonderful, but I'm wavering...
 
Yithian said:
This is getting strong recommendations.

View attachment 72473

An award-winning historian’s examination of impossible events at the dawn of modernity and of their enduring significance

“Historically rich and superbly written.”—David J. Davis, Wall Street Journal

Accounts of seemingly impossible phenomena abounded in the early modern era—tales of levitation, bilocation, and witchcraft—even as skepticism, atheism, and empirical science were starting to supplant religious belief in the paranormal. In this book, Carlos Eire explores how a culture increasingly devoted to scientific thinking grappled with events deemed impossible by its leading intellectuals.

Eire observes how levitating saints and flying witches were as essential a component of early modern life as the religious turmoil of the age, and as much a part of history as Newton’s scientific discoveries. Relying on an array of firsthand accounts, and focusing on exceptionally impossible cases involving levitation, bilocation, witchcraft, and demonic possession, Eire challenges established assumptions about the redrawing of boundaries between the natural and supernatural that marked the transition to modernity.

Using as his case studies stories about St. Teresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, the Venerable María de Ágreda, and three disgraced nuns, Eire challenges readers to imagine a world animated by a different understanding of reality and of the supernatural’s relationship with the natural world. The questions he explores—such as why and how “impossibility” is determined by cultural contexts, and whether there is more to reality than meets the eye or can be observed by science—have resonance and lessons for our time.

Source (lacks preview):
https://www.amazon.com/They-Flew-Impossible-Carlos-Eire/dp/0300259808
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Preview available on UK amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0300259808/ref=ewc_pr_img_1?smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&psc=1
 
To be published in a few weeks.

I could have done with this when writing my dissertation!
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"If you wish to upset the law that all crows are black, you mustn't seek to show that no crows are; it is enough if you prove one single crow to be white."

William James (1842-1910) was a leading figure in Western psychology, philosophy, and psychical research. While there is an inextricable relationship between the various strands of James's work, his psychical research has been unfairly neglected in favor of classics such as The Principles of Psychology and The Varieties of Religious Experience. Read in light of one another, however, James's "mainstream" writings can be seen as efforts to make philosophical, metaphysical, and psychological sense of his psychical research.

Mind Dust and White Crows bridges the illusory divide, placing James's widely accepted works on mystical experience, theories of the soul, immortality, and metaphysics alongside his key writings on mediumship, telepathy, possession and other areas of psychical research. The result is a more integrated picture of James's spiritually-minded writings, transcending the disciplinary stigmas so often imposed on them. Interestingly, some of James's ideas seem to align with current interpretations of the soul and extended consciousness as derived from quantum physics.

This volume includes many rare articles, including material that has not been previously published in book form. Andreas Sommer's introduction - written especially for this volume - highlights the importance of James's work to the history and development of psychical research.

Source:
https://www.amazon.com/Mind-Dust-White-Crows-Psychical-Research/dp/1786772043/
 
Paperback out next month:

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A WATERSTONES BEST BOOK OF 2023: NATURE AND TRAVEL

For thousands of years, our ancestors held a close connection with the landscapes they lived in. They imbued it with meaning: stone monuments, sacred groves, places of pilgrimage. In our modern world we have rather lost that enchantment and intimate knowledge of place.

James Canton takes us on a journey through England seeking to see through more ancient eyes, to understand what landscape meant to those that came before us. We visit stone circles, the West Kennet long barrow, a Crusader round church and sites of religious visions. We meet the Dagenham Idol and the intricately carved Lion Man figure. We find artefacts buried in farmers' fields. There is history and meaning encoded into the lands and places we live in, if only we take the time to look.

Our natural world has never been under more threat. If we relocate our sense of wonder, veneration and awe in the landscapes we live in, we might just be better at saving it.

Source (with preview):
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Grounded-J...ix=grounded+james+canto,stripbooks,309&sr=1-1
 
Mythopoeika said:
Good luck - hope it does well.
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Thanks, Myth. Advance orders are looking pretty good, so I am hopeful.

It's all right, I'll remember you all when I'm rich and famous. I'll sit there on my private island thinking. 'I wonder how the guys are getting on on the Forteana Forum?'
 
catseye said:
My new book is out on Tuesday. It's not really Fortean though, although it does have a passing account of witchcraft on Orkney, and I'm only mentioning it because....well, I just am.
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The very best of luck to you :)
 
catseye said:
Thanks, Myth. Advance orders are looking pretty good, so I am hopeful.

It's all right, I'll remember you all when I'm rich and famous. I'll sit there on my private island thinking. 'I wonder how the guys are getting on on the Forteana Forum?'
Click to expand...

And we'll be here, cheering you on.
 
catseye said:
Thanks, Myth. Advance orders are looking pretty good, so I am hopeful.

It's all right, I'll remember you all when I'm rich and famous. I'll sit there on my private island thinking. 'I wonder how the guys are getting on on the Forteana Forum?'
Click to expand...

drop me a PM with the details? :)
 
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