Magick Matters

“Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders: A Writer’s (& Editor’s) Guide to Keeping Historical Fiction Free of Common Anachronisms, Errors, & Myths” by Susanne Alleyn (second edition)

"This is not a book on how to write historical fiction. It is a book on how not to write historical fiction. If you love history and you’re hard at work writing your first historical novel, but you’re wondering if your medieval Irishmen would live on potatoes, if your 17th-century pirate would use a revolver, or if your hero would be able to offer Marie-Antoinette a box of chocolate bonbons . . . (The answer to all these is “Absolutely not!”) . . . then Medieval Underpants and Other Blunders is the book for you. Medieval Underpants will guide you through the factual mistakes that writers of historical fiction—both beginners and seasoned professionals—often make, and show you how...>>

“The Haunted House in Women’s Ghost Stories: Gender, Space and Modernity, 1850–1945” by Emma Liggins (Palgrave Gothic)

"This book explores Victorian and modernist haunted houses in female-authored ghost stories as representations of the architectural uncanny. It reconsiders the gendering of the supernatural in terms of unease, denial, disorientation, confinement and claustrophobia within domestic space. Drawing on spatial theory by Gaston Bachelard, Henri Lefebvre and Elizabeth Grosz, it analyses the reoccupation and appropriation of space by ghosts, women and servants as a means of addressing the opposition between the past and modernity. The chapters consider a range of haunted spaces, including ancestral mansions, ghostly gardens, suburban villas, Italian churches and houses subject to demolition and ruin. The ghost stories are read in the light of women’s non-fictional writing on architecture, travel, interior...>>

“The X-Files: The Official Archives: Cryptids, Biological Anomalies, and Parapsychic Phenomena” by Paul Terry

"A fully authorized, richly illustrated inside look into 50 of Mulder and Scully’s most memorable monster cases. When an X-Files fan opens up The X-Files: The Official Archives, they are gaining access—for the first time—to Agents Mulder and Scully’s notes, records, and visual evidence from actual X-File reports. Designed to mimic a collection of FBI case files and packed with such items as autopsy reports, mug shots, lab results, handwritten notes, newspaper clippings, pages ripped from antique books on the occult, and security camera printouts, this fully authorized book is the only one of its kind. Detailing the agents’ investigations into 50 cases of cryptids, biological anomalies, and parapsychic phenomena—from the Flukeman to The...>>

“The Brainwashing Book: Hypnotic, Erotic Behaviorism and Beyond” by sleepingirl

"Brainwashing is a concept that titillates and mystifies—it implies an intense kind of control over another person and surrender of will. Within the context of erotic hypnosis, it might be considered a sort of holy grail to some, but what does it mean to achieve this in an ethical, effective, and mutually enjoyable way? In The Brainwashing Book we’ll explore a model that teaches and takes advantage of well-researched psychological principles and intermediate-to-advanced hypnosis skills in order to pursue this fun, hot form of play—and find how it can improve your trancing as a whole."...>>

“Dragon World” by Tamara Macfarlane and Alessandra Fusi

"Lurking in every corner of the earth, from the deepest depths of the oceans, to the tips of the tallest mountains, even tucked beneath the very ground that you tread on, dragons watch and wait. They take many forms--sea monsters, serpents, wild cats, eagles, and they represent many different things; Gods to be revered, evil kings to be feared, wise friends, and fierce foes. So, when you accidentally step on a sinewy vine and it whips out from under your feet, or invisible forces gently fan warm air across your face, or the acrid smell of cinders pokes at the back of your throat, how will you know whether to stand and wonder, or...>>