The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine by Rozsika Parker – chosen by Beth Ward
In The Subversive Stitch, Rozsika Parker explores with depth, clarity, and care the historical, reciprocal connection between cultural ideas of femininity and womanhood and the art of embroidery. She removes embroidery from its fusty context as a docile, grandmother-ly craft, and reminds readers of its mystical, ancient roots, of its use as a revered form of devotional art, and as an avenue for liberation for women bound by the oppressive gendered dictates of their time. Parker interrogates the near-magical duality of embroidery as an artform. Often employed by fathers, husbands, and male authority figures as an activity to keep women and girls submissive, quiet, and still, it instead became a catalytic tool for subversive storytelling, cultural movements, and social justice reform. The Subversive Stitch reminds us that a needle in the hands of the marginalized is as powerful as a pen, as a sword, and that it's been wielded in subversive and progressive ways since the time before time.
In a Glass Darkly by Sheridan Le Fanu – chosen by Sophia Adamowicz
While the sapphic vampire classic, Carmilla, has long captured the Gothic imagination, fewer readers may be familiar with Le Fanu’s tales of evil spirits. The volume, In a Glass Darkly, is presented as a selection of curious cases from the correspondence of Dr Hesselius, a physician with an interest in the “interior sense.” The multiple framing devices prove something of a barrier to enjoyment at times, but Le Fanu excels in portraying the relentless pursuit of demonic presence. A standout story is “Mr Justice Harbottle,” which centres around a corrupt judge with a penchant for “dubious jollifications”. After condemning a man to death for his personal gain, the judge is put on trial by a group of ghastly apparitions. Fans of M.R. James would particularly relish Le Fanu’s haunting descriptions.
ECODEVIANCE: (Soma)tics for the Future Wilderness by CAConrad (2014) – chosen by Elizabeth Kim
I have been a huge fan of CAConrad's work for years now, and forever grateful to include their work in our print magazine, as well as in Spiritus Mundi. I'm glad I didn't read ECODEVIANCE while commissioning and writing essays for SM; this poetry collection has a similar structure, but it's different in that it's a personal documentation of ritual and process. The poet describes rituals and then shares several poems that came out of these rituals. ECODEVIANCE is collaborative and pioneering and magical. These rituals helped bring CA back into their present moment and body and they may help readers find a new way to navigate the world. CA has said on Instagram they feel their poems in their bones and I feel them in mine, too. CAConrad is one of the best living poets.
Strange Relics: Stories of Archeology and the Supernatural, 1895–1954, Edited by Amara Thornton & Katy Soar – chosen by Jim Peters
With my past life as an archaeologist—and current role in museums—stories that deal with unearthing forgotten horrors always appeal to me and this short story collection does not disappoint. Featuring some well-thumbed stories, as well as introducing a few new names to look out for, this is a wonderfully curated collection whose artifacts would make a fascinating exhibition. Expect time-shifting binoculars, magical statuettes, cursed buildings and stonework, Roman remains, barrows, and tiles dripping in references to ancient beliefs, Gods, and religion. I love that even though I was familiar with several of these tales, they sat in a slightly different light being presented as archaeological stories amongst their own kind— for me that is always the mark of a really well-put-together anthology. Amara Thornton and Katy Soar have chosen a great variety of stories that read so well together accompanied by well-informed and useful notes and introductions.
The Dark Earth of Albion by Gareth Spark – chosen by Jim Peters
Plastic Brain Press is a creative and mind-expanding enterprise putting out collections of short stories and poetry that dabble into the dark side with a lysergic sense of the surreal—The Dark Earth of Albion is no exception. The individual stories in this collection of 13 short tales reveal a multitude of characters and nightmare-tinged settings from various moments in this land’s dark and twisted past, present, and maybe even our future. The disassociated, outsider feel of these tales is as potent as their link to some mysterious ancient invocation of the earth. Spark turns his hand to desolate industrial estates, wartime nightclubs, remote coastal villages, and muddy woodland clearings telling tales of abduction, apocalyptic survival, ancient rituals, Norse raids, biker gangs, and polar bears in Whitby. What carries through all of these short stories and briefly glimpsed vignettes is Spark’s delightful and delicious use of language. The words linger. There are no dark and satanic mills here. Instead, you are left with the impression that every mill is dark and satanic—or has the potential to be. The same goes for every cottage, wooded glade, derelict building, rain-darkened moor, and swollen brook.
The Courage to Create by Rollo May – chosen by Elizabeth Kim
Existential psychologist Rollo May comes from a similar school of thought to Viktor E Frankl, author of Man's Search for Meaning. May’s ideas about the importance of art and imagination for helping shape and create new worlds, and positioning the artist as a rebel and saint, felt validating. He draws on myth and warns of the antagonistic force of dogmatism to artistic process: “Dogmatism of all kinds--scientific, economic, moral, as well as political—are threatened by the creative freedom of the artist. This is necessarily and inevitably so. We cannot escape our anxiety over the fact that the artists together with creative persons of all sorts, are the possible destroyer of our nicely ordered systems.” He emphasises that much of what is worthy of being considered art will not be recognised as important in its time, but will potentially be seen as dangerous. His conception of the artist as a softly spoken—and sometimes neurotic—person willing to pull apart the seams of modern life stands in contrast to the modern conception of the artist as something akin to a salesman. “Creative people, as I see them, are distinguished by the fact that they can live with anxiety, even though a high price may be paid in terms of insecurity, sensitivity, and defenselessness for the gift of the ‘divine madness,' to borrow the term used by the classical Greeks. They do not run away from non-being, but by encountering and wrestling with it, force it to produce being. They knock on silence for an answering music; they pursue meaninglessness until they can force it to mean.”
The Language of Flowers, (1971 reprint) compiled and edited by Mrs.L.Burke – chosen by Jim Peters
While working on a story that requires me to know why certain trees or plants were planted, I turned to this old favourite. Listing a full alphabet of 680 plants alongside corresponding moods, thoughts, and feelings, the book enables you to help plan your coded floral presentation. Here is the charming introduction from the later reprint of this Victorian classic: "To express gratitude or affection by the gift of flowers is common enough, but nowadays few people make use of the opportunities provided by this pleasant custom to express other and more specific sentiments. For instance, how nice (and delightfully simple) to be able to express one’s constancy with a bunch of Bluebells, or to declare war with a spring of Wild Tansy!”
The Wolf and the Woodsman by Ava Reid – chosen by Alex Epshtein
We seem to be in the age of retellings. Every time I enter a bookshop there is another rewritten and novelised myth. Whether it’s Greek, Norse, or Egyptian, the characters are familiar and comforting and the plot is often nostalgic; naturally, we are all drawn to those memories of childhood fondness. However, it is not often that I come across an accurately told story of Eastern European folklore, so I was surprised to stumble upon Reid’s The Wolf and the Woodsman. Drawing from Jewish mysticism and Hungarian folklore, this story follows a powerful young woman and ever determination to not only survive but live and thrive, in defiance of the tyranny that has encompassed her village. We follow her through the woods and she learns of the magical powers that hold her people hostage, and the powers that have the potential to liberate them. too. Reid’s debut is a stunning story, one enriched by a culture that’s rarely spoken about in mainstream media. I couldn’t put this book own. Now I too understand why people are so drawn to retellings. After all, as Reid eloquently writes in their book, “Stories are supposed to live longer than people.”
Mycophilia: Revelations from the Weird World of Mushrooms (2011) by Eugenia Bone – chosen by Dr Elizabeth Dearnley
This autumn I’ve been attempting to learn more about identifying fungi, and have returned to a fascinating book recommended by a former student: Eugenia Bone’s delicious deep dive into the world of mushrooms and mushroom-hunters. Charting her initiation and adventures with mycological societies, fungi festivals, and mushroom enthusiasts around the world, alongside exploring the myriad ways in which fungi intertwine with all other life forms on earth, Bone’s infectiously enthusiastic and highly informative book will leave you salivating for truffles and morels and give you a fresh appreciation for fungi in all its weird and wonderful forms.
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak – chosen by Alex Epshtein
‘To immigrants and exiles everywhere, the up-rooted, the re-rooted, the rootless and to the trees we left behind, rooted in our memories.’ - Elif Shafak, The Island of Missing Trees
As implied by her dedication, Shafak’s The Island of Missing Trees is an ode to what people call “home”. She writes about a young girl who grew up in Cypress, watching her dad nurture a fig tree in his garden. As the book progresses, the fig tree grows with her, from sapling to adolescence, its roots growing deeper and deeper into the ground as time goes on, until there comes a time to relocate. With this relocation comes war, loss, and pain. But there also comes hope, growth, and most importantly: love. Shafak explores all these emotions and events masterfully, through the eyes of those who experience them, and from the perspective of the fig tree, who has been there through it all.
Letters of Fire and Other Unsettling Stories (1984) by Adèle Geras – chosen by Dr Elizabeth Dearnley
A recent project on uncanny dolls has led me back to this unbelievably creepy children’s book that made a lasting impression on me as a horror-loving child. Containing tales of vampiric music teachers, haunted television cameras, and an eerily beautiful child who may or may not have been made from stolen pieces of other girls’ dolls, this collection is every bit as unsettling as I remembered.
Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury – chosen by Sophia Adamowicz
Bradbury’s vision of a culture numbed into submission by censorship of intellectual debate and book burning is a masterpiece of the dystopian canon. It crackles with nightmarish creations like the Mechanical Hound, a spider-legged robot that sniffs out dissenters and injects them with anaesthetising drugs. Ultimately, though, the book ends on a note of bittersweet hope, leading us to a society of outcasts who act as a living library. While some of the characters’ dire warnings may not chime harmoniously with this historical moment, the vivid imagery and fluidity of Bradbury’s language make Fahrenheit 451 a mesmerising exploration of intellectual freedom.
Heroes and Villains by Angela Carter – chosen by Cristina Ferrandez
Angela Carter’s trademark interplay between the familiar and the strange, the enchanting and the horrific, is in full force in this lesser-known novella from 1969. Heroes and Villains, like a lot of Carter’s work, draws from fairy tales and their tropes, which she subverts with a flourish. It is not entirely clear who the heroes and the villains are, but the reader follows young Marianne as she navigates a post-apocalyptic world and the resulting dangers, desires, and gender dynamics, all written in a prose that drips with sensuality.
The Leviathan, Rosie Andrews – chosen by Sophia Adamowicz
In his notorious political work of 1651, Thomas Hobbes uses the leviathan as a symbol of the state, wherein individuals sacrifice personal freedoms in exchange for protection by a sovereign power. Andrews’s novel takes this symbol and literalises it; the leviathan becomes an invasive creature that rears its head at times of political discord and prophesies the end of days. The narrative twists and turns, slipping out of the reader’s grasp. What begins as a story of witch-finding in the English Civil War transforms into a meditation on the relationship between myth and history.
Wake, Siren: Ovid Resung by Nina MacLaughlin – chosen by Beth Ward
Wake, Siren by Nina MacLaughlin takes the old myths readers are so familiar with and defamiliarizes and disorients us in a stunning, irreverent, ferocious retelling centering a chorus of female voices. We hear Daphne's voice, Arachne's, Medusa's, Hecuba's, the Sirens and others, their stories pouring from their own mouths, not Ovid's. MacLaughlin gives them back to us. In the opening tale—Daphne's, whose father transformed her into a laurel tree to save her from an attempted rape by Apollo--Daphne speaks directly to us: "Open the cabinet. Move the cinnamon. Move the nutmeg. Move the coriander, the cardamom pods, the cumin, the cloves...There, the small jar with whole leaves the length of your pinky. Those are me, mine. I was the first of all laurel trees...But the way you know me now, I wasn't always this way. When I was young and in a different form than this, I kept what I understood quiet, but I understood so much."
In one summary of the book, it's written, "seductresses and she-monsters, nymphs and demi-goddesses, populate Ovid's Metamorphoses. But what happens when the chase is tracked in the voice of the quarry? When the maiden coolly returns the seducer's gaze? When monstrous transfigurations come sung by those transformed?" MacLaughlin gives these answers to us in language, in prose that crackles, and fires, and shimmers, and sings. I could not have adored this book more.
Folk by Zoe Gilbert – chosen by Cristina Ferrandez
Folk is a wondrous mosaic of narratives all centred around the inhabitants of a village named Neverness. Gilbert skillfully weaves together a multitude of stories about the people, their traditions, and the momentous events of their lives, building up a picture of a place where the uncanny lurks around every corner. Neverness feels like a place taken straight out of our collective unconscious; there are echoes of folkloric traditions that may be familiar to the reader, but the resulting stories are singular and strange. Gilbert’s prose is masterful and the book is a joy to read.
What is Paleolithic Art? by Jean Clottes - chosen by Elizabeth Kim
Where did we come from, and where are we going? Art has sought to answer this question before the written word. In the occult, people often look to lineage narratives to determine the credibility and merit of various practices and beliefs. But it is perhaps in the earliest art we find something primal and shared. Jean Clottes is one of the world’s leading experts on cave paintings. This book puts forward a compelling scholarly argument for a shamanic origin of these strange paintings of animals, geometric patterns, and designs. One cannot help but re-evaluate anthropocentric ideas about the world when confronted by the shadowier pantheons inhabited by these early artists, that centred on the nonhuman as much as the human.
Witchbody: A Graphic Novel (2019) by Sabrina Scott – chosen by Dr Elizabeth Dearnley
This gorgeous, tactile, risograph-printed book explores and celebrates the magic hidden in everyday things, from coffee cups to computer cables, as well as exploring the relationship between human and nonhuman worlds in magical practice, and warning against the human exceptionalism which creates ecological crises: “Denying the meaning, materiality and agency of bodies that do not take human shape has been one of the biggest human contributions to environmental crisis.” Scott’s sinuously sensuous illustrations swirl her narrative together into a thought-provoking and energising meditation on witchcraft, the body, and the importance of magical collaboration.
