BRIEF GUIDES

Malcolm Gaskill. Witchcraft, A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2010.

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John Michael Greer. Secrets of the Lost Symbol. Oxford University Press, 2010

Short it may be (just 146 small format pages), but Gaskell's book is still a very comprehensive history and analysis of witch belief in (mostly) the western world. The author is Reader in Early Modern History at the University of East Anglia, and has written extensively on witchcraft and witch trials. He is the author of Hellish Nell, an account of England's last 'witchcraft' trial in the 1940s.
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EXCUSES, EXCUSES

Just had to pass this on, from the Daily Telegraph, via UfologyinUK:

"A motorist fined for straying into a bus lane claimed he swerved to avoid a UFO, according to a list of bizarre excuses used by errant drivers.

"The man was given a £120 fine after being caught on camera veering into the bus lane to dodge a traffic queue.

"But instead of paying up the driver claimed that he was 'forced' to swerve into the bus lane to avoid an alien spaceship which was 'hurtling towards him' in Southwark, south London.

"He told parking appeals bosses that he would 'never normally' use a bus lane, but that he had to take 'avoidance action' to swerve the UFO.

"Parking chiefs rejected his appeal, telling him the camera did not catch the UFO, and forced him to stump up the fine."

SEX, DRUGS AND SÉANCES

Marlene Tromp. Altered States: Sex, Nation, Drugs and Self-transformation in Victorian Spiritualism. The University of New York Press, 2006

Concentrating on a forgotten group, the Victorian female materialisation medium, Marlene Tromp explores how they constructed liminal personalities and behaviours. There was the séance room with its atmosphere of suppressed sexuality, one of the few places where men and women could actually touch each other in the dark, and the materialised spectres produced by these mediums.
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A MIXED BAG

            

Cate Ludlow (editor). Tales from the Terrific Register: The Book of Wonders. The History Press, 2009.

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Dick Russell. On the Trail of JFK's Assassins: a Groundbreaking Look at America's Most Infamous Conspiracy. Skyhorse Publishing, 2008.

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Vladimir Rubtsov. The Tunguska Mystery. Springer, 2010

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Palmiro Campagna. The UFO files: The Canadian Connection Exposed.

Dundurn Press, 2010 (sic)

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WICCA MEN

Michael Howard, Modern Wicca: A History from Gerald Gardner to the Present. Llewellyn Publications, 2009..

‘Wicca’ is usually understood to mean ‘witchcraft’, but as Howard observes, this has caused some controversy in places such as South Africa, where witchcraft is understood in a wholly negative way. I would suggest that witchcraft could be defined as ‘the exercise of occult arts’, which may be done by people of any faith, whereas Wicca is a religion, distinguished by the fact that unlike most other religions it encourages the exercise of occult arts.

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LITERARY HOAXES

Melissa Katsoulis. Telling Tales: a History of Literary Hoaxes. Constable, 2009.

A fascinating, sometimes funny, often sad, account of literary hoaxes, both well and little known from the 18th century onwards. They range from the light hearted literary japes such as those of Mark Twain, attacks on perceived ideological or artistic pretension such as the fake poetry of 'Ern Malley' or the Sokal hoax, through classic cons such as the Hitler Diaries and Clifford Irvings 'Howard Hughes' hoax.
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