The Women Are Not Fine: The Dark History of a Poisonous Sisterhood [Amazon, Bookshop UK, Libro.fm, Publisher, Local Library] by Hope Reese

“The dark history of a poisonous sisterhood

The women of Nagyrév are desperate.
They’re abused by their husbands.
They are feeding their newborns to livestock.

At the turn of the 20th century, in the village of Nagyrév, Hungary, midwife Zsuzsanna Fazekas was more than a caretaker – she was a confidante. She helped poor women give birth; she assisted them with abortions; and she listened. Their stories were the husbands who drank, who beat them, who made their lives unbearable.

In response, Auntie Zsuzsi asked one “Why bother with them?”

Her solution was arsenic. Soon, women began slipping this concoction, made by dissolving flypaper in water, into their husbands’ porridge, stews, and brandy. And over the next twenty years, the quiet village became the epicenter of one of the deadliest poisoning epidemics of the 20th century – according to some estimates, up to 300 people in the region were murdered.

Why did they do it? How did these murders spin out of control? How did these women get away with their crimes for two decades?

In The Women Are Not Fine, journalist Hope Reese pieces together archival newspapers, court documents, police records, and the vital work of historians, sociologists, and psychologists, diving deep into the truth behind this extraordinary event. Her findings serve as a stark when women in a community are pushed to the brink, the consequences reverberate through history.

The Women Are Not Fine is more than a true crime story. It’s a timely, haunting exploration of what happens when women’s suffering goes unanswered.”

Ancient Myths and Legends Without Men: Reclaiming the Stories of Mythology’s Most Iconic Women, Goddesses, and Female Monsters [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Mara Gold

“Meet the goddesses, warriors, witches, and monsters who shaped and subverted womanhood from the very beginning in this this bold, empowering illustrated collection perfect for fans of New York Times bestseller Circe.

Was Circe really just a temptress?  Were the Amazons nothing more than bloodthirsty fighters?  And was Athena truly the role model ancient women needed?

In Ancient Myths and Legends Without Men, expert classicist Mara Gold recenters the women at the heart of some of the world’s most enduring myths. From Greek and Roman legends to tales from around the globe, this fresh, feminist take shines a new light on iconic figures like Medusa, Hera, and Persephone, revealing the power, complexity, and agency they’ve always had. Vibrantly illustrated and told with clarity and wit, Ancient Myths and Legends Without Men is a must-read for mythology lovers and anyone eager to revisit these stories through a new lens. These women were never just supporting characters—it’s time they took the spotlight.”

Gossip from the Forest: The Tangled Roots of Our Forests and Fairytales [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Sara Maitland, from 2012; the ebook and hardcover have another title: From the Forest: A Search for the Hidden Roots of our Fairytales

“Fairy tales are one of our earliest cultural forms, and forests one of our most ancient landscapes. Both evoke similar sensations: At times they are beautiful and magical, at others spooky and sometimes horrifying. Maitland argues that the terrain of these fairy tales are intimately connected to the mysterious secrets and silences, gifts and perils.

With each chapter focusing on a different story and a different forest visit, Maitland offers a complex history of forests and how they shape the themes of fairy tales we know best. She offers a unique analysis of famous stories including Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretal, Snow White, Little Red Riding Hood, Rumplestiltskin, and Sleeping Beauty. Maitland uses fairy tales to explore how nature itself informs our imagination, and she guides the reader on a series of walks through northern Europe’s best forests to explore both the ecological history of forests and the roots of fairy tales. In addition to the twelve modern re–tellings of these traditional fairy tales, she includes beautiful landscape photographs taken by her son as he joined her on these long walks.

Beautifully written and impeccably researched, Maitland has infused new life into tales we’ve always thought we’ve known.”

“Fairytales are one of our earliest and most vital cultural forms, and forests one of our most ancient landscapes. Both evoke a similar sensation in us – we find them beautiful and magical, but also spooky, sometimes horrifying.

In this fascinating book, Maitland argues that the two forms are intimately connected: the mysterious secrets and silences, gifts and perils of the forests were both the background and the source of the fairytales made famous by the Grimms and Hans Christian Andersen. Yet both forests and fairy stories are at risk and their loss deprives us of our cultural lifeblood. Maitland visits forests through the seasons, from the exquisite green of a beechwood in spring, to the muffled stillness of a snowy pine wood in winter. She camps with her son Adam, whose beautiful photographs are included in the book; she takes a barefoot walk through Epping Forest with Robert Macfarlane; she walks with a mushroom expert through an oak wood, and with a miner through the Forest of Dean. Maitland ends each chapter with a unique, imaginitive re-telling of a fairytale.

Written with Maitland’s wonderful clarity and conversational grace, Gossip from the Forest is a magical and unique blend of nature writing, history and imaginative fiction.”

The War on Witchcraft: Andrew Dickson White, George Lincoln Burr, and the Origins of Witchcraft Historiography [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] by Jan Machielsen, from 2021, part of the Elements in Magic series

“Historians of the early modern witch-hunt often begin histories of their field with the theories propounded by Margaret Murray and Montague Summers in the 1920s. They overlook the lasting impact of nineteenth-century scholarship, in particular the contributions by two American historians, Andrew Dickson White (1832–1918) and George Lincoln Burr (1857–1938). Study of their work and scholarly personae contributes to our understanding of the deeply embedded popular understanding of the witch-hunt as representing an irrational past in opposition to an enlightened present. Yet the men’s relationship with each other, and with witchcraft sceptics – the heroes of their studies – also demonstrates how their writings were part of a larger war against ‘unreason’. This Element thus lays bare the ways scholarly masculinity helped shape witchcraft historiography, a field of study often seen as dominated by feminist scholarship. Such meditation on past practice may foster reflection on contemporary models of history writing.”

“Table of Contents
1. ‘Ding! Dong! The Witch is Dead’
2. Two Historians on a Double Date: White and Burr Meet Flade and Loos
3. History and a Reformer’s Project of Reform
4. The Reformer’s Apprentice
5. Meditations on Masculinity
6. Reflections.”

Comparing Esoteric Practices from a Global Perspective: Experiments in Collaborative Authorship [Amazon, Bookshop, Publisher, Local Library] eds Bernd-Christian Otto and Michael Lackner, due October/September 2026, Volume 2 of the Esoteric Practices: Global Perspectives series, eds Giovanni Maltese and Dominik M Müller, which, in turn, is Volume 44 of the Aries Book Series

“This volume is a collection of cross-disciplinary papers co-authored by scholars from different academic fields. Readers will be intrigued to discover unexpected parallels between contemporary practices across diverse cultural and religious contexts. These include, for example, the casting of lots in Chinese temple oracles and the African-Yoruba divination system; ritual consultations in Senegal and Brazil; the marginalization of ritual practices in Indonesia, Bhutan, and Nigeria; the crossroads of late Soviet and US-based esoteric milieus; adaptations of Buddhist, Hindu, and Daoist practices in a modern esoteric movement (Thelema); and the spread of the Solomonic art of conjuring spirits in both scriptural and non-scriptural practice traditions. These examples offer rich opportunities for meaningful comparison.”

“Table of contents

List of Figures and Tables
Notes on Contributors

Introduction
 Bernd-Christian Otto and Michael Lackner

1 Divination and Mediumship Compared: a Dialogical Essay on the Logic of Ritual Consultations in Senegal and Brazil
Knut Graw and Kelly E. Hayes

2 Solomon, King of Spirits: Historical and Ethnographic Explorations
Maryam Abbasi, Conerly Casey and Bernd-Christian Otto

3 Converging Cosmologies: Esoteric Practices of Buddhism, Hinduism, and Daoism in Aleister Crowley’s Thelema
Keith Edward Cantú and Lennert Gesterkamp

4 Becoming Superhumans: the Crossroads of Late-Soviet and Western Esotericism
Birgit Menzel and Anna Ozhiganova

5 Moral Economies of Divination: Chinese and Yoruba Technologies, Ethics, Wisdom, and Affect in Comparison
Michael Lackner and Raquel Romberg

6 Resilience and Relationalism: the Persistence of Marginalised Ritual Practices in Indonesia, Bhutan, and Nigeria
Conerly Casey, Dendup Chophel and Isabell Herrmans”

“Devils, Witches, and Curses – the occult fiction of J. W. Brodie-Innes” by James North

“John William Brodie-Innes (1848-1923 ) is perhaps the least discussed of the original Golden Dawn leaders. But he is also the most fascinating and diverse of them all; a devout Christian who was fascinated by witchcraft, a respectable lawyer and clubbable member of literary circles like the Sette of Odde Volumes who was also a practising psychic, and a Theosophist absorbed in Celtic mysticism.

Brodie-Innes’ influence in the Golden Dawn tradition has been persistent but underrated.

Yet he was the best known Golden Dawn author of his time.”