witches

Twilight set off a whole graveyard of vampire romances, and then came werewolf romances. For a while paranormal romance was the genre of the day, with people falling in love with ghosts or people in past lives – no doubt fueled by time-travel stories like Outlander. When the person you love died 200 years previous, it makes that guy at the coffee shop seem rather dull in comparison. Monsters are a thing, especially in cozy fantasy – even dragons can be a thing (let’s not forget Donkey and his Dragon mate in Shrek!). Zombies picked up the slack, but are now fading away as a genre – you can only kill them twice.

So what’s currently “trendy” in genre fiction? What have we circled back to? Cozy fantasy is all the rage, little stories with a slice of life that ends happily, whether you’re an ogre or gnome or pixie. Horror is making a comeback, including something called Fem-gore, which is written by women for women, and includes a lot of bloody-warrior revenge themes. LGBTQ stories and stories of people of color are on the rise, giving a long-overdue boost to underrepresented segments of the population. But the largest rising genre? Witches and wizards.

She made a child do her dirty work – good or evil?

No, we’re not talking Lord of the Rings or Dragonlance (though you can read Dragonlance for either the action sequences or the burning romance of Raistlin and Crysania), but the Earthly plane stories that encompass every facet of storytelling. Magic stories. And magic is the realm of witches and wizards. Witches aren’t usually evil, even if, thanks to Wicked, we’re not sure Glinda is completely a good witch.

Technically, a male witch is called a … witch. Wizard is also acceptable, the difference being a wizard is usually academically oriented [think Gandalf] while a witch is more self-taught [Granny Weatherwax from the Terry Pratchett’s Discworld books]. Mage is also appropriate, but warlock is a slur. Witchy stories have been around forever – the Biblical Witch of Endor (10th century BCE), Circe of Homer’s Odyssey (8th century BCE), Hecate of the Greek pantheon (Hesiod’s Theogony, 7th century BCE), Merlin the Wizard and Morgan le Fay of Camelot (minimum, the 1100’s, possibly as early as the 400’s), and the witches of Macbeth (1606). Let’s not forget the witches of The Wizard of Oz, or the terrifying Dust Witch of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes, the marvelous Eglantine Price of Bedknobs and Broomsticks, Samantha Stephens of Bewitched, the Halliwell sisters of the TV show Charmed, or The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. The image of witches was improved by the popularity of Harry Potter and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Children’s stories aside, the rise of New-age witchcraft has no doubt helped the rise of witch stories as well.

“Witch” or “wizard” is appropriate for men

How did witches come to have such a bad rap? Throughout history, and amplified through Dark Ages ignorance, learned men and intelligent women, women who could read, women who were opinionated, or women who had some sort of good or bad fortune that couldn’t be explained by simple means, were suspected of using dark magic to gain their knowledge, even when it benefited the community itself. Magic, voodoo, and good or bad spirits were all people had to explain what was to them unexplainable any other way. Maybe your sheep all had twin lambs, but neighbor Geoff, who took poor care of his sheep, had 5 die in birthing – surely you must have worked dark magic on his sheep! All your 15 children survived the plague? You must be a witch! While New-Age witches study nature in all its forms, in reality, no study anywhere has proven that magic – not the magician kind – has any basis in fact.

Modern stories of magic run the full gamut, from cozy mysteries (such as those by Bailey Cates), humorous fantasy (Terry Pratchett’s Color of Magic series), Courtly intrigue without the morbid gore of Game of Thrones (The Chronicles of Amber series by Roger Zelazny), to the wildly popular Discovery of Witches series by Deborah Harkness, and the book and TV series of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. If you don’t like the idea of reading a fantasy book, try a more mainstream author like Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic series, or The Year of Wonders, by Geraldine Brooks, or A Secret History of Witches, by Louisa Morgan. Harry Potter they are not.

My favorite witches of literature? Gandalf, of course, from Lord of the Rings, along with Molly Weasley and Minerva McGonagall from Harry Potter, Ole Meg from Clifford D. Simak’s A Heritage of Stars, Raistlin Majere of Dragonlance, and perhaps Lady Jessica Atreides in Dune (yes, the Bene Gesserit are witches).

If you’re looking to put a little magic in your life, or just escape the pressures of our Earthly plane, check out some of these trending books!

books

2015 was a banner year for great non-fiction publications. But if you’re like most people, life probably got in the way of being able to read them all. Highlighted below are some of the non-fiction books of 2015 that garnered extra positive attention.

Hammer Head: the making of a carpenter – Nina MacLaughlin – Combining sage advice from Ovid and Mary Oliver with practical descriptions of tools and varieties of wood, the author, who quit her desk job to become a carpenter, shares her joys and frustrations of learning to make things by hand in an occupation that is 99% male.

Thunder & Lightning: weather past, present, future – Lauren Redniss – Focusing on the intricate nature of the world around us, as well as the personal relationship we all have to the weather, a National Book Award finalist and visionary writer—combining personal stories with history, interviews, scientific research and full-color photos—explores the transformative power of weather.

Notorious RBG: the life and times of Ruth Bader Ginsberg– Irin Carmon and Shana Knizhnik – In a lively illustrated biography of the feminist icon and legal pioneer, readers can get to know the Supreme Court Justice and fierce Jewish grandmother, who has changed the world despite the struggle with the unfinished business of gender equality and civil rights, standing as a testament to what a little chutzpah can do.

Witches of America – ALex Mar – Examines paganism and the occult, from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the Bay Area, and from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world’s most influential magical societies.

The Monopolists: obsession, fury, and the scandal behind the world’s favorite board game – Mary Pilon – Tracing back to Abraham Lincoln, the Quakers, and a forgotten feminist named Lizzie Magie, and presenting a remarkable social history of corporate greed, the inside story of the world’s most famous board game reveals how Monopoly came into existence.

The Great Beanie Baby Bubble – Zac Bissonnette – In the annals of consumer crazes, nothing compares to Beanie Babies. With no advertising or big-box distribution, creator Ty Warner – an eccentric college dropout – become a billionaire in just three years. And it was all thanks to collectors. The end of the craze was just as swift and extremely devastating, with “rare” Beanie Babies deemed worthless as quickly as they’d once been deemed priceless. Bissonnette draws on hundreds of interviews (including a visit to a man who lives with his 40,000 Ty products and an in-prison interview with a guy who killed a coworker over a Beanie Baby debt) for the first book on the most extraordinary craze of the 1990s.

The Folded Clock: a diary – Heidi Julavits – A critically acclaimed author discovers her old diaries in a storage container and reacquaints herself with a much younger version of the person she became, musing on time, self, youth, friendship, romance, faith, fate and betrayal.

Clementine: the life of Mrs. Winston Churchill – Sonia Purnell – A portrait of Winston Churchill’s extraordinary wife and her lesser-known role in World War II discusses her relationship with political mentor Eleanor Roosevelt, her role in safeguarding Churchill’s health throughout key historical events, and her controversial family priorities.

Two Hours: the quest to run the impossible marathon – Ed Caesar – Delving into the science, physiology and psychology involved in running so fast, for so long, a first-of-its-kind book on marathons invites readers into the world of elite runners, showing us why this most democratic of races retains its savage, enthralling appeal—and why we are drawn to testing ourselves to the limit.

Sinatra: The Chairman – James Kaplan – Presents a behind-the-scenes examination of the life and career of the legendary performer that offers insight into his prolific accomplishments, multidimensional character, and complex relationships.

We Were Brothers – Barry Moser – The author recalls his youth with his brother, considering in prose and illustrations how he and his brother came to be such very different people, and eventually became completely alienated from one another, before finally reconciling in spite of their differences.

Hunger Makes Me A Modern Girl – Carrie Brownstein – The guitarist and vocalist of feminist punk trio Sleater-Kinney presents a candid and deeply personal assessment of life in the rock-and-roll industry that reveals her struggles with rock’s double standards and her co-development of the comedy “Portlandia.”