Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Pagan Mysteries of Halloween: Celebrating the Dark Half of the Year by Jean Markale, Jon Graham ISBN: 0-89281-900-6 Publisher: Inner Traditions International Pub. Date: 01 September, 2001 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.71 (7 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Very scary...
Comment: ...that anyone could think this book is hard to read. Whoever does must have been home-schooled by Scooby-Doo. There's nothing difficult to grasp in this book, least of all the language. I couldn't find a single word on any page that I had to look up in the dictionary, for Heaven's sake! Although it was written by a formidable scholar with stellar credentials, it is a concisely-written page-turner for readers who are interested in the mythic roots of Halloween, the origins of the Eve of All Souls, the pagan festival of Samhain. The only criticism I have of it is it uses words such as "carnival-like" and "manifestations" a bit too often, an easy oversight to forgive considering it is a translation. Come on kids, if it's a book about how to carve pumpkins you want, you can pick that up at the dollar store.
Rating: 2
Summary: Get the Dictionary
Comment: Perhaps it's due to the fact this book was translated from French to English, but it's impossible to read. Somewhere, either something was lost in the translation, or else the author just wants to torture the reader with words and references that can only make you feel dumb. Get the dictionary and a good reference to obscure literature, you'll need them.
There is some pretty good info in here, but I don't think this book is geared towards the typical Halloween reader. There's lots of info on pre-Christian pagan practices, which is Markale's strong point, but I found that he often got sidetracked into talking about pagan lifestyles instead of staying focused on the subject at hand... Halloween.
Being that it takes the average person (me being average, I guess lol) 2+ minutes to digest one page, I can't suggest trying to read this book. Try the infintely more reader-friendly "Halloween, An American Holiday, An American History" by Lesley Pratt-Bannatyne.
Rating: 3
Summary: Good book but not an easy read
Comment: Ok, this book (I think) has lots of really neat info in it but I must say, I feel a bit like I've been reading a text book in college and the professor is trying to make this extra hard. Here's a sentence as an example: "The magical incantation, a geis, is as constraining as the argument that posits that one night and one day during the period of Samhain is the erquivalent of eternity." Yea, I didn't make that up either - that's on p. 74. The whole book is like that. It takes me 10 minutes to read 2 pages (ok, that's a liitle bit of an exaggeration but not much - you have to really chew on the words to get the meaning). In any case, if you can get past the writing style there seems to be a lot of reserach done here and there's probably a real depth of information - there are subsections on interesting topics such as the interconnection with the other world, the prfound meaning of samhain, etc. I was successful in getting through the chapter on the festival of all saints and it has some interesting facts around the dating of samhain, the role of christianity, etc. Ok, I need to go look up the word "appurtenance" (p.101). Bottom line - this book is not a "light read" probably due to the writing style and use of anachronistic words. I don't recommmend it because its so hard to read but am giving it 3 stars because if you can take the time to decode it there's probably some interesting info here. I would not buy it again.
 |
Title: The Pagan Book of Halloween: A Complete Guide to the Magic, Incantations, Recipes, Spells, and Lore by Gerina Dunwich ISBN: 0140196161 Publisher: Compass Books Pub. Date: 03 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
 |
Title: Halloween: From Pagan Ritual to Party Night by Nicholas Rogers ISBN: 0195168968 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
 |
Title: Death Makes a Holiday: A Cultural History of Halloween by David J. Skal ISBN: 1582343055 Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Pub. Date: 01 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Halloween: An American Holiday, an American History by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne ISBN: 1565543467 Publisher: Pelican Publishing Company Pub. Date: 01 August, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
 |
Title: Halloween and Other Festivals of Death and Life by Jack Santino ISBN: 0870498134 Publisher: University of Tennessee Press Pub. Date: 01 April, 1994 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
