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A review by cosmicpages
The Little Book of the Occult by Astrid Carvel
3.0
Thank you Netgalley and Astrid Carvel for the opportunity to read this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review.
I feel like this is the kind of book that you would get as a little gift from a family member that knows little about the subject and heard you were interested in all that "witchy" stuff. I did enjoy the subject and I have been exploring the topic more in depth so when I saw the cover, my interest was piqued. The cover is absolutely stunning.
I do think that this had quite a bit of historical information in it, but I feel like it has barely scratched the surface. This feels like a book intended to get someone's attention more than anything and act as the first footstep down the path of researching deeper into occultism.
The brief history on different topics was great and I wish that this book had focused on just this and expanded more. I think targeting the history of occultism would have been the best route to go. Once it started to drift into "how-tos" and tools for the practice, my interest in the writing wavered as it felt like this was too large a topic to summarize into so few pages. Especially without discussing cultural connections and safety measures when doing so.
Overall, I enjoyed the read. I would recommend this for beginners who are just getting interested in the topic and want a quick snippet of the history before they do more research on their own. I did enjoy Carvel's writing style and delivery of the information as it kept me interested. It was well written and able to deliver history in a way that didn't bore me (which is difficult because I'm not usually a historical/non-fiction fan, so well done!)
I feel like this is the kind of book that you would get as a little gift from a family member that knows little about the subject and heard you were interested in all that "witchy" stuff. I did enjoy the subject and I have been exploring the topic more in depth so when I saw the cover, my interest was piqued. The cover is absolutely stunning.
I do think that this had quite a bit of historical information in it, but I feel like it has barely scratched the surface. This feels like a book intended to get someone's attention more than anything and act as the first footstep down the path of researching deeper into occultism.
The brief history on different topics was great and I wish that this book had focused on just this and expanded more. I think targeting the history of occultism would have been the best route to go. Once it started to drift into "how-tos" and tools for the practice, my interest in the writing wavered as it felt like this was too large a topic to summarize into so few pages. Especially without discussing cultural connections and safety measures when doing so.
Overall, I enjoyed the read. I would recommend this for beginners who are just getting interested in the topic and want a quick snippet of the history before they do more research on their own. I did enjoy Carvel's writing style and delivery of the information as it kept me interested. It was well written and able to deliver history in a way that didn't bore me (which is difficult because I'm not usually a historical/non-fiction fan, so well done!)