Recent Books

Perhaps the most interesting, challenging, and wide-ranging book I've ever read. It's a book about Tarot, but it's also a magnificent overview of the Western Esoteric Tradition. It's a book about Tarot but it's also a close examination of the theological underpinnings of Christian symbols and their relationship to older traditions. It's a book about Tarot but it's also a mesmerizing discussion of philosophical schools and historic moments and individual mages, sages, mystics, and magicians. It's a book about Tarot but it's also an examination of the importance of Steiner and Jung and others of the sort. I wanted to start reading it again as soon as I finished it.



The best haunted house novel I've read since Jackson's Hill House. A good haunted house novel knows that such houses are merely amplifiers for the weaknesses and character flaws of those within reach of malign spectral influence. In this novel one character who has bitter class resentments and a very small history with the mansion is unwittingly used by the house to destroy its inhabitants one by one. Like Eleanor in Hill House, whose resentment of her mother and whose passion for Montague and whose blinkered naivite result in her own self-destruction and imprisonment in the house, the protagonist of The Little Stranger is absorbed into Hundreds before he realizes the reality of the situation.

England is no longer the world's largest Empire. As American intelligence cowboys face off against their Soviet counterparts on the global stage, English agents bicker and stew and lose their mission. Evidence that English intelligence has been compromised brings George Smiley and some old friends out of retirement. Will they solve the mystery before the Cold War is lost?



A lot of what has been written about Montezuma and Cortes was spectacular bullshit propaganda. Because this propaganda has been repeated for centuries, it became TRUTH and is enshrined in many ways in popular imagination and in history departments. But post-colonial historians are chipping away at the myths and trying to get closer to the reality of this brutal meeting of two great civilizations. Like Mexico itself, this history is layered and rich and complex. Was Montezuma duped by Cortes? Or was Cortes merely a specimen added to Montezuma's famous zoo? Was Cortes a military genius or was he a pawn of other Aztec/Mexica leaders who wanted to challenge the existing status quo? How much of this truth is forever unknowable?



An acerbic, hilarious, and totally unique voice in short fiction. Oh my God, I laughed too hard at some of these stories.



Exactly what is the flame? And who keeps it alive? The pyramids are denuded, their casings used to build Cairo. The intent of these initiation centers has been forgotten and they are called tombs. Manly Hall tries to keep the flame burning, and provides useful guideposts for those with eyes to see, and ears to hear.


The Dalai Lama shows off his mad exegesis skills on some ancient poetry. Along the way he drops hints and truth bombs about mindfulness/meditation techniques and deepening a spiritual practice.



The philosopher Godfrey-Smith uses octopods to explore the development of consciousness and how we learn, remember, experience the world, and interact with our physical bodies and environment. Along the way he details the peculiar and engaging behavior of these alien beings in labs and in the deep sea.