Monday, October 7, 2024

The Watkins Book of Urban Legends by Gail De Vos

 
The Watkins Book of Urban Legends by Gail De Vos
My Rating: ★★★★

I received a copy from Watkins Publishing through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you love urban legends and hope to learn more, this might be the book for you! Inside, you will find a collection of urban legends across nine chapters based on how they’ve been categorized. It was so interesting to discover the inspiration behind some well-known fictional characters while reading this book! It was also really fun reading different versions of urban legends I grew up listening to. For example, the version I always heard of the babysitter and the man upstairs involved a clown statue that was actually a man dressed as a clown.

All in all, this was an excellent read. It’s very well researched and covers urban legends from around the world. While it can be information heavy at times, I don’t think it will be overwhelming for most people as long as they don’t try to read a large chunk of the book in one go. This reads as more of a text book than an anthology, so keep that in mind if you plan on picking this up.

Wednesday, October 2, 2024

Tarot for Creativity: A Guide for Igniting Your Creative Practice by Chelsey Pippin Mizzi

 
Tarot for Creativity: A Guide for Igniting Your Creative Practice by Chelsey Pippin Mizzi
My Rating: ★★★★

I received a copy from Chronicle Books through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

If you’ve been looking for a Tarot book to help you expand your Tarot knowledge, then this might be a good book for you! Inside, you will find an introduction, and some basic information on Tarot before diving into the cards. The rest of the book goes through each card in the Major and Minor Arcana. The book helps readers look at the cards differently than they may normally look at them. I’ve used my Tarot and Oracle cards for creative inspiration before, so I like that this book will help people look at their cards in a new light. I also love that there’s so many different spreads included in the book. There’s a spread after each card plus seven spreads at the end of the book.

I think this is an excellent book to have in your collection if you are a Tarot reader, especially if you are artistic in any way. There’s a ton of little creative prompts throughout the book, so even if you don’t pull some cards for yourself or someone else, the prompts may get the wheels in your mind spinning when you feel like you’re stuck.