Living with Grief When Illness is Prolonged, edited by Kenneth Doka, Ph.D. & Joyce Davidson.    Hospice Foundation of America, 1997                            

This book is a collection of  papers about how a prolonged illness is slowly killing a person, and how that is different from a sudden death or one with a short illness. Prolonged illness means that the care giver is on call for a much longer time; this takes a huge toll on the caregiver both mentally and physically. On the one hand, a longer illness gives time for talking, finding out about the dying person’s life and opinions, and for understanding and forgiving. But the longer time needing care can bring on feelings of guilt in the dying person, fearing they are asking too much of their family.

It’s an interesting book, but because it’s written by several people, certain passages are much more user friendly than others. It goes over such things as anticipatory grief, ethical considerations, hospice care, and sections on AIDS, cancers, and Alzheimer’s disease. The final part consists of how long term disease effects children and teens, things the caregiver should do, and the use of rituals both before and after death. I’d give it five stars for useful information, but only 3 ½ stars for being reader friendly- many passages seem to be written for the professional hospice worker, mental health professional, or MD. So that leaves it with a 4 star rating.

 

Magic, Supernaturalism, and Religion, by Kurt Seligmann. Pantheon Books, 1948

This book is not a how-to, DIY tome; it is a history of its subjects, told in a neutral, dispassionate vein. It starts with Mesopotamia, goes through Persia, the Hebrews, Egypt, Greece, Gnosticism, the Roman Empire, the shifts to Europe and the magical arts that survived during Christian times. The author takes neither a “magic was bad and misguided” nor a “Christianity was a bully that took over and destroyed magic” that is today’s take on the subjects; he stays totally neutral. Yes, he does talk about the witch trials and the trials of alchemists, but it’s told in a ‘just the facts, ma’am” tone. I found it pretty interesting, although quite dry. When you don’t take sides there isn’t any passion in writing, I guess. The illustrations were fascinating; pen and ink drawings of magical principles and things like palmistry charts fill the book.

 

                                                                                                                                                                         How to Sell a Haunted House, by Grady Hendrix. Penguin Random House, 2023

The first thing I’ve got to say is this: I’ve always been creeped out by puppets, and some dolls give me goosebumps, too. But the review in Book Page made this horror novel sound interesting, and the library had it via download, so I went for it.

As soon as Louise Joyner turned of age, she fled the home she grew up in. She didn’t stop fleeing until she couldn’t go any further without falling into the Pacific Ocean, and there she stayed, making the occasional, obligatory, trip back home for a few days. It’s not that she doesn’t love her parents- she does, very much- but rather that she just cannot function around them. They are a family built on secrets, and her parents were slightly neglectful in small ways- her father obsessed by his academic work, and her mother with her Christian puppet ministry and constant doll making, stitching away with her door closed. When she gets a phone call that her parents are dead, both dying in a car accident, she is stunned. This means leaving her daughter with her ex, meeting with her brother that she doesn’t get along with, and spending time in the house she grew up in, none of which she wants to do. But she gets on the plane and goes back east. Maybe she can get in and out quickly, and be back to her normal life in a few days.

Things go bad right off the bat. It’s creepy being in her childhood home alone, and she and her brother get into it right away. The creepiness goes into the supernatural almost immediately. It’s one of those stories where you think “Oh, no, don’t do that!” all the way through. The creep is not *just* supernatural; there are jump scares, and there is a LOT of body horror around both Louise and her brother. Violence fills the book, the kind of violence that you wouldn’t think a person could survive- certainly not survive and get back up and fight some more. Believe me when I say the tension never lets up- no matter what the narrative tries to tell you. Four stars.