Our Bogeys, Our Shelves

Title: Our Bogeys, Our Shelves: The Magician’s Library as Mentor, Companion, and Oracle

Publisher: Fiddler’s Green

Author: Clint Marsh

Illustrator: Jeff Hoke

Pages: 12pp

Price: $5.00

In this delightful leaflet, Clint Marsh explores the development, meaning, influence, and legacy of our personal libraries. Our libraries, Marsh argues, are reflections of ourselves; of our journey through life and our constantly evolving interests and selfhood: “my inner life’s history manifest.” As such, it is these books which serve us best in bibliomancy and the practice of occult arts, whether or not the books themselves are explicitly occult in nature.

I don’t remember how I first discovered Fiddler’s Green. It might have been through a FaceBook ad or a friend’s post. Either way, I immediately fell in love with the carefully crafted zines produced by Marsh and his colleagues. Each is a limited run, mostly printed to order with a few extras that can be purchased through the Fiddler’s Green site. I’m sorry that I did not discover them earlier, as I have missed out on some amazing zines.

If you want to support a worthwhile literary endeavor — and discover some terrific new writers and artists along the way — head over to Fiddler’s Green. Grab a copy of Our Bogeys, Our Shelves or any of the other publications while you can. You won’t be disappointed.

[Reviewed by Rebecca Buchanan.]