Booknote:Morbid Magic

Tomás Prower, Morbid Magic: Death Spirituality and Culture from Around the World. Woodbury, MN: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2019.  ISBN: 978-0-7387-6061-2.

Genre: nonfiction
Subgenre: funerary practices, death rituals, mythology, religion, spirituality
Format: E-book galley
Source: NetGalley

This is one of those books I really wanted to like. The topic sounds interesting, and I did enjoy the author's previous book on Santa Muerte (link to my review of that). However, this book was just not as good.

The book is arranged as follows:

• Seven major parts for geographic regions/continents.
• Each part has chapters for countries in that region.
• Each chapter has headings on cultural elements and another heading on deities and legends.
• A bibliography, which can vary in quality of sources, but we'll get to that. 

The book attempts to be comprehensive and cover as much of the world as possible. However, such coverage is not consistent. Some areas do get better coverage, and others are pretty superficial. We get answers to the question of "what to do with a dead body?" but also get an overview of deities and legends relevant to a particular religious practice or tradition. In addition to lack of consistency, the book overall is just not that interesting. It reads more like a list than a narrative, so it is not very engaging for readers. 

Then there are the sources, which also vary in quality. The bibliography and footnotes in the book range from some academic sources to some very lightweight sources (to put it mildly) such as Huffington Post, various blogs (which may vary in quality), and sites like thoughtco.com. As a librarian and educator I was somewhat concerned about the quality of some of the sources offered. I am perfectly good with using popular sources but quality of said sources is important, and here, it does vary.

One good part I found in the book were the takeaways. These are lessons you can take from the different funerary customs that you can apply in  your personal life. Whatever your belief or unbelief these takeaways invite reflection, learning, and practical application. These may be the really good part in an otherwise OK book.

Overall, the book was just OK. This may be one to browse rather than read cover to cover. For public libraries, I would consider this a very optional selection. I would not recommend it for academic libraries.

2 out of 5 stars.