Jeff Russell

My sister in law got married yesterday, in Stockholm, so I am in the midst of some whirlwind international travel (we just got here the night before last and we're heading home early tomorrow morning). I'm also recovering from a properly festive, and late, evening, but I did take advantage of an unexpectedly long layover on the way here to knock out a quick post on a fairly short chapter of The Seed of Yggdrasill: The Way of the Wand Witch.

Since things for me will be literally up in the air the next day or so, I may take a minute to respond to any comments, but they're as welcome as always.

This week I got my copy of JMG's latest book The Secret of the Five Rites, and I've written up my thoughts on it here. The short version: like every JMG book, it's easy and enjoyable to read, informative, and covers a weird topic. What I was most pleasantly surprised by was how well it works as an introduction to what was going on in the occult "scene" in the late 19th and early 20th century. As always, I'd love to hear what you think.

After a rather busy weekend featuring two children's parties, one adult party, pet care, and watching the kids for a girls' night out, I am again late in getting my post up this (now past) week, but here it is, my take on the next chapter of Kvilhaug's Seed of Yggdrasill.

Alrighty, we're back to Maria Kvilhaug's The Seed of Yggdrasill, this time focusing on the third chapter, covering the "Maiden with the Mead."

I'm continuing to make progress on the massive second chapter of Kvilhaug's The Seed of Yggdrasill, but I've not finished it, and there hasn't really been a satisfying break point to divide the chapter up into multiple posts. So, instead, I've shared my thoughts on Gene Wolfe's The Book of the New Sun, which I just finished reading the other night. The short version is that it's very good and has a heck of a lot going on there. If you like epic, sweeping speculative fiction with great scope that is nevertheless well-written and full of well-realized characters who grapple with genuine moral issues, you'll like this book. Strongly recommended.

This week, I take my first step in tackling Maria Kvilhaug's massive tome The Seed of Yggdrasill. As with some of her other work, it is a frustrating blend of genuinely wonderful insights and sloppy organization, but hopefully sharing my thoughts on them will help both of us get more out of it!

If you've been sick of Spengler, now we're onto something new! I read the first book of Shani Oates's The Oðinn Trilogy called The Hanged God: Oðinn Grimnir, and I've shared my thoughts here.

Oh, and as a bit of a PSA, the RSS has not updated since the 4th Spengler post, and I can't quite figure out why just now, but I'm working on it.

I think this will be the second-to-last post on The Decline of the West, at least for now. The next one will be a "grab bag" of quotes and thoughts that didn't quite rise to the level of "I should do a full post about this."

As always, I appreciate your thoughts and if there's anything I'm missing or that you'd like to see more of.

So far, I keep on with getting a blog post out for each week, if only barely. This week, my thoughts on the book The Way of the Rose: The Radical Path of the Divine Feminine Hidden in the Rosary by Clark Strand and Perdita Finn. I found it helpful in thinking about my work on a "Heathen Rosary", and I think anyone who thinks the Rosary might be helpful or at least interesting, but is not all that Catholic, might find this book worth checking out.