The Alt Clud Review of Books

The Secret Commonwealth or A Treatise Displaying the Chief Curousities among the People of Scotland as they are in Use to This Day by the Reverand Robert Kirk is a famous study on 17 th century folk beliefs where Kirk sums up many of the beliefs around faeries and the second sight prevalent amongst his parishioners in 1690s Aberfoyle. It’s a book I remember hearing about during my undergraduate at Aberdeen, but at the time the only copy was in the Heavy Demand section, and so it was only this year that I finally managed to get a hold of a copy of the Folklore Society edition edited by Stewart Sanderson from my local university library in Glasgow. Or at least, I thought that I had taken out the Folklore Society version – what I had actually taken out was the edition by ceremonial magician and occultist R J Stewart . Realising I had made a mistake I did eventually take out the Folklore Society version as well, so in a rare treat the Alt Clud Review of Books is reviewing two books for...

Equal Rites is the third book in Terry Pratchett’s incredibly long running Discworld series and unlike the other Discworld books that I have recently re-read ( Going Postal, The Colour of Magic, Mort and Guards, Guards! – reviewed here ) it’s not one of the books I had many memories about. And I think I can see why, because in many ways Equal Rites is an awkward transition novel from the High Fantasy parody of the original first two novels into the more mainstream comic low fantasy novels (with a strong moral weight) that became the standard Discworld formula. So what is the story of Equal Rites? In short, just before his death a wizard hands his staff to his heir – an eighth son of an eighth son –  only to find out that the baby he gave the staff to was actually a girl, which is impossible as everyone knows women can’t be wizards. The girl (Esk) then grows up, shows she has magical powers and is taken by Granny Weatherwax, the local witch, for training. However Esk’s magic ...

Why Switzerland? by Jonathan Steinberg is a 1996 non-fiction text that aims to answer the question of why Switzerland culture and political structures are so unique compared to its European neighbours. Why did I read Why Switzerland? that’s simple – I’d always heard that Switzerland was famously decentralised and used referendums all the time, but barely knew anything about the country other than chocolate, clocks and banks so I wanted to find out more. But why Why Switzerland? in particular? That’s even easier, it was the only English language book I could find that covered the topic without being either a travelogue or a very dry political science treatise. It seems that Switzerland, if Glasgow libraries are to be believed, is a rather obscure country. But anyway, onto the review! Why Switzerland? is in many ways a very old-fashioned attempt at summarising the essence of a country in a book. Its aim is to summarise why Switzerland exists and what makes it uniquely Swiss. It does t...