december 2021 – good to read

DMT – Entity Encounters. Dialogues on the Spirit Molecule
Includes contributions from the late Ralph Metzner, Chris Bache, Whitley Strieber, Jeffrey Kripal, Angela Voss, Bill Richards, Chris Timmermann, Michael Winkelman, Luis Eduardo Luna, Anton Bilton, Bernard Carr, Daniel Pinchbeck, Dennis McKenna, Ede Frecska, and David Luke. Found throughout the plant and animal kingdom, DMT (dimethyltryptamine) is also naturally occurring in humans, where it is released during near-death and actual death experiences, earning it the title «the spirit molecule.» When taken as a psychedelic, either via ayahuasca or in pure form, DMT is experientially considered to be the strongest and strangest of all entheogens. The majority of high-dose users report visions of unknown yet curiously familiar alien worlds and encounters with sentient nonhuman presences.
Simon and Schuster | October 21

Witchcraft. The Library of Esoterica
Includes contributions from the late Ralph Metzner, Chris Bache, Whitley Strieber, Jeffrey Kripal, Angela Voss, Bill Richards, Chris Timmermann, Michael Winkelman, Luis Eduardo Luna, Anton Bilton, Bernard Carr, Daniel Pinchbeck, Dennis McKenna, Ede Frecska, and David Luke. Found throughout the plant and animal kingdom, DMT (dimethyltryptamine) is also naturally occurring in humans, where it is released during near-death and actual death experiences, earning it the title «the spirit molecule.» When taken as a psychedelic, either via ayahuasca or in pure form, DMT is experientially considered to be the strongest and strangest of all entheogens. The majority of high-dose users report visions of unknown yet curiously familiar alien worlds and encounters with sentient nonhuman presences.
Simon and Schuster | October 21

Chouette
iny is pregnant. Her husband is delighted. ‘It’s not yours,’ she tells him. ‘This baby will be an owl-baby.’ Odd, lonely, haunted by a mysterious past, Tiny’s always been an outsider. And she knows her child will be different. When Chouette is born, Tiny’s husband and family are devastated by her condition and strange appearance. Doctors tell them to expect the worst. Chouette can’t walk; she never speaks; she lashes out when frightened and causes chaos in public. Tiny’s husband wants to make her better: ‘Don’t you want our daughter to have a normal life?’ But though exhausted, shunned and bereft of her former life, Tiny thinks Chouette is perfect the way she is. Savage, startling, possessed of a biting humour and wild love, Chouette is a dark modern fable about mothering an unusual child.
Little Brown | November 21

Harsh Times
the CIA topples the government of Jacobo Árbenz. Behind this violent act is a lie passed off as truth, which forever changes the development of Latin America: the accusation by the Eisenhower administration that Árbenz encouraged the spread of Soviet Communism in the Americas. Harsh Times is a story of international conspiracies and conflicting interests in the time of the Cold War, the echoes of which are still felt today. In this thrilling novel, Mario Vargas Llosa fuses reality with two fictions: that of the narrator, who freely re-creates characters and situations, and the one designed by those who would control the politics and the economy of a continent by manipulating its history.
Faber & Faber | November 21

Wonder Drug. LSD in the Land of Living Skies
Spanning the decades from the 1950s to present day, this captivating story follows Anglo-Canadian psychiatrist Dr. Humphrey Osmond down the rabbit hole of psychedelic research, conducted both in the lab and in his living room. Lurching from dazzling imagery to fanged delusions, studded with a cast of radical personalities such as Aldous Huxley, Allen Ginsberg, and Ken Kesey (among others), Wonder Drug is a trip like no other. As Osmond and his colleagues grapple with professional isolation, a growing moral panic, and the burgeoning War on Drugs, their growing body of findings are maligned and misunderstood – but the promise of the pharmaceutical revolution is still on the horizon, and the radical research in Wyburn, Saskatchewan, may still be realized. Since this is a graphic novel, watch this.
Between the lines | November 21