Bookstores, Publishers, and Literature Online

This is by no means an exhaustive list, or even an extensive one. It's in the process of being developed. If you have a favorite online periodical, literature site, bookstore, or publishing website, please let me know about it. I would love to expand this list.

No guarantees or promises are expressed or implied by listing a store or publisher here - the links are here for information. If I have dealt with someone from the list, I'll note that, but that is not a promise that you'll have the same experience that I did.

  • Amazon.Com - the biggest, the easiest, but try the smaller stores and the independent publishers first.
  • Barnes & Noble - almost as big, almost as easy, but again, try the smaller stores and the independent publishers before you order from the giants.
  • Bibliofind - searches a number of independent bookstores to find your book/s, but they do it through Amazon.com. Definitely of more use when you're looking for fiction, but still of some use for non-fiction searches.
  • Caduceus Bookstore - an independent bookstore in England with a lot of interesting material, especially Thelemic texts. My own experience with this shop has been excellent.
  • Dagon Productions - small independent bookseller, mostly focused on chaos magic, also carries CDs and t-shirts. My own experiences with this company have been very good, and I wouldn't hesitate to order from them again.
  • Electronic Book Review - fun to visit, not a publisher.
  • Eschaton Books - another small press, fairly dormant at this time. Still - there's some material that's well worth having, if it's still available. They're located here in Chicago, I know the owner, so I'm kind of biased towards liking this press since I went with them to the ABA convention for a few years.
  • Kessinger Publishing - reprints of a lot of older ritual magick texts. The reprints can be pretty pricey, but if you can't find it used, Kessinger may be the only way you'll get hold of certain texts.
  • Llewellyn Worldwide - the big publisher. Most books on Wicca and new age topics sold in the US are published by Llewellyn. They make occult works very easy to find. They'll also publish the most astonishing crap I've ever seen and call it Wicca, magick, occult, New Age, or any other catch phrase that they think will make people buy it. Amazingly low publishing standards and, as far as I can tell, a complete lack of copyeditors. Still, they do put out a lot of material that's definitely needed and they make it available at a genuinely affordable price. YMMV.
  • Mandrake of Oxford - smallish British publishing house, you can order directly from them. Very nice staff, and I've had excellent luck finding material here that wasn't listed on Amazon.com or anywhere else. Shipping was slow, but it was also overseas and not priority mail. I've learned since to always pay the extra money and have the books shipped by the faster method.
  • Luxor Press - another independent publisher, stocking more hard to find texts.
  • New Aeon Books - mail order books from England.
  • New Page Books - looks like a fairly new publishing house that grew out of a better-known nonfiction house called “Career Press.”
  • Night of Pan Books - mail order books, slightly skewed towards the Thelemic reader.
  • Paperbacks.com - an easy way to track down general paperbacks.
  • Phoenix Publishing - fairly small catalog of Wiccan books, focusing mostly on the Farrars. Ordering can be done online at their website through Amazon.com.
  • Project Gutenberg - an effort to get all our Great Literature online. Noble goal. I haven't participated, but I do roam around here occasionally.
  • Pratum Book Company - sells both out-of-print and new books on what they consider to be “important scholarship.” Categories include Cosmology, Hermetic Philosophy, Pagan Religion, Spirituality, Psychology, and Psychical Reseach. Organized quite nicely.
  • Public Interest Registry - quite possibly does not belong here, but it really doesn't belong anywhere else either. It's a not-for-profit corporation organized to manage the .ORG registry. Utterly fascinating array of sites, including some with occult or metaphysical content. Something to visit when you've got a while to wander around on the web and visit interesting links.
  • Purging Talon Publishing - Satanic publishing house, with a surprisingly varied amount of material available.
  • Serpent's Occult Books - has mail order new, used, out of print, and rare occult books that they sell through eBay and through their online catalog. Steve and Co. have an amazing array of really fantastic stock, and if they don't have what you want right now, they may get it in a month or two. Occult bibliophile heaven.
  • Violet Books - sells Antiquarian Supernatural Literature, as the owner explains in the introduction. Even if it's not a subject you're interested in, the main page is worth reading, if only for the links to the author's bibliographies and essays.
  • Weiser, which is now Red Wheel/Weiser, which has just bought Conari Press, is one of the better known ceremonial magic publishers. Extensive catalog. Even more extensive now, and with the expansion (Red Wheel was a New Age imprint), moving away from the traditional focus on CM and beginning to look more like Llewellyn. *shudder* The horror, the horror…. (apologies for the editorial insert, I couldn't resist)

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2/27/2003 3:18:02 PM