Welcome to Litsy!

I feel like the luckiest recipient of the #modernwitchswap! Truly witchy!! I absolutely love the scarf (beautiful!!), and the spices and tea. I‘m sniffing everything and cannot wait to use them. And the books are perfect!!! Thank you @TEArificbooks I can tell so much care and love went into this. And the homemade card! That made my day!!

The Lesser Dead is about a group of vampires living in the NYC underground in the late 1970s. It‘s the first time I‘ve really been sucked into a story about vampires (other than Bunnicula)

A Season with the Witch is a nonfiction work by a reporter who stayed in Salem with his family for the month of October. It‘s such a historic, complex, and horribly cheesy place. Visiting Salem is now near the top of my bucket list!
#hauntedshelf #skeletoncrew

#witch #scarathlonphotochallenge #skeletoncrew @Emilymdxn

This was a fun read . Some of the chapters were more interesting than others. However, Ocker gives a great overview of Salem at Halloween. It's more than Witch City, USA.
@StayCurious #TeamMonsterMash

#OminousOctober #Orange
@Eggs @alwaysbeenaloverofbooks
@StayCurious

I enjoyed this book so much that it has me pondering a trip to Salem for Halloween! This is perfect if you want to read some nonfiction this time of year!

#witch #scarathlondailyprompts #scarathlon

OK, I usually don't like non-fiction. It seems too dry to me. However, I'm 20 pages into this and I'm hooked. Maybe because it's spooky season, or because Salem has always interested me. Maybe because I already have over 1,000 points in the Word Search activity for #TeamMonsterMash. Whatever the reason, Ocker has me invested.
@StayCurious

I should finch Witch 13 tonight. I think I'm going to follow @mdm139's lead and try out this book. #TeamMonsterMash
@StayCurious

I‘ll probably read spookier things this month, but I‘d be shocked if any other book sticks with me as long as Season with the Witch does. Ocker takes a fair and balanced look at the tragedy of the Salem Witch Trials and the way that an entire cheesy tourist industry and local economy was built on the Witch City billing. Ocker would prefer the city make a more somber acknowledgment of what occurred there; he also embraces the ridiculousness…

Must be the season of the witch 🧙🏼‍♀️

Hopefully it‘s not too late, but I‘m posting my Witchy Aesthetic for #BasicWitchSwap ✨🌙✨

🌙I‘m a solitary, Eclectic Witch who follows the seasons & lunar cycles.
🌙I just started drying my own herbs 🌿 (although this summer‘s harvest was pretty terrible)
🌙 I use candles, tarot, palo santo, books, crystals in my craft.
🌙I‘ve been practicing for 2 years, but always felt drawn to magic since I was a child.
🌙Nature is my church 🍁🍂🌻🕯

Excellent!!! It took me a while to finish, but I had so much fun with this one. 🌙✨ #nfn2020

16 hours down for @bookishrealityy‘s (from IG) #48hourreadathon! Now we move into the big leagues. So many more #readathon‘s start tomorrow! I‘m hoping to keep up. All set for a very bookish weekend. 🧡 #bookanddrink

+161 points for #scarathlon #teamslaughter

Thanks for the tag, @Eggs ! ❤️

Fall makes me think of spooky stories, and while there are many to choose from, I tagged a book that is part humor, part history, part spooky, and part contemporary issues. Anything to do with Salem, Massachusetts automatically goes on my #tbr , and I liked this one (also Ocker‘s book on his Poe travels!).

1. I have a tiny Halloween tree on display year round
2. Caramel Apple!
3. 5 finished
#ThoughtfulThursday

So today was kind of a wash on getting through this book as planned for #24b4monday . I think it‘s more of a savor until Halloween read for me at the moment. Instead I‘ll share this #shelfie from the town that inspired the book (my favorite place on earth) Salem, MA. This was a bookstore that used to be in the center of town and was sadly replaced. I‘m so glad I got to experience it before they closed. It was a happy place inside my happy place.

Off to a great start in Chapter one. Is there anything more glorious than fall and Halloween in New England 🥰🎃🧙🏻‍♀️

Absolute fun!
We join the Ocker family as they spend a month in Salem, Massachusetts. Touring historical sites, museums and cemeteries and many of the sites associated with the Salem Witch Trials. There is a chapter about the Maritime museum and Nathaniel Hawthorne's tribute.
#teamslaughter #scarathon #scavengerhunt #aboutHalloween
5 points for Halloween theme
1 point scavenger hunt
6 total points
Cool cover!

I really enjoyed this #orangecover book! Ocker decides to live in Salem, Massachusetts in order to understand the history of the Salem Witch Trials of 1692, and how that history impacts the city today. He covers so much and really makes you think about Salem. #FallIsBooked

Well now this is just getting unwieldy 😂 #booksbrewsandbooze #tbrmountain #aseasonwiththewitch #jwocker #march #geraldinebrooks #heirloomvegetablegardening #thecivilwarbattlefieldguide #ghoststoriesofnewengland #goodwives #newenglandhistory

No reading tonight. I just took a night tour of Salem. So many shops that had books in them. I did the window shopping tonight to plan out my purchases tomorrow.

Day 4, Orange Books: Looking around, I see a lot of orange spines but very few orange books. Since the only other orange book I seem to have is reserved for tomorrow's BIG books entry, here's an all-over orange book that's also on my TBR this month. It's a bit long, so I hope I like it! 🎃

#31bookpics #orangebooks
@howjessreads

I like Ocker‘s books because they really feel like you are sitting with the people he is interviewing and having that conversation with them. It examines not only the folklore but the meaning and lasting impact of the 1692 Witch trials on Salem and pop culture.

Book 3 for the #readathon. Loved his book about Poe and just picked this up when it was on sale a few days ago. Miss Harvey is ready to go.

J.W. Ocker and his family packed their bags and lived in Salem, Massachusetts for the entire month of October. His goal was to find out what makes Salem, well, Salem. This book was both fun and interesting as you follow Ocker on his journey through Salem‘s infamous history and how it looks through the lens of the city‘s present day. It‘s like a combination of history, travel memoir, and cultural observations.

The creepy events and timing that led to Salem‘s Haunted Happenings. 👻

Further adventures in seasonally thematic reading.

Enjoying a quiet afternoon reading about Salem, Massachusetts.

I read this last year and really enjoyed it...an exploration of all facets of Salem, including those places that try to look beyond what happened in 1692. #orangeandblack #hallowreads

#witchreads for this October! I think I'll start you this week!🎃👻🎃

When the author moves his family to Salem for the month of Halloween in order to research and explore the town's history and its current culture, he finds a town unlike any other. A month long celebration of ghosts and ghouls embraces and even profits off of a past that many have tried to forget. This book is a fun, lighthearted look at a not so fun or lighthearted period in our country's history. - Jade

#ORANGEYOUGLAD This was a great book that I read last October.

Part snarky humor, part travelogue, with a dash of philosophical pondering, Ocker lives in Salem, Massachusetts as he really tries to get to know the city. What makes Salem so special? Does it diminish the memory of those who suffered during the witch trials? I loved reading this - Salem is on my to visit list because of the history - and it reminded me a lot of Sarah Vowell's books. Also, it was the perfect time of year to read this!

This was a fascinating look at Salem, MA, its history and present culture. The author moved his family to the city for the entire month of October, its busiest month of the year, to view the general madness of Salem at Halloween. The book is filled with history of the city and the tragedy of the Witch Trials, as well as interviews with various business owners, politicians and performers who make the city their home year round.

I don't usually have snacks when I read, but I do like to have coffee or tea. Since it's Friday, however, I decided to be a little wild and add a chocolate bar. Shown here with my two #scaretober reads. #readingsnacks #booktober

Give me all the witch books you have.

Here's a teeny piece of my #allhallowsread TBR.

A really excellent history/travel guide of Salem, Massachusetts. After reading this book, I want to visit Salem. Ocker does a fantastic job of covering the diverse history of this coastal town. He fairly presents both sides of the Halloween celebration and lets the reader make their own conclusions. If you are looking for something different, give this a read!

"Tea can make a political rally seem like a librarian conference and a prison riot a chess tournament "

"...I planned to walk the path of the condemned, the gallows walk: from the site of the courthouse to the site of the jail to the site of the executions. Except unlike the Witch Trial victims, I would stop at Walgreens at the end of my trek for a Coke Zero."

On describing the Halloween parade in Salem:
"The parade started out innocently enough, with all the usual townie fanfare... That one guy from every city who dresses as Batman and has built his own Batmobile."

Excited to start this!

Just getting started on this one!