Reviews and Comments

A charming little companion to the Matthews' deck of the same name, accessible whether you are new to their brand of Celtic/Arthurian scholarship or not, although a grounding in the Arthurian traditions as well of course as in Tarot is recommended. There are newer editions available, which might be better if you don't already have a copy (probably bought this one in the early 90s; it's a 1990 edition) as they are active scholars and always updating their vision.

Read this one a long time ago... in the 1980s I think, so can't really review now. I liked it. Good SF thriller, fast read. Would I like it today? How well has it aged? Couldn't tell you.

Does it count if you read something so long ago that you don't remember it at all? Late 1970s, early 1980s, due for a reread for sure.

A poignant tale told with astonishing detail & grace. I am at a loss for words, and plan to read more about Izgil. Highly recommended.

So about this book ... mixed feelings. Three and a half stars, rounded down at first but maybe we'll round up, because it's still a well-crafted volume, with a fabulous bibliography.

On the one hand, a good bit of it, especially in the first few chapters, reads like a middle-school pop magazine, except instead of talking up cute musicians she's rationalizing why this or that serial murderer wasn't really a bad person, but rather a victim of circumstance. If this one had access to anti-depressants, or if that one were independently wealthy, perhaps they'd not have been so desperate. I think especially now, when public violence seems to pop up everywhere, excusing murder because the murderer may have had a rough life is a dangerous game.

Otherwise we found it a fun and informative read. Perrin obviously did a lot of preparation for this work, and her illustrations are often poignant.

We read The League of Lady Poisoners as a library ebook, via hoopla. That had its pros and cons; for example the Index has handy hotlinks, and some of the Sources entries do as well. We find it harder to flip around in ebooks than in hard copies though -- someone once likened them to scrolls (ebooks) and codices (physical books) and that really stayed with us.

We'd recommend the book for its trippy bios and fab sources. There's not as much science (bioscience, toxicology, botany, etc.) as we'd have liked, but it makes up for it with edutainment value as well. Some of the historical entries were stronger than others, too. It's not a main reference volume so much as a hook, or a quick survey, or even a refresher. And, as mentioned, valuable for the Sources, and charming illustrations.

Excellent and fun book, if dated in places. That too is educational, and can be good for discussion.

It took us a surprising length of time to get through as we'd picked it up as part of a snapping turtle reading project, and misplaced it once or twice. Really really enjoyed the detailed illustrations, made lots of notes. We started out with a library copy and ended up purchasing our own.