Review: A Guide to the Gods, by Richard Carlyon

Heinemann Ltd.
ISBN 0-688-01333-3

Although this book is now out of print, you can still buy it used from Amazon, and it is well worth getting. As the title suggests, this is a guide to the Gods, but it's not your average A-Z of Gods from around the world. Instead, it is a witty, fun, well-researched, and unbelievably informative A-Z of Gods from around the world.

The book is split into sections according to geographical locations of Gods: Africa, America (North America, Mexico, South America, and Haiti), Asia (China, Japan, and India), Europe (Greece, Rome, Celtic, Nordic, Slavonic, Finnish), Middle East (Egypt, General Middle East, and Gnostic), and Oceania.

Richard describes the stories, origins, locations, and attributes of the Gods and Goddesses in the book with a passion and humour often alien to such books, and in doing so he helps the stories come alive. He captures your imagination whilst being informative, and you'll find yourself laughing out loud throughout the read.

This is a great resource that you'll also want to read at bedtime for some light entertainment, and I highly recommend it for any Pagan's bookshelf. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that this is the best book of its kind I have so far come across.