lowered her eyes and turned her attention back to the book list.
It couldn’t be for interlibrary loan. There was no red I.L.L. ticket, and besides, it was just too many books. I.L.L. would be two or three at most, if any at all. The IHOB, that is, the International House of Bookcakes, had books that no other library in the system had, she knew, but people rarely requested them. When they did, and it was a significant title, it made her sick with worry, as it had a year ago when the library’s copy of True and Faithful had had to travel to Sacramento. This was a facsimile edition, now quite rare, of A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee … and Some Spirits (London, 1659), which she herself had once owned but had donated to the library for the public good and to protect it from the mom’s predations. It was the only copy to which she was likely to have access, and it was crucial to her studies. The book was returned safely three weeks later, to her immense relief. The Blue Equinox had come back with the seals cut out, by some profoundly small-minded occult dilettante, possibly a “goth” or heavy-metal rock fan, she imagined. Such people were around, a blight on the occult landscape, though fortunately they rarely had a long-enough attention span to do much damage. Frater Achad’s Egyptian Revival hadn’t come back at all, which was a shame because Andromeda wished at present to consult its countertraditional analysis of the tarot trumps that had stumbled through her dream.
She got a cart from the back room and began with the 000s. Generalities and Information. She had never read the first one on the list, but it looked interesting and she made a mental note to look at it when it was returned: The Egyptian Miracle: An Introduction to the Wisdom of the Temple . Following were three books by Robert Anton Wilson that she had always meant to check out. Packing up Sylvester Mouse that evening only got her through the 001s, because she spent most of the time standing by the cart in the stacks reading the temple book and thinking about numbers and swords and boxes, and about how a compass and straightedge were the only tools necessary to build the world.
The Sylvester Mouse list was great, consisting almost entirely of books she had read, or had pretended to have read, or felt she ought to have read, or had been meaning to read, or had not known about but which were thoroughly up her alley. She had looked ahead to the selection of 133s, “her” section, Parapsychology and Occultism: it was particularly impressive, including nearly all the good ones and leaving the wicker behind. Here was Mrs. van Rensselaer’s rare and quite underestimated Prophetical, Educational, and Playing Cards; and there was nearly everything the library had of Waite and Crowley, as well as Agrippa, Bonewits, Mathers’s translation of the Abramelin text, Eliphas Levi, Dame Frances Yates, Francis Barrett, all the classics … Abramelin the Mage wouldn’t be on the shelves. She knew because it was the library’s only copy and she herself had had it and somehow managed to lose track of it sometime during the past year. Currently, she had the Eliphas Levi and one of the Yates volumes at home—she would have to replace them by the time she got to the 133s, she supposed. She decided to staff-check A.E.’s Book of Ceremonial Magic , because she had just been using it to look up the sigils for Sallos and Orobas, and she wanted to note the sigils of the remaining Goetic demons on her cards.
Those who had made the Sylvester Mouse selections, whoever they were and whatever their purpose, really knew their stuff. The 296 section was great as well; it included the classic texts and left behind the dumbed-down self-help mumbo jumbo. It was a kind of showcase of the best the IHOB had to offer, which was considerable, and Andromeda caught herself feeling weirdly proud of it.
Books could get her excited, not just
It couldn’t be for interlibrary loan. There was no red I.L.L. ticket, and besides, it was just too many books. I.L.L. would be two or three at most, if any at all. The IHOB, that is, the International House of Bookcakes, had books that no other library in the system had, she knew, but people rarely requested them. When they did, and it was a significant title, it made her sick with worry, as it had a year ago when the library’s copy of True and Faithful had had to travel to Sacramento. This was a facsimile edition, now quite rare, of A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Yeers Between Dr. John Dee … and Some Spirits (London, 1659), which she herself had once owned but had donated to the library for the public good and to protect it from the mom’s predations. It was the only copy to which she was likely to have access, and it was crucial to her studies. The book was returned safely three weeks later, to her immense relief. The Blue Equinox had come back with the seals cut out, by some profoundly small-minded occult dilettante, possibly a “goth” or heavy-metal rock fan, she imagined. Such people were around, a blight on the occult landscape, though fortunately they rarely had a long-enough attention span to do much damage. Frater Achad’s Egyptian Revival hadn’t come back at all, which was a shame because Andromeda wished at present to consult its countertraditional analysis of the tarot trumps that had stumbled through her dream.
She got a cart from the back room and began with the 000s. Generalities and Information. She had never read the first one on the list, but it looked interesting and she made a mental note to look at it when it was returned: The Egyptian Miracle: An Introduction to the Wisdom of the Temple . Following were three books by Robert Anton Wilson that she had always meant to check out. Packing up Sylvester Mouse that evening only got her through the 001s, because she spent most of the time standing by the cart in the stacks reading the temple book and thinking about numbers and swords and boxes, and about how a compass and straightedge were the only tools necessary to build the world.
The Sylvester Mouse list was great, consisting almost entirely of books she had read, or had pretended to have read, or felt she ought to have read, or had been meaning to read, or had not known about but which were thoroughly up her alley. She had looked ahead to the selection of 133s, “her” section, Parapsychology and Occultism: it was particularly impressive, including nearly all the good ones and leaving the wicker behind. Here was Mrs. van Rensselaer’s rare and quite underestimated Prophetical, Educational, and Playing Cards; and there was nearly everything the library had of Waite and Crowley, as well as Agrippa, Bonewits, Mathers’s translation of the Abramelin text, Eliphas Levi, Dame Frances Yates, Francis Barrett, all the classics … Abramelin the Mage wouldn’t be on the shelves. She knew because it was the library’s only copy and she herself had had it and somehow managed to lose track of it sometime during the past year. Currently, she had the Eliphas Levi and one of the Yates volumes at home—she would have to replace them by the time she got to the 133s, she supposed. She decided to staff-check A.E.’s Book of Ceremonial Magic , because she had just been using it to look up the sigils for Sallos and Orobas, and she wanted to note the sigils of the remaining Goetic demons on her cards.
Those who had made the Sylvester Mouse selections, whoever they were and whatever their purpose, really knew their stuff. The 296 section was great as well; it included the classic texts and left behind the dumbed-down self-help mumbo jumbo. It was a kind of showcase of the best the IHOB had to offer, which was considerable, and Andromeda caught herself feeling weirdly proud of it.
Books could get her excited, not just
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