Llewellyn's 2018 Witches' Companion: An Almanac for Contemporary Living

Llewellyn's Witches' Companion

by Llewellyn Publications

Live your Craft every day with Llewellyn's Witches' Companion. This indispensable guide will keep you one step ahead of the latest witchy trends, Craft practices, and Pagan issues.

Genres: Witchcraft, Nonfiction, Paganism, Reference, Spirituality

288 pages, Paperback

Published July 8, 2017

About the author

Llewellyn George started his publishing company in Portland, Oregon in 1901, concentrating Astrological books and annuals. In 1961, Carl L. Weschcke of St. Paul, Minnesota purchased the company and relocated it to the Midwest.

Llewellyn is the world’s oldest and largest independent publisher of books for body, mind, and spirit.

Reviews

[Cynthia]

There were certainly some good articles here, but none so profound as to cancel out a few really bad ones. The piece on cultural appropriation in particular read more like a rant on a subject the author didn’t take the time to properly research. A guide to clean eating came off as borderline orthorexic. A few more were so laden with New Age buzzwords that they were hard to follow.

While this wasn’t without some virtue of usefulness and entertainment, either the quality of Llewellyn annuals is going down or I’m getting way more critical of the content I consume. This almanac left me more frustrated than anything else, to be honest.

[Adrian Brown]

The subtitle for this book is, "An Almanac for Contemporary Living," but I think it should be, "Various Conversations with Modern Practitioners About Modern Issues."

I am at a special place in my spiritual journey and have been reading almost everything about modern witchery that I can get my hands on. I was excited in the bookstore as I read the table of contents and saw articles about cultural appropriation, embracing the dark side, bug totems, color and crystal magic, and more. Unfortunately, most of the pieces I was looking forward to the most fell flat; the essays felt too much like , "this is how I do it, so I think you should try it," instead of deep discussions about the relevant information. All of this is not to say that I didn't enjoy parts of the book. The articles on embracing being broken, magic meditation, and clean eating, as well as little bits and pieces sprinkled throughout resonated with me. I also very much appreciated all of the black and white illustrations!

[m i l o u ✨ (grumpy witch)]

There was a lot of useful information in here and I adored all the little drawings

[Laura]

Only really enjoyed a couple essays. Most were very strange or very, very Wicca centered. I wish there were more secular witchcraft essays included.

[Dominika]

This is more of a periodical, with more long-form articles about a wide range of topics from more beginner friendly or crafting items, to more witchy history, to other practices. I generally found a lot of them to have good ideas but felt a little underwhelmed by some of the articles (the pagan mourning and color magic ones particularly). There were a few (the beginner one and the one on cultural appropriation) where it is a good place to lead people to (or give words when you see other people acting a bit too police-y), and I will try to incorporate some of the simple tips (the journaling and some of the crafty ones). I think my favorites were the broken Goddess and the history ones. It was simple, but a nice thing to spark ideas.

[Alia Makki]

And then, when I thought that I could not be more beaten raw to my barest elements with hard knowledge, this books passes under my readership to console the sores and soften the hard edges.

Like a balm, "Here you go, missus; something to fortify your faith in the Unknown and heal what dents your brain has had to endure in order to fit the hard things in life."

[Michael D Fochtman]

Another wonderful edition of essays about the craft. My only regret, that I am unable (at this time) to purchase the 2019 edition. :)

[Rachel]

Highly enjoyable

[WiccanLady25]

Fantastic resource book for Wiccans. I highly recommend this to anyone who practices.

[Rachel]

Wasn't super into the essays this year

[Jess]

It's fine.