Resources

Books on the Runes

There probably is no such thing as a book so bad that nothing can be gained by reading it, or a book so good that it answers all one's questions without the need for any further reading. Every person will have different expectations and needs of a book. At the Rune School then we think the best approach to reviewing and rating books is to provide you with as much information as we can to enable you to make up your mind based on what type of book you are looking for. Hence as well as providing a short review of each book, we have rated it according to 3 criteria. The relative weight given to these criteria, which are explained below, will depend on the individual reader's needs.

Scholarly

This relates to how academic the text is. A serious scholarly book has certain prerequisites including an index, to be organised logically and to support its assertions with reference to historical or literary sources including the work of other authors. For someone researching the runes with the intention of writing an essay or academic paper, this will be an important rating. They would want to know the facts they are citing are correct and the sources which the book's author used should they want to follow them up.

Readability

This describes how easy a book is to read and how interesting an experience it provides. It includes aspects such as arrangement of the book, use of diagrams and the individual author's style. It is not however the opposite of the previous rating since it is perfectly possible to write an exciting interesting easily-understandable academic text. However it is true that some scholarly aspects such as extensive quotation and complex vocabulary can have the effect of lowering a book's readability.

Originality

Overall

The overall rating is not the sum of the other ratings and is not directly influenced by any of them. It is a personal view of the quality and usefulness of the book.

Book Reviews

Listed by author in alphabetical order:

• Authors A - L

• Authors M - Z