Product Description

In the heart of Oxford sits Malynowskys Bookshop selling books that both lure and intimidate. Six short stories take you inside this little world full of mystery, real magick, and moral lessons. Meet Paul Magwitch, possessed by the spirit of a young girl who compels him to buy expensive things he does not want; the Witch in the City, who ekes out a living reading Tarot for strangers in the park; and Eurydice, a shop employee who tragically becomes the victim of a customers magical attack.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #671206 in Books
• Published on: 2004-05-08
• Original language: English
• Dimensions: .69 pounds
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

About the Author
Kala Trobe (UK) is the main nom-de-plume of Kate La Trobe-Bateman. She is author of the award-winning work of fiction The Magick Bookshop and the new Magick in the West End, a dazzling collection of short stories that brim with imagination and come straight from the theatre-lit, gaudy, blinding, yet, bewitching streets of London's West End - and all seen through the eyes of a magically-minded young and aspiring occultist at one of Londons most well-known esoteric bookshops.Kala Trobe is the author of several works of Llewellyn non-fiction including Invoke the Goddess: Visualizations of Hindu, Greek, & Egyptian Deities, Magic of Qabalah, Invoke the Gods: Exploring the Power of Male Archetypes and The Witchs Guide to Life, and is also published by Random House UK. Ms Trobe currently divides her time between London and Amsterdam.

Excerpted from Magick Bookshop by Kala Trobe. Copyright © 2004. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Magwitch The week I started at Malynowsky's, in June 1996, was the same that the newspapers carried the headings: "Majority of Britons no longer believe in God," and "God is dead: Nietzsche. Nietzsche is dead: God." The British Humanist Association had just conducted a MORI poll and discovered that, while 67 percent of the populace considered themselves religious, only 43 percent believed in a God. Not only this, but it rained and rained interminably. Mr. Malynowsky was undeterred.

"The rain is a wonderful sign, Kala," he told me as he handed me an antiquarian specimen with a binding like brie rind, "The rain is a symbol of knowledge, like this book. It comes from Chokmah, the sphere of Wisdom on the Tree of Life; it is God's thoughts descending on Malkuth, the Earth plane. Yes, the rain falls effortlessly from the unfathomable mind of God, fertilising all that it touches, even in these ancient city streets! The trick is to make ourselves a vessel for this Chokmahrain, so that we can collect and hold God's wisdom."

"That's a lovely way of looking at it!" I said, putting this weather immunity down to his Polish origins as much as to the mystic bent. Britons, as well as not believing in God, complain endlessly about the rain, and then bitterly rebuke the sun for being too hot when he occasionally shows his face. Atmospheric intolerance and atheism seem to go hand in hand.

"Not just lovely-also true!" announced my new employer, his blue eyes dancing with merriment beneath salt-and-pepper eyebrows. "All of life is an analogy of the mind of God-magick teaches us this. There is no such thing as bad weather, only a bad attitude to God's many moods!"

I looked through the dusty, darkened windows at the silver streaks outside, and felt that pleasure which can only come when the rain is pummeling on the roof and flags, a cold wind weaving in and out of the liquid columns or blowing them sideways into wet explosions on passersby, and one is warm and snug inside. A shiver of contentment passed through me.

"Yes, we are like a capsule, floating on the river," remarked Mr. Malynowsky, a phrase which was soon to become familiar to my ears. "A bubble which many might like to burst. But we shan't let them, shall we, my dear?"

I looked at him, surprised. "What do you mean?" I ventured.

"Ah, my dear, so young, so much to learn. The first thing you must know is that every action has its equal and opposite reaction. For every good thing we believe and do, there will spring up an adverse reaction. You and I belong to the Pillar of Mercy, but there are just as many adherents to the Pillar of Severity. Not a bad thing; we need the balance. But then we have the flip-side . . . "

"Flip-?"

"Yes, I'm afraid we do. The Klippoth. The husks or harlots, as we call them. These are the spirits of evil, and there are just as many in Oxford as anywhere else, Kala, or possibly more. But I do not wish to alarm you, my dear, though forewarned is forearmed, as they say. You will learn a lot working here; it is a focalpoint for many energies, as you will see."

Had Mr. Malynowsky not been so gentlemanly, well-educated, and respected, I might have been deterred at this point. Actually, that's a lie. I might have felt I ought to be deterred, but the lure of the shop, with its wondrous rows of tomes and spectral nooks and the fact that my boss was merely vocalising what I already thought-but was unaccustomed to hearing said out loud-far outweighed my desire to be sensible. I smiled at him with genuine confidence.

"I can't wait," I said. I did not have to.

Two minutes later, a blur of brown Barbour coat crashed through the door, shedding silver beads of God's wisdom from its waxy surface, and generous streams of Chokmahic insight from the numerous bags clutched in the red hands of its breathless owner. The pigskin carpet* all around his feet was soon as sodden as the gentleman's beard, over which he stared bespectacled. His eyes were large and rather frantic, and as they met Mr. Malynowsky's, the man, who was in his mid-forties I estimated, flushed like a teenager.

"I'll just put my bags down, if I may," he exhaled, depositing at the foot of the mahogany counter seven or eight extremely heavylooking carriers from Blackwell's and the Oxford University Press Bookshops.

"Certainly, Sir," nodded Mr. Malynowsky mildly. "And how may we help you?"

The man looked at us both, and then swept the shop with his eyes. They nearly bulged, and he began to hyperventilate again. "I just want to look around and buy some books, if that's all right." As he spoke, the man headed for the fine bindings shelf, his hands shaking-with the strain of his shed load, or with something else? He grabbed two or three beauties from the middle, then hurried to the next section, the incunabula, and pulled off the fattest specimens, piling them all up in his arms.

"You might like to put...(Continues)