87 books like Night Battles

Brian Levack is the leading authority on the history of witch-hunts in Europe.

Anyone seeking to fully understand the events of 1692 in Salem, needs to begin with a study of the 250 years of witch-hunts in Europe that preceded the outbreak in New England, which came late in the game but followed what occurred in many ways what preceded it. 

Levack’s book, now in its fourth edition, is the best source on this subject.  It includes information on the Salem witch trials in context of what happened in Europe. 

The narrator is turned into a donkey and undergoes various tribulations before recovering his human form. The only Latin novel to survive complete, it is a unique curiosity shop of diverse treasures: fantastical, comic, bawdy, beautiful, violent, and finally—biggest surprise of all—devoutly religious. "It smells of incense and urine," Flaubert said. Much of the work consists of tales related by the characters whom the donkey comes across, of which the longest is Cupid and Psyche, a fabulously rococo display of exquisite and enchanted storytelling. The virtuoso beauty of the description of Cupid’s wings is unbeatable. "Reader, listen up: you’ll love it," says the narrator at the start. You will. Again, go for Ruden’s translation.

The Volsung saga is a heroic Old Norse tale about the origins and decline of the royal clan of the Volsungs and the fantastic deeds of Sigurd the dragon-slayer. Snorri Sturluson, an Icelandic poet and historian, recorded the story around 1220, but the material dates to events that took place centuries before. The saga is full of beings and happenings that would have been considered demonic in Christianized Europe, such as giants, werewolves, sorcery, magic wolf skins, and the consumption of dragons' blood to learn the language of birds. However, within the mythic Norse world, these things were otherworldly and magical, but not necessarily malevolent. The saga was a source for J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings—right down to the dwarfs, a cursed magical ring, and a treasure-guarding dragon—and an inspiration for Richard Wagner's epic music drama, the Ring Cycle. Also, the story of the… show more.

Robert Moore’s history of the growth of institutional persecution in the tenth through thirteen centuries is a classic in medieval history. Moore demonstrates that the oppression of various “undesirables” in society, such as Jews, heretics, lepers, and homosexuals, fits into a pattern of state-building. Particular groups were not targeted for harassment, expropriation, segregation, expulsion, and mass execution because they caused a real threat. On the contrary, they were defenseless, and by playing on common people’s ignorance and stirring up fear, the centralized powers of state and church were able to scapegoat those groups as polluted, deviant, and dangerous.

Having established the powerless as the “other,” the ruling elite were then able to bring them down and appear to be the saviors of the Christian social order. This book does not focus on witches per se, but it explains how in the central Middle Ages governing mechanisms and bureaucratic procedures created… show more.

This was another book that really inspired my choice of profession. Located in the northeast corner of the Italian peninsula, Friuli emerges as something like the wild west of Renaissance Italy in this engrossing study.

Far removed from the urbane cities and courts and the worlds of art and literature commonly associated with the Renaissance, Edward Muir reveals the continuing binds of feudal obligation, family, vengeance, and honor, and the violence they provoked in the early sixteenth century. Incidentally, the history he tells also encounters the real-life origins of the story that would become Romeo and Juliet.

Like Trexler, Muir explores the power of ritual in Renaissance Italian life, but rather than rituals of community and government, he focuses in this book on the rituals of aversion and violence.

People throw around the phrase “this book changed my life” far too easily, in my opinion, so when I say it about this book, please know that I mean it with all my being. I found this book while I was in a mental health crisis, and it helped link me to my ancestors, the good life they would wish for me, and forgiveness through intricately detailed rituals and folk traditions.

A must-read if you’re Italian-American–or even if you’re not–this book helped me structure my life in a way that felt true to who I am. 

With simple, colorful illustrations and a humorous plot featuring Grandmother Witch’s magical pasta pot that requires more than the right words to control it, this book delights me still.

The story seems to be about learning to listen properly. It’s also about eavesdropping, bragging, and above all, the consequences of failing to follow directions. But its charm to me is its sympathy for naughty Big Anthony, who is, after all, just like everyone’s inner child.

This anthropological study of Basilicata explained the superstitions that my family carried over with them to New Jersey at the turn of the century. It helped me understand where many of their “backward” ideas came from.

Delving into the folklore, home cures, witchcraft, and rituals of the South, De Martino respects the culture and places it in the context of the harsh, feudal society many of our ancestors escaped. It’s been an academic classic in Italy since the 1950s but was only translated into English for the first time in 2015 by American anthropologist Dorothy Zinn.

While staying with her aunt in Italy, Lilla comes across a book that reveals she’s a witch. But the Stregamama, an ancient witch, wants to use Lilla for her own means. Meanwhile, Lilla’s crushing on her aunt’s assistant and trying to avoid the local boy her family is trying to set her up with. As a bookish introvert who wanted space to read, draw, and grow on my own terms, I couldn’t help but see myself in Lilla. Slightly artwork brings movement to the story while the palette adds spots of spookiness. A cute, queer graphic novel of realizing and voicing one’s identities, this book charms. 

Wiggins looks at how the Bible as a physical, tangible book plays an important role in horror movies – it doesn’t even need to be read to have power and be a crucial part of the plot. The book takes a deep dive into what the Bible means as a cultural symbol, even beyond our relationship to the words contained in its pages.