Unfortunately, this book just was not what I was expecting. I was looking for a deep dive into the actual science of witchcraft including their use of herbs, spells, and divination. This seems like a more light-hearted look at witches that at times was entertaing, but just not what I was looking for. Anyone who loves witches depicted in tv and movies and is looking for a superficial, but fun, look at witches, this is the book for you.

Thanks to NetGalley, the author, and the publisher for this ARC. This was an interesting and delightful read. I like how the author took media about witches and witchcraft and looked at the science behind it, but I was expecting a little more science, though the history lessons and callouts were really interesting. This book was a quick and easy read but felt a little disjointed to me, I think it would be better to read in multiple sittings rather than straight through. One thing I did love about this book was the actual writing and the interviews. Overall, I enjoyed this book.

The Science of Witchcraft by Meg Hafdahl and Kelly Florence is a delightfully informative look at various pieces of occult influenced media.

What worked for me
1. Each piece of media they chose to examine was given its own chapter so the book is incredibly easy to flip through for facts that you may be interested in at a given moment.
2. The authors covered an incredibly wide variety of topics
3. The Writing style was incredibly approachable

What didn't work as well for me

1.For a book by this title there is an astonishingly small amount of information about the witchcraft in media with the focus seeming to shift instead to somewhat random facts about the 'witch' character.
2.The Writer's missed out on adding a look at the witch within the community as portrayed in media to the book. Shows like the adventures of Merlin would have been particularly good for this.

Who I would recommend this book for
This book will be a fun read for media buffs and trivia fans looking for some facts about shows such as Buffy the vampire slayer and books in the same vein.

This one was really interesting, but with science in the title I expected a little more science than I was given. I really enjoyed some of the interviews, especially the one where we learned that a a certain type of plant can smell predators and turn sour. That was the kind of info i came to read a science book for. I wish there were more interesting facts like that in it. Overall, it started out really good, got a little disjointed, and needed some kind of string to hold things together a bit more.

Interesting! A great mix of media nostalgia and fun facts to treasure. It had so many of my favorite witches in it from days gone by. Some I had forgotten and it was so wonderful and refreshing traveling down memory lane and reminiscing over them again.

One of the many fact/interview sessions within the book was the one with the herbalist. I learned a good bit more than I expected to about plants and their powers in that section like which one was good for inflammation or which one would help with arthritis problems and more.

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC!
This book is a little all over the place, and less appropriate for reading in one go, more so suited to picking up now and again to check out the chapters related to media that you’re familiar with or interested in learning more about.
Rather than a deep scientific analysis of witchcraft in general, as the title might imply, this is more a book of interesting facts about various pieces of supernatural media.
It was fun to learn these things, great to pick up some random trivia, but a little off the mark.

Thanks to Netgalley and Skyhorse Publishing for the eARC in return for an honest review.

This book was interesting and included a variety of witchy information but I feel like it would have been much better as a multi episode podcast vs a book.

3.5 ⭐️ round up.

eARC recieved from Netgalley in return for honest review, given voluntarily.

A very good "overview" of witches as depicted in Western media/canon. This book touches on everything starting from the Wizard of Oz to Buffy the Vampire Slayer. It attempts, and I would say does a fair job, of dissecting the "witch" as she has been immortalized by the ever-familiar silhouette of the hook-nosed woman in a triangle hat, riding a broomstick.

It was one of those books that I think would make a better audiobook, at least for me. I think I'd have enjoyed this more if someone was reading it TO me, as if in a series of small lectures, as opposed to sitting and reading it for myself. The voice of the book was didactic, which wasn't a bad thing, and it didn't go into much detail on any one particular thing.

I think it did what it set out to do -- give slightly deeper than cursory insight onto the Western Witch, and all her many forms and facets. It gives reason to our endless fascination with them, their origins and their social ostracization, to their eventual acceptance as part of pop culture, and now even living through what might be called a Renaissance.

A nice, light, informative read! Solid 3.5 stars!

I can say without a shred of doubt that I devoured this book! Witchcraft and witches in general have always fascinated me. Reading about how the ideal of witches has changed through books, TV, and film is so refreshing and eye-opening. This book is a must read if you are looking for ways to uniquely incorporate witches into your own work. If you are someone who absolutely loves witches and are looking to educate yourself more about how the genre has expanded and reformed over the course of time, then this is the book for you!

Complete and utter DNF for me.
I skim-read through most of it after getting irritated at the improper referencing of the Macbeth quote at the beginning.
I expected this to be far better than it was.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing as well as Meg Hafdahl and Kelly Florence for this delightful ARC. What follows is my unbiased opinion.
#NetGalley #SkyhorsePublishing #MegHafdahl #KellyFlorence

This latest installment in the “Science of…” series is the most fun yet! The reader is taken on a nostalgic tour of our favorite witches from movies and literature and given an enlightening look into the backgrounds of both the witches themselves and the science behind some of our favorite tropes. I particularly enjoyed reading about how witches began appearing in movies and books. Each story and character is treated with care and given the utmost attention. The authors clearly love their subjects. There is plenty to love here.
There are a few improvements that could be made here. There are a few portions of the book that seemed a little random, although even those are charming. The Wizard of Oz chapter, while interesting, felt a little slow and just a touch random. I did really enjoy hearing the stories concerning Margaret Hamilton and how she came to be the WIcked Witch of the West.
Even with the small criticisms, this book was entertaining and informative. In this reader’s opinion, it's the best one yet.

This was such a fun read! It was well researched too. In it, you learn about different classic and beloved stories and legends revolving around Halloween and witchcraft. Their back stories, their historical and current affects, the histories and legends behind them.

My favorite chapters were Sleepy Hollow and the legend behind jack-o-lanterns: “Jack of the Lantern," The Manor and the bloody-hungry tree, The Autopsy of Jane Doe and revisiting one of my favorite modern horror movies, and Don't Knock Twice and the legends behind Baba Yaga.

However, I also skimmed a great deal of this book, reading only the chapters I recognized and only the parts of those chapters were relevant to my intrigue with this book--Halloween. There was a lot of information and not all of it fit the book's overall theme, subject, or plot.

All in all, I enjoyed it. But I strongly recommend taking what you like and recognize while skipping the rest to really enjoy this unique and all-over-the-place read.

A collection of essays analysing the figure of the witch is Western culture, from classics and fairy tales to camp horror flicks, art house films and political movements. Divided into sections, each highlighting a different aspect of witchy representation: witches as monsters, witches in covens, witches in fairy tales and so on.
I learnt a few really interesting facts from this book about various subjects, mostly movie-related. As my favourite genre is horror, and the witch is one of my best loved representations of femininity, it was nice to read about Glinda, Mater Suspiria, Jane Doe, Sabrina and other iconic witches.
Sadly, however, this book is not very detailed about witchy stuff per se, and goes off on a million tangents on subjects that are not related at all. For example, in the section of Glinda and the Wicked Witch of the West, there is a large amount of page time given to the science of tornadoes, which have literally nothing to do directly with the two witches. The authors have the irritating habit of breaking off midway from an interesting, on-topic discussion to bring you unrelated facts just to fill the pages. It felt like they had a word limit to meet and accordingly wrote on every thing that even slightly related to the film or media in question. I wished for greater detail, especially in the chapter on The Conjuring, which is my favourite horror film of all time.
Was also a bit puzzled that so many iconic witches were mentioned but there wasn't even a passing comment on American Horror Story: Coven, which was a hallmark of modern witchy media and gave rise to SO many pop culture references. It was also set in New Orleans, which has a sumptuous history of magic and witchcraft, and that wasn't tackled in the book even a bit.

At baseline, this book was interesting and enjoyable. It goes through many facets of witchcraft, mainly focused on the US, and how ideas about witches influenced media and culture. It even offers a few examples of modern explanations for old tales about witches (i.e. Elphaba's green skin in Wizard of Oz). The authors also do a good job interviewing experts in various areas, and letting them share their knowledge with the world.

My biggest critique is that, since the authors were trying to cover so much information, there wasn't much room to go in depth. This is likely the nature of the book, so probably more of a "me" problem than of the book itself. They were trying to bring in a lot of examples from pop culture and media, which is a good move, but makes it difficult to connect to the material if it's something the reader hasn't consumed.

Overall I think this was a well written book and well researched, and I'll be interested to see what else these authors write.

“The Science of Witchcraft” succeeds when it focuses on movies, but has little focus with other subjects.

Much of the book uses witches from history and culture to shoehorn in science factoids. Example: One second I’m reading about Dorothy being swept up in a tornado, and the next, I’m reading about tornadoes and cyclones and objects that fly through the air while they are caught in a storm. The Dorothy info feels like just a pretext for wedging in stuff you learn in seventh grade science classes. This happens repeatedly throughout the book, but is a much greater problem before the authors focus on movies. Once they get there, they use well-integrated interviews with creators to help connect to science. In that way, the book succeeds. The love the authors have for movies serves them well.

But it still doesn’t make up for this book feeling like a pastiche of factoids. It also doesn’t give us enough of an analysis of what witches do in art and in real life, which I thought would be the focus of the book—like the actual science of spells. Or the vital role herbs, plantlore, tradition, inheritance, etc., play in the lives of both fictional and real life witches.

Thank you NetGalley, for the review copy of this book.

The Science of Witchcraft takes the reader on a lively jaunt through several distinct archetypes of witches and takes the time to draw on historical records, interviews, and analysis of modern media of why these stereotypes exist. I really appreciate that there are sections in this book that divert away from what society views as a typical witch and instead explores aspects of feminism and culture that were inspired by witches. I find it really telling that a subset of society today has reclaimed the title of "witch" and uses it as something empowering - taking the power away from those who would use it as a derogatory term. I have long been fascinated by witches, magic, tarot, and other types of activities normally assigned to "witches." This was a really bewitching and worthwhile read!

Thank you to NetGalley and Skyhorse Publishing for providing me with a digital copy for review. The opinions expressed here are my own and do not reflect those of the authors or publisher.

The Science of Witchcraft is like a history lesson while talking to friends, writers, and experts. I particularly appreciate that each assertion about witches is backed up by a study or statistic. “The witch is able to sense that a storm is coming. Is this a spooky power that she possesses, or can some people predict the weather? They can! Research has shown that bones or joints that are weakened by age or injury are, in fact, sensitive to changes in barometric pressure.”

Going into this I thought I would learn about the transition of the portrayals of witches in pop culture but this is so much more. It’s about the power of language. One example is the comparison of women being hunted and prosecuted during the Salem Witch trials and women’s rights being taken away today. As well as the parallels between witches and marginalized groups such as LGBTQ+. The most memorable quote and what I believe sums up the book is, “Being a witch isn’t always cauldrons and crystals and spells and black cats. Sometimes it’s also about being independent, making your own choices, baking pies, and tending to your garden. Other times it’s embracing your sexuality, helping out a friend, or not being afraid to scream and fight for what you know is right.” - Stephanie Wytovich

Another fantastic quote is, “ [Witches are] a villain fundamentally based in an archaic fear of powerful women.” - Payton McCarty-Simas

I did not know many of the movie and literature references in the first seven chapters but the authors are good at explaining the significance. Later, the authors cover very common works such as Gretel and Hansel, Maleficent, The Craft, The Witches, The Witches of Eastwick, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer. One oversight was not analyzing Charmed and Harry Potter. There’s something to unpack there about witches integrated into communities and practicing magic behind the scenes to save the non-witch community. There were also references to movies I don’t consider to be about witches, like The Conjuring and Midsommer. Among others religions, the authors mention christianity, hoodoo, voodoo, Wicca, and paganism. It would have been a more comprehensive discussion to include Judaism as well when discussing religion.

As someone interested in movies and books about witchcraft I found this book very informative and entertaining. The chapters are clear, concise, and the perfect length to cover the material.

This was a DNF for me after part one.

The title of the book is The Science of Witchcraft but after part one, it was clear this book would talk broadly about the occult in pop culture and not about witchcraft exclusively like the title implies.. Half the topics covered had nothing to do with witchcraft and the excessive use of exclamation points was absolutely criminal. The only remotely enjoyable portion I had in the part I read was the interview with the Herbalist, and even that could have been summarized and excluded the off topic remarks by the authors during the interview,

I expected to be target audience for this one, but this was not for me at all,

I received an advance digital copy of this book for review.

There may be an appropriate audience for this book, but turns out I was definitely not it. I consider myself a modern secular witch. I belong to a community called SASS Witches which stands for Skeptical, Agnostic/Atheist, and Science-Seeking Witches. So when I saw the title of this book, despite the subtitle veering off from my interest quite a bit, I felt I had to give it a look.

This book is definitely not written for real witches of any kind. Nor did it outright claim to be, to be fair. But the title implies that it will at least have some interesting content related to witchcraft. I would generously estimate that 10% of the book would fit that description.

Each chapter is devoted to a piece of media, movie, TV series, or book that has at least something vaguely occult about it. The chapter then leap frogs sporadically around asking and answering questions that I would wager practically no one has ever pondered.

For example the first chapter is devoted to The Wizard of Oz and we have questions such as:
What medical conditions could explain the witch's green skin?
Can tornadoes transport people, objects, or even houses to new places?
And debunking the idea that a person could be lulled to sleep simply by smelling a field of poppy flowers.

The questions are so irrelevant to the soul of the movie that it was actually jarring to even have them laid out for me. But even worse, these are also completely irrelevant to witchcraft. The supposed focus of the book.

The book should be titled "The Stuff I Googled About Witchy Popular Media".

Several chapters feature transcripts from interviews with admittedly interesting people, but it felt very much like it should be a podcast episode and not in a book. The writers are, coincidentally, podcasters.

I will concede that there are some cool facts and interesting stories in this book if you have the patience to wade through for them, but not enough to make up for the fact that the title is completely off-base and most of it is boring at best. And if you're a science-minded witch thinking you might learn something valuable for your practice, it'll be a big disappointment.

The Science of Witchcraft gives a well rounded and in depth look at what is meant by the term “witch”. It looks at how the witch has changed and grown over time, how popular culture over the years has protested it and most importantly how we’re now taking back the term witch!

My favourite part of this book was the interviews. There is one with Jinkx Monsoon that I really enjoyed and found it interesting to see their perspective on witchcraft and witches in the media. Especially as it was in the Death Becomes Her sections… which is one of my all time favourites.

I think the biggest hurdle I had with this book is that in the chapters where I don’t know the references it felt a little dry. I found myself struggling to stick with it when it wasn’t something I was already at least a little familiar with.

Overall, it is an interesting read and the authors have gathered a lot of information and interviews that are well presented and well articulated. However, it didn’t grip me as much as I was expecting and I only really enjoyed chapters I was familiar with the material.