Today’s prompt: What are your favorite books? Do you think they are Mori or not?

Futuristic Violence and Fancy Suits by David Wong. Not Mori at all. All about technology and brutal murder and dick jokes. It’s a comfort read for me, though, because it’s intense enough to distract me when life gets really stressful.

the Dresden Files series by Jim Butcher. Also not really Mori. It’s got lots of vampires and fairies and other magical dark Mori elements but it’s written more as a hard-boiled detective, film noir kind of thing. Film noir is definitely not Mori. They’re not brilliant or anything, but each novel builds really well on the events and characters of the last. I find it immensely satisfying seeing minor characters grow into interesting heroes and villains over the course of several novels.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. I grew up with Disney’s Mr. Toad, but I never read the whole book until my sister recommended it last year. It’s delightful, and probaby pretty Mori. It’s all about animals having picnics and boating and musing about nature, while occasionally trying to cure Mr. Toad of his obsession with motorcars.

The Secret Lives of Bats by Merlin Tuttle. Kind of Mori? It’s kind of a memoir of Tuttle’s adventures in studying and trying to conserve bats over his long career, combined with beautiful pictures and scientific facts designed to make you love bats. A lot of it is true fun adventures in nature, so I’d consider it kind of Mori.

The Goddesses in Every Woman: a New Psychology of the Feminine by Jean Shinoda Bolen. Jean Shinoda Bolen is an old school psychotherapist, in the Jung and Freud sense, and this book uses Greek goddess myths as symbols for various forces within the psyche. There’s a sequel called Gods in Every Man, and though the books are divided between male and female, any person could feel a strong identification with any god or goddess in the book. This book isn’t particularly Mori, but it’s been a powerful influence on my pagan thought and practice and it really made me feel connected to mythology in a way I’d never been before. So not Mori, but if Strega had an official book . . . wow, now I want to read these again.

The Woman in Black by Susan Hill. This book feels pretty dark Mori to me. It features flat marshland instead of forest, but being alone in a beautiful and bleak landscape full of ghosts and mysteries . . . dark Mori, right?

I could go on about books all day. They’ve always been my biggest comfort and my primary way of exploring and learning about the world (and many other worlds). Whether a book’s actual content is witchy or soothing, I find the act of reading itself comforting and magical.