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I know there are certain authors that are full of it, but I was wondering if there were certain things I could look for in books to tell if it may be a bad source?

Anymore I don't buy books that seem to just throw all kinds of different Gods/Goddesses from different paths into one big random pantheon orgy of a book. I kind of figure if the author uses generic things like 'Aphrodite Romance Oil' and 'Isis Spell for Protection' all in one book then there can't be much in the book worth reading. Is this a safe assumption?

Also, something I tried yesterday, I flipped to the back of the book and found 'Wicca' in the index. I looked at a couple of the pages where they mentioned Wicca, and they didn't have their facts straight. I didn't buy this book either. Is that a pretty good method to add to my 'what not to buy skills'?

I did pick up a book by Sandra Kynes called 'Your Altar'. It isn't path-specific, and I haven't gotten very far, but from skimming through it, it looks like it would be a great guide for beginners looking to set up an altar. It looks like it offers a lot of examples of ways to set up an altar, which is good for me because I don't even really know where I want to start. Anyone here heard of her?

EDIT: If a book happens to be good, with good content, is it a good idea to check out books that the author references, or is it at least safe to assume that if the author knows what they are talking about and has their head in the right place, the books they reference will have good content and good authors as well?

Personally, I would say avoid books that give you spells that they promise will work 100% of the time, or if they say that they are part of an ancient witchcraft religion that managed to survive "The Burning Times". And anything associated with Silver Ravenwolf.

Not any one book is perfect (i'm sure you know that), but something that helps me is I check out a lot of the reviews online about a book I go to Pagan/Wicca forums and chat-rooms and ask people about different books especially if they are expensive ones.
I ask people about the Author and check out the authors personal website (if they have one and I can find it).
(I go to google books and check out the preview of the book and read that)

For my area you will sometimes be lucky enough to find some good Pagan/Wicca books in the thrift store so even if it ends up not being what you wanted it didn't cost you a lot.

Something else that works for me is buying a lot of Pagan/Wicca used books in one pile with some that sound interesting and maybe a couple others that don't, but will read several of them anyway.
(you kind of save money buying them together, and even some that might not be so good can be used later as reference books only)

Then as well if you get the book and find out it sucks for you and doesn't help you with the path your on you can go back to those Pagan/Wicca forums and they often have a book exchange area and you can trade for something that might do you better or just use a normal book swapping site of course.

You might want to check out some local occult shops as well, I know of one near my house that during the day has a small open library of books that have been donated to it all on Pagan/Wicca subjects of study so maybe you could take the time to read and check out some books that way if maybe their is one like that near you.
Or the normally library near your house might be good to if they have a decent selection their.

Anyway I hope this helps! mrgreen

Raven: I am definitely going to start looking into recommendations of authors I like. I don't know why it didn't dawn on me to do that considering when it comes to every other genre of books that I am interested in reading. There are tons of citations in the book I am reading now, and though I don't know many of the authors and books being cited, I am going to look into quite a few of them. They're sort of like the book I'm reading now, where they really aren't path specific, which is kind of good for since I'm sort of carving out my own deal here lol.

Catalinalyra: I definitely stay away from all of these things. A while ago I tried to stay away from books that gave too many spells for the simple fact that I felt like I should be forming spells on my own, with a little guidance. Before this guild I had never heard of Silver Ravenwolf, but I now know enough to know how much fail is surrounding the name.

Sanz: I guess the reason why I shy away from book that mention Wicca and get it wrong is because I tend to think 'Well if they get that wrong, how much can I trust everything else?", but it was mentioned earlier that even if what they have about Wicca is wrong, all else could be fine because there is just so much incorrect information about Wicca that is widely accepted as truth, at least by media, pop culture, and the like. The one book I picked up and didn't buy only mentioned Wicca three times, so it might not have mattered too much in relation to what I was looking for.

Musical_Vampire_Socks: I think I should start checking Google and Amazon for previews an such. My problem is that I don't tend to think about it until I'm at the bookstore. But since I'm a fan of online shopping, I might as well use the internet to look into previews and author sites/reviews. We have few occult shops in the area, which is quite sucky, and I hope will change when I move to the Aurora/Denver area. The library where I live has proven to be fairly helpful, though a few of the authors were blatant feminazis, it was sort of obvious and I took what they said lightly and did my own research.

Sang: I definitely skirt the books with pages upon pages of spells, because it just feels like some generic mass produced cluster-f@ck of Gods and Goddesses with no regard as to who they are or why things are done. Extremely annoying, and impersonal, and it makes no sense.
I also totally agree with the 'right/wrong deal, especially when they go overboard with it. I understand, be nice, that's a general rule for life, but there's just this whole hypocritical aspect of it. In one part of a book it says not to cast a spell so that someone does something that wasn't their idea, more or less don't screw with their free will because it's wrong, but a few chapters later it's TOTALLY cool to cast a love spell to persuade them to find interest in you. Dafuq?
Yeah, the first books I ever actually sought out (I can't even remember the woman's name now) went on and on about patriarchy, and how horrid it was. She was an annoying feminazi who did what I cannot stand; making sensible feminists look like maniacs because rather than preaching for equality between genders, she makes attacks on anything male without provocation. She was in love with Z. Budapest, who I do happen to admire, because while she is most definitely a feminist, I haven't managed to find her to be inflammatory. But yes, annoying banter about 'the demon that is patriarchy' is uncool if not for actually historical purposes.
UUUGGGGHHH THE BIGOTRY. WHY WOULD PEOPLE WANT EQUALITY FOR ALL RELIGIONS/GENDERS/ETC BUT THEN LAUNCH ATTACKS ON EVERYONE ELSE?! WHHHYYYY?! RAGEQUIT.
Jung and the like always confused me with their symbolism and archetypes. How do they know if all of this stuff really ingrained in our subconscious to mean all this stuff that I don't even know it means? Maybe I just thoroughly enjoy dreaming about ducks wearing saddles as they thunder across plains made of cotton candy.
Sanitistion or censorship, especially with history, makes me puke in my mouth. Jussayin.

As far as path specific stuff that is incorrect, I need to learn a lot more of the truth before I'll probably be able to accurately discern bullshit from what is worth the read. So you all here are usually where I go for help in that respect.

I shall keep my eye on this space smile

That book in particular is an interesting example. I gave it 5/10 in my review, because I liked half of it. She falls down in quite a few areas we mentioned, though, and more and more the further through the book you get: "Teh patriarchy", shitting on Abrahamic religions, lots of spells that aren't actually explained, imposing the MMC concept on historical deities, etc etc etc. Even her bibliography is 95% absolute crap.

I liked the first half of that book and hated the second half - her section on the gods near the end was massively disrespectful, imo. I mean, she actually refers to an entity as "the God of Paganism", which had be spluttering indignantly. The book started out great (except for the weird bit at the beginning where she decides being a witch is about seeing a unicorn and feeling "witchy") and then got successively worse and worse until the last chapter or two just seemed like rushed, offensive nonsense. (Although early on in the book she does have very bad info on the runes that no one should follow.)

I think it's a good example, because there's some great stuff in the first half of the book. Her exercises in the first chapter or so are great for beginners. There's a definite disconnect with the second half, as if her editor told her they needed the book ASAP and she just vomited stuff all over the page. The runes pages aside, much of the first half is even more respectful than the second half.

So it's maybe more about recognising red flags and buzz words from chapter to chapter. An author might be very knowledgeable in certain areas, and a book could contain some real gems among the dross. It still shows bad judgement that they wrote about subjects they're not familiar with, of course, but some of the fault falls on the publishers and their demands. It's sometimes hard to know the overall quality vs the specific quality of certain aspects of the book, because before you actually sit down and read it through, you can't pick out these sorts of things from a flick through.