Akiva Reads

by Laura Tempest Zakroff

Well done, just not exactly my jam. Still, Zakroff made it intriguing enough that I had to pick this up, and it's a fast, interesting read. The parts I knew (lots of good tips for beginner and very self-conscious, anxious artists) or found annoying were easy to skim or skip, thanks to the headers and not-overly-wordy writing. I ended up with several pages of notes on the things that did pique my interest, and wound up trying some of the exercises (yesgood, everyone should include exercises). I don't see myself practicing anything resembling the sigil magic in this book or that I've seen on the internet, but I will keep playing with the ideas that appealed to me.

Points for the history section with a survey of different applications for sigils/symbols, complete with gentle reminders not to appropriate and lots of citations. Some of those points are lost for misspelling and mistranslating segulah (final mem instead of samech; d'oh!), which raises questions about the rest of the section.