New Books on the SCA

Books about the Society for Creative Anachronism... not self-published items for internal use, but regular published books sold on Amazon.com... are pretty rare. The only one I know of is The Knights Next Door, by Patrick O'Donnell. The SCA is discussed in a number of books about historical recreation groups and the like, but I don't know of any others that take the organization as a primary focus. There are several books by SCA members, such as Professor Steven Muhlberger's books on chivalric topics and Brian Price's opus on reproducing 14th century armor... but these are books which simply happen to be of intense interest to members of the organization, not books about it.

This, however, two new books have been published: Medieval Fantasy as Performance by Michael A. Cramer, and Suburban Knights: A Return to the Middle Ages by E. F. Kitchen. I will review both in subsequent posts. I heartily recommend the former; the latter is harmless fun.

I should note that it is possible I've missed something. I've been on an almost complete hiatus from participation in the SCA for quite some time now, essentially since late 2007, and while I haven't entirely lost interest, I don't feel like I have the sense of knowing what goes on and what everyone is talking about.