I have been pretty good with not requesting things from NetGalley for the past few months because I have a huge TBR list (and access to the library), but when I saw this book about Thor, I was immediately intrigued. My experience of the Norse Myths is limited to the marvel movies, Neil Gaiman’s retelling, and the way Saxo reinterprets them in a selection of tales from the Gesta Danorum. Since I already like myths, I’m always up for learning more about them.

Thor is an introduction of the figure by someone who worships him. The book covers:

• Who is Thor?
• Thor in Mythology
• Thor in other places
• Thor’s possessions, symbols, and associations
• Thor in the modern world
• Connecting to Thor today

Every chapter ends with the author’s experience with Thor, which was something that I found very interesting. And though the book was pretty short, I thought it was a concise and well-written introduction to Thor as he was understood and worshipped in the past. I didn’t realise how much of my impression of Thor was coloured by popular depictions on him or how important he was. I learnt a lot while reading this.

The only thing about the short length of the book is that the author doesn’t get the space to dive into some of the topics. For example, it’s briefly mentioned that some people who worship Thor do so with lots of racism, but you’ll have to go to a URL linked away from the book to find out more about the dog whistles. My ereader didn’t have the link formatted but I googled and found this interesting article about how the worship of the Norse gods in modern times came to be associated with white supremacy. I’d also have liked to hear the author’s views on whether Thor’s gender is important to his status as a god because I’ve seen a video by a Viking who talks about it and was interested in reading more.

Of course, the book does mention that it’s an introduction and hence can’t cover all aspects of Thor, so the above is really just the questions that I had left after reading the book. Overall, if you’re curious about who Thor is and why he was so important, this is the book for you.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from NetGalley

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