protean depravity

  The year 2023 is almost upon us with who knows what fresh terrors and here we are on its brink... Before making that jump, though, let's go over a short wrap-up of my past reading year and finally announce the winners of 2022.

Chang Yu-Ko's first novel that has been translated into English, Whisper , is a very fascinating dive into the darker and scarier sides of Taiwanese folklore and history.

We almost made it to the end of the year! And before I start taking a final look at my reading year 2022 and select the best of the year, I thought I'd squeeze in my last reads, tie up loose ends so I can make a fresh start with fresh reads in the new year. So, here we are. Enjoy!

I'm not going to lie here, I love me a good thriller. That feeling of an impossible puzzle brought together, a mystery solved in a good and original way is just too satisfying and I'm on the hunt for that feeling. So you may have realized over the months that the amount of thrillers and mysteries I'm reading is slowly creeping upwards. So much so that now I decided to collect my thriller and mystery reviews in a separate column for hobby detectives like ... me? yourself? Since this isn't my primary preferred genre, I'm probably not as well-read as I am, say, in horror or science fiction, but I'm working on it and trying to catch up. That's why I probably won't be reading the newest books, unless there's a real buzz about them. I'll also and mostly read books according to my mood and whether or not they sound interesting. So please enjoy the very first thrillers-only PD column, filled only with interesting books!

If done right, found footage can be one of the most chilling, dread inducing subgenres in horror cinema. Unfortunately, it became a venue for filmmakers too lazy or inept to carry out proper camera works trying to conceal their shoddiness behind this once revolutionary and exciting, but now simply exhausted category. So I was interested in how the translation into literature would work when I heard about Found: An Anthology of Found Footage Horror , edited by Andrew Cull and Gabino Iglesias, but was admittedly not very hopeful. What I found didn’t exceed my expectations by very far, yet I still was able to enjoy quite a few good stories.

Despite the early snow, fog and bitter cold that already befell Berlin in November this year, winter is only just beginning, folks. So, I said to myself, it would be unfair to winter if I didn't make any "best winter horror books" list, since I already made a list of best summer reads some months ago.