protean depravity

End of the year also means deciding which books to take along into the new year and which ones can find their way to new owners who will appreciate them more than I do. Before they wander into the second hand section of the Otherland Bookstore or the phone booth little free library at the end of my street, I'm giving you guys the choice to take any of the books in the picture you may want to have. 👉 These are mostly review copies, but this time I included a couple of books I actually bought years ago, but never have read, and presumably never will read. It's better and only fair someone who will really read takes them. Please don't hesitate at all and seize the opportunity!

The last couple of months of the year are good times both for planning for the year ahead, as well as watching lots of movies which will be released around Christmas, the time of the year to spend money galore. So, I too have started looking into the next year's cinema and film programs and found quite a few great watches coming in December and early next year. I'm especially psyched to see recurring favorite names like Oz Perkins, Stephen King, but also two werewolf movies which both look good to me.

Ladies! Do you feel tired of the neglect, emotional damage, selfishness, infidelity, trust and intimacy issues in your marriage? Then worry no more. Meet Wolf:

Here's finally the almost monthly writeup with fresh short reviews! My health has been bad these last few weeks and that contributes to my reading slump, so if you're a fan of the shorts column, I wouldn't hold my breath. Plus, I am starting to read seemingly random books, like high fantasy stuff, just so I can finish my challenges until the end of the year. It's only a month away, it's pervers how fast time goes by. Despite all, please enjoy!

There’s much to appreciate about an author who can, in a short story collection, juggle with a limited and recurring set of ideas without coming off as monotonous and repetitive. Collections are considered accomplished to the degree that they are varied and reflect a mixed assortment of literary devices; differing points of view, thematic and stylistic variation, anything to keep tedium away. It takes a master hand like Evenson to go against that convention and to write a collection of stories thematically focused and subtly interconnected, extremely well curated and arranged, unparalleled in minimalistic writing and laconic dialogues, examining themes like environmental collapse, paranoia, AI, or cruel family ties through heady, composed, original horror.

Finally I managed to read enough thrillers for this corner, phew! They're all recommendations I got from the Hammett crew, so they're all expert approved and quality controlled. Hope you enjoy!

SPOILER WARNING! Please watch at least the movie before going on, don't blame me for spoiling this for you.   Don't Look Now, both the short story as well as the movie, follows a married couple who, in the wake of their daughter's death, comes to Venice and meets two elderly sisters with an esoteric touch who warn them to leave the city, or else bad things will happen. As is usual in such cases, John the husband is killed by a serial killer who roams Venician streets at night. The original short story by Daphne Du Maurier was published in her 1971 collection Not After Midnight, and Other Stories and was subsequently adapted into the 1973 thriller of the same title by Nicolas Roeg, with Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie playing the couple John and Laura.