protean depravity

I think I have outdone myself in May and read way too many books even for my standards and too many books for all of them to fit into one "Soul of Wit". That's why I think it's best to break my recent reads into two categories this month: horror and dark versus light and fun reads, and this first part is about horror books. Since my TBR pile still mainly consists of books I bought in the past and just set aside, there aren't any buzzing new releases here... Which is fine by me as long as they're good and they mostly are, so please enjoy! 

Talking about movie festivals, the Final Girls Berlin are giving us a summer treat: the "Brain Binge"- horror talk weekend! On June 11th and 12th you can participate via Zoom to some seriously interesting talks revolving around women* and horror. Here's the link for subscription. I'm especially excited for "I am She: The Witch Archetype & Patriarchal Disruption", "Beyond the Freak Show: Disability and Horror" as well as "The Monstruous Feminine & Political Abjection". And all the other too, to be honest! All talks are free and donation based.

*About the Protean Depravity Film Festival At Home: When the pandemic started two years ago and social life shut down in Berlin, I decided to start my own film festival at home due to the lack of cinemas and cinematic activities in general. What I did was to basically create a selection of horror movies and watch these at home after which I choose a winner for that season. The winning movie gets a way too long and exhaustive review, and my gushes (the winners of 2021 were Relic and Sator ). Alas! At the end of the last Protean Depravity Film Festival at Home I realized that all the movies that made the lineup were kind of good and very much worth watching, but none of them truly was “the best” for me... So, I decided will do things differently just for this once and declare another movie my PD-Film Festival winner - a movie that I have seen twice in two different cities in May; a movie I saw both times not at home, but at the movie theater; a movie which is not even a horror movi...

Whether you have or have never read Bram Stoker's Dracula, there is now a really quirky way to catch up with THE vampire novel that made the genre! As you may know, the book is written in epistolary form and the letters go from May 3rd to November 10th. So, draculadaily sends you each letter in Dracula "in real time" to your inbox and you can read it slowly, day by day and have finished it by November! Anyone interested can just subscribe here .

The spring books are here! Here's the wrap-up of my April reads which were actually a lot because I joined lots of group reads. The most spectacular one was the Easter Bunny horror read and it was a blast - you'd be surprised by how many Easter bunny themed horror books there are! After my disappointment with the latest mystery and crime books I have read, I decided to go back to the roots and read from the pen of the Queens of the genre; Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith. Nothing close to disappointed this time. So I hope you enjoy the short reviews and find some reads that may interest you!

We are getting closer to the middle of the year and in my experience that is the time when the good books start trickling in. Within the last month I have read three books that will definitely make it into my best-of list for 2022 and one of them is a really interesting philosophical post-apocalypse/body horror mesh-up, a debut from a young author I think has enormous potential and talent: I am talking about The Doloriad by Missouri Williams.

Every now and then there comes a book that I read digitally and feel so strongly about that I'll want to own a physical copy. I recently found that book in a wonderful, allegorical novella about identity, aggression, estrangement, inner conflicts, desires, solitude and maybe even a little about hope and despair: One Hand to Hold, One Hand to Carve. I just loved it. 

Alright, here are the short reviews of the last month or so. I have the feeling that I read a little less than usual, but I guess it was only a little less horror than usual and a whole lot more thrillers, most of which I didn't end up enjoying but maybe you like them? Have a look and see yourself!

The weather is warming up and what better story is there to read in these early days of spring than Hex , the story of a witch being awakened from her centuries long hibernation? Dutch author Thomas Olde Heuvelt's breakthrough novel has been quite the talk of town ever since it was first published in 2013, mainly because of its USA version for which the author decided to re-locate the story to the USA instead of originally Netherlands and to re-write the ending for the American audience. Whether you think it is the ultimate witch novel and Katherine van Wyler one of the scariest monsters of modern times or you think a re-write was unnecessary and turn up your nose on the US version - I guess the whole back story is a little sensation itself that probably did good advertising for this eerie slice of small town horror and enhanced its fame as the horror novel that was too scary for Americans (just kidding!).