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.

Slasher fans, rejoice! After a vampire and a ghost novel, the Swedish Stephen King is back with a slasher!  Nine co-workers on a company outing arrive at the idyllic lakeside guesthouse Kolarsjöns Stugby in rural Sweden. They have been working on a project to launch a shopping mall in this remote place for which the land has been taken from local farmers, agreements have been made with shop owners and to build an Ikea around the corner in order to turn the place into a capitalist heaven overlooking the natural beauty. Despite the blatant tensions and conflicting interests within the group, they are trying their best to literally survive this trip and get on with their lives. But there are other tensions brewing too and one of them will result in a proper killing spree – where should they run to, where should they hide? And will they be able to set aside their quarrels in order to pull through together or will they even contribute to the killings?

Honestly, I am a little tired of reading North American horror all the time, which is, not always but usually, formulaic and predictable. So the Otherland Bookshop supports me in my quest of finding exciting horror from all over the world and gave me a bunch of translated horror review copies and Que nadie duerma - Let No One Sleep by Spanish author Juan José Millás is one of them.

I have a much better reading month behind me, luckily, so this time the short reviews won't be as grumpy and peppery as my last ones. Having read really all over the place these last few weeks, the reviews are a bit mixed too in terms of genre but the emphasis is, as always, on a bunch of horror books, mostly because all the Halloween-related reading challenges I took part in. But I actually read an unusual amount of good thrillers and crime novels too and I'll be reviewing them separately because they're so many. Hope you're enjoying the cooler reading weather!