protean depravity

Although I have read a lot, I feel like I haven't been reading anything of much substance the last few weeks. On the one hand I have all these novellas I want to go through because I need a certain amount of novellas to choose from for my end of the year list, on the other hand I want a long book. It sucks but I also feel like I get bored easily and can't really focus on longer books right now, even though I have a mountain of them waiting on my bed side. I sincerely hope to get out of that slump quickly and really really wish to get completely captivated and lost again in a long story. Maybe I'll yet find that story this summer. Enjoy the shorties!

Having read "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" last week and afterwards re-watching and comparing the book to Blade Runner in my review was so much fun that I'm repeating it this week with another book, and I even found a goodreads friend, Debbie, who is ready to read with me the book on which a famous movie is based off on a regular basis. We will then try and watch the movie around the same time and compare the works, but the focus will of course be on the book since I'm a bookworm and not a film critic in no way. And I'm opening a new column called "Based on Books" to sort these reviews in. Back around the time it was first released (2013-2104?) I had tried to watch the movie Under the Skin but unfortunately fell asleep while watching and so I couldn't claim I watched it. That was before yesterday, because after finishing Michael Faber's book I succeeded in watching it and here are my thoughts on both.

Apart from festival time, I sit down about twice a year to take stock of all the new movies I want to watch in the upcoming season - which doesn't mean they're all the movies I'll ever watch in the coming months, there will surely be many I'll still go see, but it's nice to have a plan and a goal before you. So I have scanned my favorite horror sites, the fantasy film fest website and the websites of various movie theatres in Berlin that I'm fond of, open air and closed room, and I came up with a mini summer program that goes until fall. I will be traveling end of August and the first half of September but decided to return early to Berlin in order not to miss the Fantasy Film Festival, I hope it will be worth it, lol.

Finally, I have the feeling that there's some revving up in terms of good books coming my way as I have read numerous of them these past weeks. I'm really trying, but also struggling a little bit to balance all the new publications with the book group and buddy reads with my many challenges and back list. No need to stress, though, I guess the tbr list is something never ending, and once you accept that truth it gets easier to accept I'll never be able to read everything, sigh.... Enjoy my short reviews on that melancholy note!

I'm such a bad blogger, I completely forgot the 3rd birthday of my blog... Happy third birthday, Protean Depravity!! This past year was quite turbulent and had me thinking if and how to carry on with my blog at all - mostly because PD is essentially a pandemic project and as you may have realized, the COVID pandemic ended (probably?).

This Saturday, July 8th at 7pm, Samanta Schweblin will be at the Otherland for a little reading / Q&A event. I'm pretty excited about this, even though I have only read her here featured book Distancia de rescate ( Fever Dream in English, which has been made into a netflix movie) but I'm very very interested in her work in general. I find horror which mixes with magical realism extremely fascinating and I'm curious what the author will say about her understanding of horror and literature. Entrance is free as always, the event will be in Spanish with German translation, and if you want to participate make sure to drop Wolf a line at the usual email adress - service@otherland.de, because there is a limit to the number of people who can be at the store as far as I understand. Samanta Schweblin is an Argentine author currently based here in Berlin, who wrote numerous books such as Mouthful of Birds, Seven Empty Houses, Little Eyes , and the above mentioned Fever Dream . S...

Realizing I didn't have a favorite book yet for the year 2023 until I recently read the new Bazterrica made me question the books I have been reading these past six months. None of them could hit me hard enough and that made me ponder why. I don't really have an answer for the why, maybe I was more focused when mostly at home during the pandemic, maybe the books really aren't that great, I don't know.

  In der Maschine schläft das Lied Gisle.

It really is a special kind of pleasure to read really short, bite-sized stories which nevertheless succeed in capturing strong moments, like Agustina Bazterrica does in Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird . A pleasure which I in fact would compare to reading poetry, as all twenty of these mini stories are written with utmost wit and make you return and re-read a passage or two which touches you particularly strongly. That's how I ended up, many times over in the past week at the subway station to work, and instead of flowing with the crowd, I stood in a corner re-reading the story I just finished in the train with a big smile on my face. And when I came home in the evening, I couldn't wait to read them again. Bazterrica has already proven with her achingly devastating cannibalistic dystopia Tender is the Flesh that she can write a poignant novel. Now she captivates her readers with these absolutely delightful mini stories too.