protean depravity

Hey everyone! Here's the wrap-up of the past month or so. I have been mostly mood reading, and all over the place, which I'm afraid won't change in the near future because I probably won't be able to read as much in the upcoming month, due to Berlinale. I'll do my best, though. Hope you enjoy the short reviews! P.S. A couple of notes for your calendar: Dutch horror author Thomas Olde Heuvelt will be at the Otherland Bookshop on March 31st (!), and Nine Inch Nails are touring Europe this summer and will be in Köln as well as Berlin (!!!). Very  - very - psyched about these! Wild Seed by Octavia Butler Wild Seed is the inaugural book of the "Patternist" series by Octavia Butler, which I have owned as a collection entitled Seed to Harvest for at least a decade, unread. Since I'm very serious about finishing up all the unread books I have in my home library, this is the book/collection I'm starting in the year 2025. I'm secretly proud of wh...

In almost every horror anthology there's one recurring name that piques my attention because the stories under that name almost always land among my highlights: Joe R. Lansdale. I also keep on hearing how great he is, even more so since I started working at a crime and mystery bookshop, because Lansdale shines both in horror and crime fiction. So, you know how you have an endless back list of authors' names you want to read some day? Well, Lansdale was one of those names perpetually in the back of my head. I even have his The Best of Joe R. Lansdale sitting on my shelf, because you know me, I'll buy it and let it sit there for years before finally reading a book and then get frustrated because I had this gem in my home all these years.

Discussing Jerusalem's Lot , we just have to start at the root, and in many horror works, especially of that time, whether the writer knows it or not, whether the writer likes it or not, that root is H.P. Lovecraft. Not that King tries to hide anything: the setting and background, a mansion inherited by a cousin; the main character, a single young man, the only and last descendant of an old family line with a dark secret; the "symptom", noises from inside the walls of the mansion, mistaken (or not) for rats running around... All these are carbon copies of Rats in the Walls by good old HP. There are still twists - King decides to introduce vampires into the story, and gives it a supernatural touch, while Old Howard's dirty secret is based off human depravity and is much more terrifying, although there's arguably supernatural forces at work here too.

The German word "Vorfreude" which describes the happiness you feel before something, a "joyful anticipation" according to internet dictionaries, should be a word in every single language on this world for me to express the joy I yearly feel between New Year's Eve and the month of February when all my favorite film festivals and showings takes place. The constellation of those festivals is somewhat different in 2025, with the Fantasy Filmfest White Nights taking place as late as the first weekend of February and the Final Girls Berlin Film Festival even in March! Even with this shift, it's all fine by me, I have been blissfully busy in my joyful anticipation and putting bookmarks on films I want to see and buying tickets where I can.

In the same way as it is not unusual to return to the same music one used to listen in their teens and twenties, I lately feel the need to return to books that I've read in my early youth and that have left a mark on me. Of course, the role both books, music, and the associated communities play in the shaping of one's personality is undeniable, so presumably no matter how many decades past, you'll always be partial and subjective, and it's nearly impossible for the fan to give an objective assessment on these works. It would be still interesting to observe how you perceive them now compared to back then, and what feelings those same books awake in you today.

Hey everyone! Hope your passage to the new year was smooth and you've made it healthy and happy and maybe a little drunk into 2025! In my first post of the new year I give you mostly reads from the end of last year which I had somehow left unreviewed (mainly because I didn't enjoy them too much, but there are a couple I really loved too), so here are the short reviews, enjoy!

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Only it was never the best of times. 2024 is my personal 2020 and made me miss pandemic times we were sitting in peace at home, watching movies and reading books.

All the Protean Depravity columns have a deeply ritual (or shall I, less flatteringly, say repetitive?) character, and although I'd love to add more new, flashy, and exciting things to my blog, I also find comfort in little traditions. The wrapping up column, in which I look back at my reading challenges of the past, and most anticipated books in the upcoming year, is one of those comfort writes. The other main one being the best titles of the year, which is due next week, so hold on tight for that! But before, let's wrap up this year's reading. Among all the chaos and bad luck I had last year, there is one accomplishment that I'm proud of - I finished ALL my reading challenges I pledged to finish, and I'm a little proud of that. I have to add that I was very careful not to put too much on my plate and sometimes read as little as four or seven books per challenge, but that technique helped me finishing them, some of them even quite early in the year.

So, I definitely need to start wrapping up everything 2024 and to look into the future, and that involves writing the last short reviews of the year, focusing on the End of the Year list, and plan new challenges for 20. Hope you enjoy them as always, despite the abominable weather.