Trollhunter

More awesome than I dared to hope... it's a shame they had credits at the end...

Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow

Absofuckinlutely spectacular middle reader horror novel. Epic dread combined with whimsy for the win.

Prollly wont even bother finishing...

So, enough authors give away kindle books for free that I rarely buy something. Bought The Corpse Rat King because the premise sounds awesome. 49% of the way through and I can't figure out why it was written. I cannot discern any motivation, or agency, and I can no longer trudge through. Maybe I'll be more forgiving in the morning, but somehow I doubt I can bear to pick it up again. It's like Job, a bunch of terrible things happening, except Job resulted from a wager. This has no porpoise.

HP and Like Favourites

Title=Kindle collection title. Obviously it includes Harry Potter. The Like Favourites, ordered with no respect to rank:
Anna Dressed In Blood by Kendare Blake
Marco and the Red Granny by Mur Lafferty
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo et al by Steig Larson
Johnathan Strange and Mr Norrel by Susanna Clarke
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

I shall have to become an amazon affiliate in hopes of my reviews garnering a following.

Epic Fail

Homegrown & Handmade by Deborah Niemann... so, remember Ronald Niedermann, Lisbeth's halfbrother? This book, too, is heavyhanded, leadfooted, and throws about the broadest haymakers of ideas that it overwhelms a person without even giving a person enough information to do any of the things it suggests. It's nambypamby, wishywashy, and tells you that you'll learn by experimenting... but never gives you a hypothesis on which to base said experimenting. Way better overviews exist; I'll find the titles and mention them soon.

Addendum: even though I panned Backyard Homestead, at least the yield charts were useful. No such redeeming qualities to be found in this epic failure of a copycat.

New Age vs. Greek Life

Gaia's Garden: A guide to home-scale permaculture, 2nd edition, by Toby Hemenway, is by far the most digestible gardening book I've read. Lots of how to's and why's mixed with a few real life applications make the denser theory bits comprehensible. I think I'll probably buy it for my reference library; unless Edible Forest Gardens is better. [The appendices and bibliography are brilliant] I found at least five other books to borrow from the library.

Warning: Not the Horror film the previews make it out to be

Shutter Island instead falls in the realm of psychothriller. I'm betting that the horror previews are at least part of the reason it took the #1 box office spot, as my gent and I wanted a good horror flick. I did find it a pleasant surprise, however. Quite as good/building from the highnote of The Departed in terms of actor's growth and being a drama that makes you think. And the cinematography kept you invested in the surreal moments. I know it was digital filtering, but the colors were so much more real during the dream sequences than any I've seen recently. Definitely recommended.