A new year so for my monthly wrap-up I will take a bit of a different approach… I will list up the books I read, the comics I read and the movies I saw (I will no longer mention the tv-shows unless I think I saw something worth mentioning)… and for the books I read I will pick my favourite of that month from now on… All the reviews of books and comics will be available on my blog.

1. Books

Eleven books (okay, two of them tiny ones), mostly translated in Dutch or written by Dutch speaking writers.

• Joe Hill’s Full Throttle (had trouble getting through it, maybe I wasn’t in the mood for it at the time?)

• Tranen over Mortsel by Pieter Serrien about the American bombardment on a factory in Mortsel (Belgium) that missed and hit the town and the many schools killing a lot of innocent people (and children!)
• Doe maar niet by Amir Bachrouri: twenty-something Amir’s look on being young and finding your path in life
• Marx in Brussel by Edward De Maesschalck was a bit of a struggle… Karl Marx stayed in Brussels for a few years with his family and he started writing his Communist Manifesto there.
• Kayvion Lewis’ Thieves Gambit is a young adult novel about thieves and a competition between teenage thieves, with higher stakes than expected! I was pleasantly surprised by it.
• Haroon Ali’s Spectrum is a summary of the different colours in the lgbtqia+-spectrum. Very interesting!
• Sonny Boy by Dutch writer Annejet Van Der Zijl was thé surprise of January. Best book I’ve read this month! The love between a Dutch woman and a man from Paramaribo (Suriname) during a time when this was frowned upon. And then World War II breaks loose! (A true story)
• Chris Carter’s fifth Robert Hunter novel (recently translated in Dutch) about a ruthless killer who questions humanity’s ability of choice! Second best book of January!
• Tina Frennstedt’s Cold Case: Countdown… a murder case on an elderly woman seems to be connected to a fifteen year old murder. Great Scandinavian thriller! I am currently reading part 3 in the series!
• Herman Brusselmans’ Ex-Roker is a diary written by a writer who smoked his entire life and was asked to stop smoking during October ‘23… his struggle was written down!
• And finally ‘De Eerlijke Vinder’ by Lize Spit. A friendship between a Flemish boy and an Albanian boy, two misfits, will be tested. A recall to the nineties, flippo’s and the Balkan war.

2. Comics

Well, I read about six comics in January (all reviews are on this blog, in Dutch!)

3. Movies

I watched 14 movies this month (not bad), here’s a list:

• Oppenheimer
• Fantastic Beasts and where to find them
• Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindewald
• Fantastic Beasts: The Secrets of Dumbledore
• No one will Save you
• Insidious: The Red Door
• Dark Harvest
• Oesje!
• Sing 2
• Night Teeth
• The Creator
• Le Notti del Terrore (Burial Ground)
• Stephen King Movie Marathon: Carrie
• Stephen King Movie Marathon: Salem’s Lot

Not every movie has a review on this blog. The Stephen King adaptations will however, as I plan a movie marathon of all his adaptations (at least the ones I am able to read)

This was January… February, here I come!