These are the books I've acquired over the winter months, the bookworm version of stockpiling if you will. Rather than getting food and warm materials like an animal, I have collected books to warm my soul.
There's a few Christmas presents, books I can't remember why I bought and a few with some rather random reasonings behind them...
Afrori Books: https://afroribooks.co.uk/
The trend of not reading much continues, but it's not 1 million movies getting in the way this time. It's playing too much World of Warcraft and binge-watching The Leftovers, which has to be one of the best TV Shows I've ever watched!
I wrote about my all-consuming fear of death around 2 years ago now in the aptly titled Thanatophobia + The Seventh Seal - where I reminisced on the weird moments when panic and existential dread have overwhelmed me and how I had the really great idea of watching a film about The Plague during our very own plague era.
Well, guess what? It’s back. And worse than ever. In December, I spent 6 hours in A&E because I suddenly got this awful crushing pressure in my chest, I was taking some antibiotics at the time, and well, I thought it might be a reaction. Still a mystery as to what it actually was tbh. But sitting in a waiting room for 6 hours in between an ECG and other things with no other distractions other than people watching will make you think. And my brain likes to think a little too much sometimes.
I’ve also had to ban myself from physics documentaries as I binge-watched Brian Cox’s latest series and managed to scare the fuck out of myself with it. The universe is wild, and we are literally nothing in comparison…so when we die, why would anything be waiting for us. Fuck.
Several panic attacks later.
Literally every day, I think about death. About the looming certainty of it. And how I can’t get my head around literally not existing anymore. And how much of a waste it is. Why are we born just to die? Existence is utterly pointless.
I’ve always been drawn to fantasy stories, and the other day I realised that I’ve always liked or been interested in immortal characters… Elves and Vampires. Because they have what I can’t have. And while the reality of Immortality would be quite scary…imagine living until the end of the universe or if you can’t make it that far because humanity has annihilated itself through nuclear war and/or we never leave get the chance to leave this solar system…imagine when the sun dies, and then you die too. It then makes me feel sick knowing that one day long after I close my eyes for the last time, the universe will end but I won’t have existed for millennia.
Why is my brain like this? I only have one life, and I’m spending most of it worrying about death, and if I’m not worrying about death, then I’m just stone-cold depressed.
New Year, Same Me. This month I read a fantastic book, an ok book, a little bit of poetry and started another book (despite currently juggling about 5 different books...yes, I'm still reading The Wind Up Bird Chronicle!)
As usual, I watched loads of movies, but because I didn't do a December wrap-up, I thought I'd talk about the films I watched in December and January in this video.
It’s official the Amazon Prime prequel to The Lord of the Rings will be called The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power…
Eek, I told myself I wouldn’t get excited about the prequel tv show on Amazon. But they put out a teaser and well let’s just say I am hyped…tbh I did get kinda hyped when the first image that had the two trees of Valinor in it came out but I managed to calm myself down sufficiently.
It was obvious from day one that the name would have to include Lord of the Rings despite it taking place before the Third Age and the actual time of the Lord of the Rings, it’s Marketing 101 really. But this does tell us that maybe just maybe (I mean it has to be absolutely the case doesn’t it?) Sauron will appear in physical form and under the guise of Annatar. This is cool as I’ve been delving more and more into the lore of Middle-Earth and I will be reading The Silmarillion and the Unfinished Tales soon.
I must say that Cate Blanchett’s Galadriel had a much more ethereal voice and the monologue at the beginning of The Fellowship of the Ring with the music playing always gives me chills and this didn’t. However, I’m not going to dismiss this version of Galadriel just yet because it’s only a teaser.
Another thing to perhaps further suggest the physical manifestation of Sauron and the crafting of the rings taking place in the show is that the whole teaser was the forging and crafting of the title. It would be rather crap if the rings already existed so I think the series will start when they don’t exist and then go from there to the creation of the rings, the hiding of the 3 rings by the elves then the men and dwarves being given the rest of rings that are reclaimed and how this starts to poison the mortals of Middle-Earth.
This better be good. I watched the Wheel of Time show when it came out and while I kinda liked it to begin with it was actually a bit naff and I don’t know whether that’s because WoT is kinda a LOTR rip off (to begin with as I’m told) or that they just adapted it a bit cheaply…like the world just looked too artificial and very much like a show not somewhere that feels lived in and narratively it was rushed. So I have a similar worry because the 1st season of Rings of Power will also be 8 episodes but because its the most expensive show ever made maybe the sets will look real and at least to the standard of Peter Jacksons’ movies which while not being perfect adaptations they are certainly absolutely fucking close!
Let me know in the comments what you think of the teaser and whether you’re excited for the show!
Read my article on 9 locations in England that inspired Tolkien's Middle Earth
