The Book Will Bury Me (by Ashley Winstead) — A great thriller, told in retrospect, about a young woman who gets involved with a group of amateur true-crime detectives.

Prospect (Amazon Prime) – I checked this out after Annihilation author Jeff VanderMeer recommended it on Bluesky. I can see why he liked it, as it’s sort of similar to Annihilation, in that it’s a sci-fi movie about people — in this case, Jay Duplass and a very young Sophia Thatcher (this movie’s from 2018); also, Pedro Pascal shows up midway through — exploring a strange planet. The production is small in scale but very well realized. I liked it a lot.

Worzel Gummidge (Blu-ray)— For those unfamiliar, Worzel Gummidge is a talking scarecrow who’s featured in a bunch of British children’s books. There have been two TV adaptations, and the one that I watched is the second series, the first season of which was made in 2019 by Mackenzie Crook (Gareth, from the UK version of The Office), who not only plays Gummidge, in tremendous make-up/prosthetics/costuming, but also writes and directs every episode. Similar to Detectorists (one of my all-time favourite TV shows), the other series he also starred in, wrote, and directed, Worzel Gummidge is an absolute delight. It’s got a dash of whimsy, a lot of low-key humour, and it uses the ancient British countryside to tap into something both mythic and mythical.

Deadmau5 “The Veldt” – So, I’m 13 years late to this song, but the only thing that matters to me is that I managed to find it, because I frickin’ LOVE it. According to a video that somehow popped up on my Instagram feed, Deadmau5 (someone I previously knew about by name only) was inspired to write the music after reading a Ray Bradbury story. He uploaded the track to his website, then some random dude put lyrics to it and sent it back the next day. Deadmau5 listened to it during a live-stream, fully expecting to hate it, but instead was blown away and ended up doing a collaboration. Anyway, long story short, this song’s now one of my favourites and I’ve been listening to it on repeat since I first heard it