31st December 2025
Somehow I've managed to read 21 books for three years in a row now. I'd really like to pick up the pace a bit, but I always seem to get stuck on a book at some point in the year, slowing progress. I need to be better about dropping books I'm not enjoying, or at least picking something else up for a while to give myself a break.
This year, I joined a science-fiction book club run by a friend. Any books marked (BC) were read as part of that. It meant re-reading a couple of books I've read before, as well as reading a couple that I probably wouldn't have chosen otherwise. Re-reading books isn't something I usually do, but doing it this year really demonstrated how little I remember from things I've read in the past.
I have a romantic image in my mind of climbing aboard a long-distance ocean liner and spending weeks, or even months aboard, without a connection to the internet or the "outside" world, with only a stack of books for entertainment. With all the problems of living and working at sea laid bare, the book tempered this idea, but only slightly. Another option would be a season in the Antarctic. It offers the same possibility of disconnection, but a boat in the tropics sounds more appealing than months of cold and dark. Even with all the apparent problems of life at sea, it's clear from the final chapter that the author shares some of that same romantic vision that I do and, even after everything she goes through on board, it seems like the appeals still out-weigh the problems.
A collection of short stories, it's most well known for being the source material for the film Arrival. There wasn't much that I remembered of this from my first reading.
I loved this book. The first chapter comes out of the gate like a punch to the gut and it crashes from one chapter into the next, dark and disjointed, but thoroughly enjoyable. The chapters are short and tight, but somehow still set the scene and build character perfectly. It feels like the first time I watched the Matrix, seeing something that was distinctly different from anything I'd seen before.
The story is intriguing, confusing and haunting. It made me think about what it must be like to live with Alzheimer's, slowly forgetting things that were once important to you, until you reach the point where you don't even recognise the faces of your nearest and dearest.
The author got a book deal to polish this and get it published. It thoroughly deserves to reach a wider audience, but I hope it doesn't get over-polished, because its rough, jarring character is part of its charm. If you enjoy science fiction, but don't want to read another book about rockets and lasers then I would definitely recommend it. Ideal for fans of Neal Asher and Stranger Things.
This got off to a barn-storming start, but the second act dragged. The story of Carter's childhood was so long, that by the time characters from the introduction returned, I had completely forgotten who they were. Thankfully the final third was also good, so it was worth persevering.
Another book club selection I've read before and another indicator of just how little I remember of the things I've read in the past - I might as well have been reading it for the first time. Other than some vague memory of the Sea of Grass it was all new to me. The way the story is structured makes it more like a collection of short stories, each with a different style, but all with some commonalities that ties them into the overarching narrative. It's easy to see why it's such a highly regarded piece in the genre. Some time soon, before its memory inevitably fades again, I need to read the follow up, Fall of Hyperion, which I have never read before, to discover the outcome.
Like Bad Blood all over again. Another tale of diabolical mis-management by two people at the top of a company in a secret relationship with each other. A wonderful insight into Sam Bankman-Freid and FTC's metaphorical explosion and subsequent implosion. It gives all the necessary background to tell the story without ever feeling like it delves into irrelevant stuff in someone's past in order to pad the page count. Yet another example of why so many people, some of whom even understand how it works, see crypto-currencies as one huge scam. Possibly not because of the currencies themselves, at least not all of them, but more because of the people they tend to attract who only care about making a quick buck and damn the consequences. The fact that the book ends before SBF's sentencing means it peters out rather than reaching a satisfying conclusion. I assume this was done to ensure the book was released while public interest in the story was at its peak.
Surprisingly short. Entertaining, but I don't think it deserves all the praise it has received. I won't be bothering to continue with the series.
A fun holiday read that I devoured in a couple of days. One oddity that stood out to me was the author's habit of describing each character's shoes.
After binging the first four series of the TV show, I couldn't wait for the next to be released, so decided to return to the source material. It's like the actors have crawled back onto the page. The show seems to be such a faithful recreation that I can see them all in my minds eye and hear their voices (and other bodily functions) as I read it. Great fun.
Although I had heard of Bellingcat before, I wasn't aware of quite how prolific they were. This was an interesting history of the group told by the founder.
This reads more like a poem than a novel. The beauty of orbiting the earth expressed in flowery metaphor. An ode to our home. At first I thought I wouldn't like it, but eventually I softened to the gentle humanity of it. It builds a rhythm, like the station orbiting the earth, a steady heartbeat.
A fascinating look behind the curtain on the development of aircraft that were, at various times during the 20th century, classified top secret and only known about by a very small group of people. Highly recommended if you have any interest in the Cold War, or any of the aircraft described; the F-117 Stealth Fighter, the U2 or the SR-71 (or should that be RS-71?) Blackird. In an age of bloated corporations and seas of middle-management, there are definitely lessons to be learned from the Skunk Works model.
This is one I wouldn't have picked up if it wasn't selected by the book club, but I did enjoy it. An ideal book for a book club it prompted lots of discussion about the meanings behind various events in the story and what they may be metaphors for.
A group of humans spend years travelling to another planet and are surprised when they find creatures that act like aliens.
The enjoyment of science fiction requires some willing suspension of disbelief. For a book written in 1996 I could suspend disbelief about the mining of asteroids in 2019, but I struggled to believe that organised religion would have the power to send a group of people of their choosing to another planet. The idea that on sharing the news of the discovery of aliens, that the team would not get swept aside and replaced by a team of experts and soldiers, chosen by government, was a stretch too far. It was necessary to communicate the metaphor of colonialism, but it stuck out like a sore-thumb.
Although it's clearly a spy novel, there's something decidedly sci-fi about the story. Perhaps, not surprising when you consider it was written by William Gibson.
It's always amusing reading older books that involve cutting-edge technology of the time. It's funny how simple they seem, looking back, from where we are now.
I discovered this book through Hundred Rabbits around the time my wife and I decided that we would like to try and learn how to sail. It tells the story of their journey across the Pacific, from Japan to Canada, in a sail boat. Some of the tales of storms put me off the idea of sailing a little bit, but not entirely. The peace and isolation away from human civilisation still holds some romance. They set sail from Japan at the beginning of June 2020, just when large parts of the world were in their own states of isolation. Doing it aboard a sail boat sounds far more appealing.
This didn't really get into its stride until around the half-way point. Combined with the fact it wasn't a particularly long book (~400 pages), it resulted in something of an abrupt ending. So much so that I was half expecting the next book in the series (Picks and Shovels) to be a continuation, but after a cursory look on the internet that doesn't seem to be the case. Even so, Doctorow manages to fit a lot of business and fraud between the covers. It didn't feel as high-stakes as the first book, but still enjoyable.
Dungeons & Dragons meets Running Man. Lots of fun. I'll definitely pick up the second one, but apparently there are already seven sequels and I'm not sure I have the stamina for that many.
Clearly I didn't hold out long before reading the second one. Just as much fun as the first. I was very tempted to pick up the third straight away and continue on, but I did that with the A Song of Ice and Fire series years ago and burned myself out on them and I don't want to make that mistake again.
The title of this one raised a few indignant comments from my Dutch wife. It does a fairly good job of capturing the idiosyncrasies of character of a country in a way only someone from outside can do. It has some problems; I didn't like the fact the author seemed to feel the need to describe every female he came across in terms of their physical appearance, but he also deserves credit for tackling difficult topics like colonialism, slavery and immigration with balance and care.
It may have won the Booker Prize, but I found it insufferably boring. The language is stuffy and the main character is bland and uninteresting. Very disappointing after Klara and the Sun. I made it about 75 pages in, but just couldn't bear it any longer. I'll probably still try Never Let Me Go, as I've heard so many good reviews, but I hope it isn't like this.