In 2024 I has mostly been reading

Books read in 2024

Books I read in 2024 include:

Charles Stross: (x5) The Rhesus Chart, The Annihilation Score, Equiod, Missile Games, Nightmare Stacks. Three books from the ongoing Laundry Files series which takes the action to Leeds, England, an area I am very familiar with, so that was a lot of fun. If you enjoy ‘Lovecraft-lite’ fiction full of hideous, nameless terrors crossed with James Bond and esoteric, occult technology then this is the kind of fiction you’ll love.

Sci-fi:

(x10) Best of British Science Fiction 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, Best of American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2021, The Android’s Dream & Starter Villain by John Scalzi, The Lost Cause by Cory Doctorow, The City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison. The Best of British Science Fiction series was an excellent find. Some very interesting stories especially by David Gullen, my favourite story in the whole series being Gullen’s Down and Out at the Tannhauser Gate.

Discworld

(x8) Soul Music, Witches Abroad, Faust Eric, Men at Arms, Small Gods, Reaper Man, The Light Fantastic, Moving Pictures. I’ll keep it simple – Six Reasons You Should Read Discworld.

Classics:

(x3) Dio’s Rome Volume 1, Thucydides – The History of the Peloponnesian War, The Reign of Tiberius – Tacitus. They are called classics for a reason.

Non-fiction/Miscellaneous:

(x6) World Bank Group – Laos Railway Report, Not the End of the World by Hannah Ritchie, Raising Livestock, Easy Indian Cooking, The Nature of Oaks, Stoicism: A Very Short Introduction

Pie chart

In 2023 I has mostly been reading…

Read read so far this year (2023)

This year 2023, I has mostly been reading: Iain M Banks, Charles Stross, Isaac Asimov and Terry Pratchett.


Sci-fi

Iain M Banks: Inversions, The Player of Games, Use of Weapons, The State of the Art, Inversions. Also, The Culture Series of Iain M Banks:A critical Introduction by Simone Caroti

Charles Stross: The Apocalypse Codex, Rule 34, The Fuller Memorandum, The Atrocity Archives, The Jennifer Morgue.

Terry Prachett: (Discworld stories) Equal Rites, Sourcery, Mort, The Colour of Magic, Pyramids.

Isaac Asimov: Foundations Edge, Foundation and Earth.

John Scalzi: Old Man’s War

Biography:

Elon Musk by  Walter Isaacson

Classics:

Meditations by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius

The Putney Debates (The Putney Debates, which took place from 28 October to 8 November 1647, were a series of discussions over the political settlement that should follow Parliament‘s victory over Charles I in the First English Civil War.)

Miscellaneous: Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman plus various titles about homesteading and Ireland.

Currently reading:

The Annihilation Score by Charles Stross, a book about raising livestock and an entomological textbook about structure and function

Books

The Universe is a Hydrogen Sonata

The universe is a Hydrogen Sonata?

Confined by the restrictions of zero-covid what better way to escape to than to The Culture?

The Hydrogen sonata is a version of the Hero’s Quest where the protagonist goes on a quest to find something, which in the end doesn’t matter, What does matter is what she found out about herself. 

Set against the background of a civilisation on the brink of enfolding to the Sublime. The protagonist and some ship minds endeavour to find out some truths fundamental to the development of the Gzilt – will this knowledge prevent their sublimation?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hydrogen_Sonata