Category: musings

New Years Retrospective

I dont really have any plan where this is going but seeing as this is New Years Eve I thought I would do a little post about my reading this year, its only really me who reads this anyway.

I did keep my resolution from last year to update this regularly. Mostly it has been book reviews but also some other things too. I think the coming year I may incorporate more things like journalling and pens and ink, and travel updates.

It has been an enjoyable and interesting year for me reading wise. I have discovered new things I have enjoyed in terms of manga (possibly Ecchi haha) and on the whole my reading has been mostly positive. I am looking through my Goodreads and the only book I have sort of disliked is Shifting The Moon From Its Orbit by Andrea Marcolongo. That one I rated 2 Stars and the rest I have read is 3 Stars and above.

Aside from Christmas books and some Yasunari Kawabata novels I haven’t re-read any books. Which I think is great. I did not manage to finish all my Christmas reading that I planned to, the Anthony Trollope book dragged (1800s romances is not my thing and very annoying) so I jettissoned the rest of my festive reads given the year is ending.

According to Goodreads I have read 66 books for the year and 14056 pages which is the most since 2023. Though not quite up there with 2019 and 2020 where I devoured 38000 pages and 31000 pages respectively (discovered the Mairgret series).

For the year ahead I do plan to re-read some old favourites and explore many new books I have yet to come to. Amongst the favoruties I would like to revisit Macondo in One HUndred Years of Solitude and join Edmond in his quest for revenge in The Count of Monte Cristo.

For new books I hope that this year I can read some Rumpole books by John Mortimer and explore more Graham Greene and finally get around to reading Roberto Bolano. I may dip into Ecchi more, I dont find it a sexy but the plots are amusing and fun. Cartoon corny drawings are just that, not in the least bit sexy as I swear the artists have never seen a human before let alone how the body works. Monster Musume is very funny and outlandish.

I have lots of books to get on with and hope this coming year I buy a lot less of them. Stick to the key series I enjoy like Martin Walker’s Bruno series. All in all I will stick to buying books through the Kindle Daily and Monthly Deals.

A Happy New Year to all who read this, may 2026 be healthy and happy for you all.

Musings on Future Posts

Since my last post yesterday I have done some thinking and some spontaneous things, I have decided that I will definitely be nore active with this and maybe other social medias too. I have purchased the domain to this blog so that it is now Valleyreading.uk and I was playing with my laptop and created a cute little logo which I like very much.

I feel that if I have an investment and incentive to inspire and encourgae me to regularly use this and post here too. The small financial investment is a reason to not neglect this. I have a few ideas for content and although the address and typical content is bookish I don’t think that would be my only content, I may diversify through my interests of which there is many and I am expecting 2025 to have a few twists too which I will be sure to document.

For content I am thinking of doing the following:

  • Book Reviews
  • Anime reviews
  • Tech reviews
  • Game Reviews
  • Shave of The Day/Week posts
  • General musings and life posts.
  • Relating to my interests
  • WordPress Daily Writing Prompt

Those are just some of my ideas and similar to what I already have posted but I will put more effort into it like I used to with my old blog which I grew quite well before I killed it.

From my last post I have began to jot down a rough reading list but I have sooo many books to go through I sort of don’t want to. Being a bit of an anorak I have every single book itemised and numbered on a spreadsheet so I may do a random number generator and see what it falls on for some reads. Could also use CoPilot AI to suggest some reads and see what it comes up with.

I am like a London bus, wait a year to make a post and then two at once, and probably a third to follow imminently….