Tag: booknerd

Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata

First book started and finished for 2025, a familiar favourite in Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata. I do usually start the year reading one of his books and last year I didn’t and had a sucky year of reading. So I decided this would be my first book of the year and I had forgot how beautiful it is. Something about his writing I really love and although his books are not happy books they do have an aura about them. I won’t make no plans but hopefully this year I revisit his books and read those I have not got around to yet as well as reacquaint myself with those I have already loved.

So that’s technically two in the bag already, more importantly 2 days of reading done. I keep track of my daily reading via my Kindle and the Kindle app. I keep a log of my reviews and progress on Goodreads, I have to say that I don’t like the new update to the Reading Challenge and the new goals or challenges they have provided. If its not broke don’t fix it, it wasn’t broke.

Happy New Year & One Book Done!

Happy New Year!

First post of the year and already a book in the bag, although I read 90% of it in December. I did finish it in 2025 so I’m counting it for this year.

The Most Interesting Book In The World by Edward Brooke-Hitching

Like the title suggests this a very interesting read, and a nice collection or miscellany of facts from all aspects like sports, science, literature, politics and general history. It reminded me of a series of books I loved about 15 years ago called Schotts Original Miscellany – books full of interesting, useful and useless information.

It was a fun book to get stuck into and get me out of my reading slump and start this year as I mean to go on.

I do intend to start my first complete read of the year tonight. Snow Country by Yasunari Kawabata.

End of Year Post

Well as with previous years of saying I will post here I have failed yet again but this year has been one of failure in general, not the most productive or happiest year, in terms of productivity and personal life.

My reading has seriously took a hit this year and I was bogged down by The World by Simon Sebag Montefiore for much of it, a book that took forever to read despite how enjoyable I found it.

In my Goodreads challenge of 25 I got up to 19 (at the time of writing) which is easily 1/3 or 1/4 of my usual reading output. I didn’t finish many books but I have read for the best part of the year with only 34 days missed according to Kindle Reading Insights. I’m doing this on the 29th December and won’t be missing reading on the next two days.

One positive for my reading is discovering the genre of LitRPG and particularly the series Dungeon Crawler Carl by Matt Dinniman. A thoroughly enjoyable, funny and wonderful series. I’m eagerly awaiting the audiobook for Book 7, the books are incredible and the audiobooks further enhance them.

For 2025 my goal is to read daily and not miss so many days but finish more books, hopefully I can focus and keep that goal. For a number I will set an initial goal of 25 and once I feel in my rhythm bump it up to 52 so a book a week, or maybe just set it to 52 to begin with. I really want to grow my enjoyment of books again, this year was a write off as far as that is concerned. I am toying with the idea of a soft reading list so I have something to stick to, hopefully I don’t buy as many books this year (famous last words).

Happy New Year and I’ll try to be more regular here.

Phantom Architecture by Philip Wilkinson

Although I started this several months ago I didn’t really start reading it properly until last week. I had previously dipped in and out of it. But once i devoted my time to it, what a very interesting and enthralling read, some very quirky, interesting and downright strange designs. It would have been interesting to see some of them come fruition like a giant pyramid crypt in London for 5 million bodies, or a giant elephant in Paris. If they had been built I wonder how they would be perceived today?

A great selection and quite interesting, not a difficult or dense read at all. A bit more details would be nice but a minor quibble. The book has some great illustrations and photographs from more modern times of the models and plans for the buildings and communities.

It does make me curious what contemporary designs are ongoing that will end up future phantoms. Perhaps the proposed Neom in Saudi Arabia will be a future Phantom or drastically different to how we are expecting it today.