2025

2025 was a turbulent year. First half was spent tired and angry, while at the same time struggling, hard, to figure out what I had to do with life. The next quarter was spent riddled with anxiety, half infused with optimism, half with fear. The last quarter was a little lighter, in a way felt like life is restarting.

In all this uncertainty, which probably was the main theme of the year, I picked up a lot of children's books. When real life didn't feel fun, children's books provide the much needed escapism, the adventures we don't have, the journey, the fun. They transport us to completely different world in a way that is lighthearted, not without a stake, but was much less burdensome than reading adult adventure could feel like sometimes. Le Guin's Tombs of Atuan, although technically is in the children or young adult category, I feel like it fell on its own category. It's really good in another level's good. At this point I think I'm going to continue reading one book from the Earthsea series every year.

The other category I read a lot this year was lighting books. A lot of the books I didn't even put the pictures here because I still have to finish or read more. Although I read it for my jobs, I really enjoy reading them, gaining new knowledge.

During the peak moment of confusion, I read a lot about astrology, understanding a little more deeper about it, and tarot. Many people dismiss them as some pseudo-science whatever bullshit, but despite the deeper history and the esotericism of it, they really are just a tool really. A tool to understand more about the self and the cycle of life. People really should try to understand something before bashing it with no reason just because they have a preconceived notion about it. In my opinion it's easier to understand astrology than religion because you can empirically see it yourself. But people hold religion as such sacred thing because it's the only thing they know and it's what the majority of people know.

Some favorites: Hour of The Star, Tombs of Atuan, The End of Night, Light Revealing Architecture. I love the Scarlett and Browne adventures but I love Lockwood and Co series a lot more. The Road to Tender Hearts and Bring Down The House were fun reads. Heart the Lover was good. The God of the Woods was so so overrated.

Tomorrow They Won't Dare to Murder Us was probably the most intriguing book I read this year. It's a fictionalise account of a real person and a real historical event. On one hand, the book is really interesting, made me want to know more about Algerian struggle against French colonialism. It's a good short read. But on the other hand, it's written in a very personal and detailed way it made me feel somewhat uneasy, knowing that they were real people and the author couldn't possibly know their thoughts and feelings. I know the intention was to humanise the people fighting in a revolution, that they are human with feelings and thoughts, not just numbers. But I don't know, I'm still not sure how I feel about it.  

I have to mention one book that I absolutely hate that is All My Cats. I came to it expecting stories about the many cats the authors took care of and their relationship. I definitely didn't expect to read how the author murdered kittens by bashing them to trees. I don't know if it's fiction or if it's real, it didn't matter. It's just didn't make sense to me and I hated it so much I just couldn't and didn't want to finish it.

Total count this year is 35 finished, and 34ish haven't finished. Didn't read that many literature this year, and didn't finish any political non fiction I started. Didn't have the brain capacity for them apparently. Hopefully will have one in the coming year.

2024 books

Total books finished this year is 44. First half of the year I spent reading a lot of fun fiction series, the other half I was so busy with my day job I barely had the time and the energy to read more serious books. So this year's list is shorter and isn't really exciting. But still I enjoyed all of my time reading. 

Speaking of fun fiction, I've always like reading children's books or fun light fictions, but I only just started reading young adult fantasy books in 2021 with Six of Crows. It was so popular at the time I was curious. The duology is still the best one I've read so far, maybe because it's the very first one I read so I was bias, I don't know. But since then I discovered that fantasy books are fun. That reading doesn't always have to be literature. I read Lockwood & Co series basically because the Netflix series, which was good, was cancelled so I looked for the books. Turn out the whole series was great and I was sad when I finished the last book.

And then there are romance books. Also just started reading them in 2021 with Emily Henry's Beach Read. I guess they used to be called chick-lit back in the day and I'd read some of them before maybe. But I guess Beach Read made me realise that maybe some romance books could actually be not dumb. I enjoy reading romance books for the same reason I like reading fantasy books, for the settings. Fantasy books take you to completely made up worlds and systems, romance books take you to a variety of the mundanity of life. Different cities, different kind of jobs, various social lives. Sometimes in the dullness and the boredom of my daily life, I enjoyed them. But romance books are very tricky. There are a lot of them but there are only a very few that are good. Even the more popular ones with high ratings I found a lot of them unbearable or boring. Even Emily Henry not all of her books are good in my opinion. My favourite romance author has got to be Catherine Walsh but I never put her books here because the covers are hideous and I hate that kind of dumb illustrated covers. Or maybe I just like her to be my secret favourite.

There are some books I need to highlight though. "Migration in The Time of Revolution" is an extremely important book for me personally, which I still need to read again. It's interesting reading "What My Bones Know" as someone who also suffers from c-ptsd and was once medicated for it. I found a lot of relatable things although somehow it wasn't as impactful as when I read Jennette McCurdy's "I'm Glad My Mom Died" two years ago. "Four Minutes" is a very compelling read about childhood that I made a separate post about it. "I Who Have Never Known Men" is a strange book that kept me turning the pages. I read Dostoevsky's "White Nights" on a flight. And I just love it. Best romance book I have ever read. "Boulder" has the best book cover ever. Sally Rooney's "Intermezzo" was my very last read. Finished it two days before the year ended. There's something about the way she writes which makes me still think about it even days after. 

2023 books

I read a lot less than the previous year. My total count is 42 books, but then it's because I read a lot of short books, and also I haven't finished some of non fiction books I started and I didn't count them even when it's just one chapter left. And also there were certain months where I worked on numbing tasks of finishing a tedious never ending construction drawings for my day job and I barely had time to do read. Anyhow count doesn't matter, it's just here for my personal note. 

I read many good books last year and a lot of them are becoming my favorites, some I didn't really like. And I'm going to talk about them.

Read more »

2022 books

so it turns out, to my surprise, i read even more books in 2022 than the previous year, with a total of 57 books and read some parts of another 21ish. although to be fair i mostly read easy fiction, especially towards the end of the year. with all the burn out and stress, i sought mostly enjoyment and lighthearted stories from reading. so the count itself really shouldn't matter, although it is the most i've ever read in a year my whole life.

some years ago a colleague from russia said that on average she read about 52 books a year and that it's a normal thing in russia. i remember i was in complete awe. 52 books is like one book a week. how was that even possible? well, now i know. in the end it's a matter of habit i think. once it's become part of your daily habit instead of a once in a while thing to do, it's easier to keep picking up new books to read. and it's also because it's one of the few activities that doesn't involve a screen. after working with computer all day, looking at your phone constantly, watching movies or series on a screen, a no-screen entertainment is a good thing.

i can't really pinpoint favorite books from last year but one thing i kinda had an "epiphany" about is: female writers. i never intentionally read exclusively from certain category of writers before. and i still don't. what happened i guess was that i consecutively read books written by women without even realizing it. and somehow it struck me how emotionally and intellectually relatable they all are in different ways but there are sensitivity you get specifically because they were written in female perspective. i remember after finishing the first story from "The Woman Destroyed" by Simone de Beauvoir at 2 or 3AM in the morning, i felt this huge sense of urgency to tell my female friends about it and i want them all to read the story about how a woman navigate her life at later ages because we soon will face the same issue. and how the particular story ends beautifully is what somehow i want us all to have. it was not the first time, of course, i resonated with books written specifically because the writer is female. but i guess because of the intensity of reading several of them in a row, it made me realized how powerful they actually are.

another thing i noted was how important writing is after i read books by Annie Ernaux, one of the female writers i read. there were a lot of insightful articles written about her works, especially after her nobel win (2022 nobel prize in literature), but it really isn't that hard to get the charm of her works once we started reading them. her books are very short, very personal, honest while also not without the doubts of brittle memories. she wrote about her personal truth as it was regardless any moral judgement that may come. she made me feel like every single person have stories particular to ourselves to tell. maybe not everyone have the eloquence to write as beautifully but regardless, everyone should write their own stories and their own personal truth. if not for the public, at least for ourselves.

2021

i wonder if 2021 even happened. it passed in a flash while i just stayed stationery. life was dull and uneventful. i don't know how people could keep creating in such uninspiring time, i could barely pick up a pen and cook myself dinner. this is the first time since is started this blog around 14 years ago that i hadn't written anything here. i guess it was in order to prevent myself to completely turn into a potato who consumed to much tv series junks, i read and i read a lot. at least reading is an act of consuming while also at the same time educating ourselves in a way.

i finished a total of about 44ish books and read some parts of another 12ish, i think. it's the most i have ever read in a year, in my entire life. on usual year reading 10ish was considered good enough for me. i guess part of it is because i discovered the joy of using an e-reader. i'm a random reader, i rarely can hold just one book at a time and finish it. i read things based on my mood and it changes all the time. so e-reader accomodate that style of reading for me cause i always carry all my books with me.

i was also reading a lot of new genre that i've never read before like sci-fi, thriller, young adult fantasy, politics. i read a lot of different things this year and i surprised myself when i actually enjoyed most of them.
some of my highlight are:
* The Stranger - Albert Camus. i don't know how nobody has ever recommended Camus to me before. i can relate to this book in a lot of level. and the moment where Mersault grabbed the collar of the priest and yelled at him telling him to shut the fuck up is probably my favorite moment i've read in a book.
* Talking to My Daughter About the Economy - Yanis Varoufakis. i wish this kind of book exists when i was younger instead of rich dad poor dad, which is still popular to this day although the author has clearly declared bankruptcy.
* Animal Farm - George Orwell. i think Animal Farm is somehow overshadowed by 1984. a lot of people i think see this book primarily about stalinism or authoritarianism. but when i read it i can see how much it is relevant to our world this day. how we mostly are all the sheeps which are have no idea about our past histories and have been going along with the status quo for too long.
* The Jakarta Method - Vincent Bevins. this book opened up a lot of things i have never realized before about how the world works. i can only say that everyone should probably read this and then went on your own further research.
* How Do You Live? - Genzaburo Yoshino. it's a very simple book about humanity. it actually hit me the most when i got to the translator note about the author. it made me respect him and the book even more. i just don't know why every book about the equality of being human needs to be labelled as "marxist". even Sally Rooney's book is described as a story about two "marxist" girls. neither books mention marx even once. they of course carries socialist ideology but i've never heard of other normal books described as "capitalistic".

* other than those, i read a lot of books about Russia and the Soviet Union to the point that i learned how to read cyrillic alphabets. i read a lot of life in communist (totalitarian, to be exact) countries, not about communism itself, and it actually fascinates me but i'll write a lot more about this later. also i read a lot of psychedelics and the ongoing research about it which has been fascinated me for quite a while now. 

let's see if i'd be able to keep up the next year.