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A review by nhborg
2024 on Goodreads by Various
3.0
Review of 2024 and reading intentions for 2025
Happy new year! To be honest, 2024 wasn’t a great reading year for me. Although I found a good handful of new favorites, a large chunk of it makes me go «meh» looking back. Rating-wise I had approximately 47% three-star ratings or «weak» four-star ratings - way too much mediocrity!! I want to treat myself to better than this next year!
Therefore, my goal is to intentionally avoid books that look «alright» and reach for books that look «great». It sounds simple enough, but apparently I haven’t been good at it previously. First step: Stop listening to audiobooks just because and rather have it as an extra reading dimension. I rarely listen to books I think I’ll love because I save those for the physical experience, and I notice that I generally absorb much less when listening on-the-go. Physical copies/ebooks allow me to engage more actively and increase my enjoyment and appreciation. Second step: Focus on my physical TBR, tied to the fact that I trust my own reading taste enough to be confident that I have a lot of goodies waiting for me on my shelves. However, some of these goodies require some extra effort, especially if I am to follow my guts and dabble in some philosophy. Therefore I will be lowering my reading goal to 35 (ca. half of what I read in 2024) and focus on making the most out of each book rather than rushing through. Additionally, I’ll have a goal of 80% of them being from my physical TBR. I know I will occasionally pick up books I’m skeptical about, e.g. to follow my book club or for other reasons, but I’ll try to avoid doing it on autopilot.
I have gathered a list of books below that I’m eager to check out. However, I’ll consider my inclination toward mood reading in not setting a strict reading plan, so I’ll be very happy if I manage to read half of them by the end of 2025 (and super happy if I manage 2/3).
Hopeful TBR:
- «Icefields» by Thomas Wharton
- «The denial of death» by Ernest Becker
- «The god of the woods» by Liz Moore
- «Stories of your life and others» by Ted Chiang
- «Nausea» by Jean-Paul Sartre
- «Two towers» by J. R. R. Tolkien
- «Return of the king» by J. R. R. Tolkien
- «Rhythm of war» by Brandon Sanderson
- «Rebecca» by Daphne du Maurier
- «Pride and prejudice» by Jane Austen OR «Jane Eyre» by Charlotte Brontë
- «Drive your plow over the bones of the dead» by Olga Tokarczuk
- «The black tulip» by Alexandre Dumas
- «Monstrilio» by Gerardo Sámano Górdova
- «The book of disquiet» by Fernando Pessoa
- «Hamlet» by William Shakespeare
- «If on a winter’s night a traveller» by Italian Calvino
- «Nudibranch behavior» by David Behrens
- «A wild sheep chase» OR «The Elephant Vanishes» by Haruki Murakami
- «Purgatorio» by Dante Alighieri
- «Discourses and selected writings» by Epictetus OR «Letters from a stoic» by Seneca
- One of the books that are collecting dust on my «currently reading» page
Happy new year! To be honest, 2024 wasn’t a great reading year for me. Although I found a good handful of new favorites, a large chunk of it makes me go «meh» looking back. Rating-wise I had approximately 47% three-star ratings or «weak» four-star ratings - way too much mediocrity!! I want to treat myself to better than this next year!
Therefore, my goal is to intentionally avoid books that look «alright» and reach for books that look «great». It sounds simple enough, but apparently I haven’t been good at it previously. First step: Stop listening to audiobooks just because and rather have it as an extra reading dimension. I rarely listen to books I think I’ll love because I save those for the physical experience, and I notice that I generally absorb much less when listening on-the-go. Physical copies/ebooks allow me to engage more actively and increase my enjoyment and appreciation. Second step: Focus on my physical TBR, tied to the fact that I trust my own reading taste enough to be confident that I have a lot of goodies waiting for me on my shelves. However, some of these goodies require some extra effort, especially if I am to follow my guts and dabble in some philosophy. Therefore I will be lowering my reading goal to 35 (ca. half of what I read in 2024) and focus on making the most out of each book rather than rushing through. Additionally, I’ll have a goal of 80% of them being from my physical TBR. I know I will occasionally pick up books I’m skeptical about, e.g. to follow my book club or for other reasons, but I’ll try to avoid doing it on autopilot.
I have gathered a list of books below that I’m eager to check out. However, I’ll consider my inclination toward mood reading in not setting a strict reading plan, so I’ll be very happy if I manage to read half of them by the end of 2025 (and super happy if I manage 2/3).
Hopeful TBR:
- «Icefields» by Thomas Wharton
- «The denial of death» by Ernest Becker
- «The god of the woods» by Liz Moore
- «Stories of your life and others» by Ted Chiang
- «Nausea» by Jean-Paul Sartre
- «Two towers» by J. R. R. Tolkien
- «Return of the king» by J. R. R. Tolkien
- «Rhythm of war» by Brandon Sanderson
- «Rebecca» by Daphne du Maurier
- «Pride and prejudice» by Jane Austen OR «Jane Eyre» by Charlotte Brontë
- «Drive your plow over the bones of the dead» by Olga Tokarczuk
- «The black tulip» by Alexandre Dumas
- «Monstrilio» by Gerardo Sámano Górdova
- «The book of disquiet» by Fernando Pessoa
- «Hamlet» by William Shakespeare
- «If on a winter’s night a traveller» by Italian Calvino
- «Nudibranch behavior» by David Behrens
- «A wild sheep chase» OR «The Elephant Vanishes» by Haruki Murakami
- «Purgatorio» by Dante Alighieri
- «Discourses and selected writings» by Epictetus OR «Letters from a stoic» by Seneca
- One of the books that are collecting dust on my «currently reading» page