Notes on a Nervous Planet by Matt Haig: a great audio book! A call to a quieter lifestyle and how to avoid the things that makes us nervous (without even realizing it). More thoughts here.
Tigana by Guy Gavriel Kay: beautiful writing, epic world building. Maybe a little bit too slow for my taste. More thoughts here.
Goodbye, Things: On Minimalist Living by Fumio Sasaki: A Japanese view on minimalism. Inspiring reasons to adopt a minimalist lifestyle, even if you don't want to be as extreme as the author.
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier: This book gave me a new perspective on gaming and how passionate people dedicate endless hours on creating a game. Fascinating, specially if you play video games.
1) Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3) by Martha Wells
* Another adventure with the anti-social murder bot. It is full of action inside enclosed spaces and lots of hearing other people's feeds. An enjoyable read, as always.
2) The Armored Saint (The Sacred Throne, #1) by Myke Cole
* This was a dark-grim book! Darker than I expected.
The horror is raw and gory. It's a harsh world with a religious fanatic Order, tyranny and dominated people. I was expecting lighter moments throughout the story but I would definitely consider it dark fantasy. Not really my cup of tea.
3) Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle by Emily Nagoski, Amelia Nagoski
* I loved the idea of “ending the stress cycle” and learning the differences between the stressors and the stress itself. Exercise (aka moving our bodies) is one of the best ways to discharge and close the stress cycle. With this book I realized how and why exercise is essential to my well-being. I always knew but I've never linked it directly to the stress cycle.
4) Saga, Vol. 1 & Vol. 2 by Brian K. Vaughan (Writer), Fiona Staples (Artist)
* There's no way you can't love the characters. It's just mindbogglingly full of creativity, emotion and authenticity. I read volumes 1 & 2 for a Bookclub meeting, which was awesome! I will continue reading the series for sure.
6) OneNote: OneNote User Guide to Getting Things Done: Setup OneNote for GTD in 5 Easy Steps by Jack Echo
* This one helped me review some of he keys points on how to use Onenote. I've been using Evernote for more than 10 years now and I decided to move to Onenote. I like the flexibility, the “white canvas” space that Onenote offers. I learned some useful keyboard shortcuts and hidden option with this book.
Another adventure with the anti-social murder bot. It is full of action inside enclosed spaces and lots of hearing other people's feeds. An enjoyable read, as always.
I heard about this book on Sam Harris' “Making Sense” podcast. The topic interested me so I picked this one up. I did not love it. It was okay to a certain point but then I felt that the chapters were getting a little bit repetitive.
This one was fun and comforting. Also it was my first time listening to a fiction book. It has the old Dungeons & Dragons feeling: cool characters, adventures and lots of talk about swords. It is not a dark fantasy and at some points the story is predictable because it contains some classic fantasy tropes: good vs evil, chaotic-neutral thieves, elves and dwarves, a really old and powerful mage, a prophecy. But that doesn't spoil it. A good book to read under a blanket.
I did not like this book. Maybe it just wasn't for me. When you get into the details of being a werewolf, the pain, the tearing of clothing and the wild hunger, it just puts me off. Maybe I don't like shapeshifters at all.
This book is way more action packed than the first one. It feels more sci-fy-ish with a great deal of ordinary human life details. And that makes the story and the characters feel alive. Diversity, racism and human rights discussions are intertwined with the story. There is even a Brazilian astronaut that curses in Portuguese. Anyway, highly recommended as an entertaining and exciting soft sci-fi read!
A short story about older Elma and Nathaniel living in Mars. It happens 30 years after Elma joined the expedition to Mars. It's sad and hopeful at the same time. Will Elma go on another space travel exploration or will she stay and watch her husband die? I read it in one sitting.
An evolutionary perspective with science mixing up with anthropology, politics, culture, religion, biology, economics, history.
It's a fascinating read and it made me think about many things and change my world view. It gives us a higher perspective on how we got here and leaves an open question as to why we are here.
A fun read, as always. But something about werewolves started to bother me. And all the fictional “aether” and “soul” content theories that governs this world. It's extremely well built but my suspension of disbelief was not so strong while I was reading this book. Overall it's a great steampunk fantasy, with lots of Victorian humor!
Reading plans for April:
Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff
Theft of Swords by Michael J. Sullivan
Rogue Protocol (The Murderbot Diaries, #3) by Martha Wells
Exit Strategy (The Murderbot Diaries, #4) by Martha Wells
Do you remember the last time you stopped to look into nothingness? And just let your mind wander? Like real mental downtime? Why do we behave as addicts filling every idle moment of our day with newsfeed/social media checking? This book gives excellent food for thought specially about mobile phone use. It's not radical, the author is by no means a ludite. It just encourages moderation.
A very good read in times of overwhelming social media feeds. The idea is to unplug and do more creative fun things. Some ideas were not new to me but it brings lots of examples of how to address bad habits related to the digital world. It's definitely eye opening and give us a method on how to become digital minimalists. Less is more.
I challenged myself to read 52 books this year.
And I have a plan... 🧐
...Read more “Hell, Yeah!” books.
The past few years I was experimenting a lot and reading books I would not really pick up at first glance. And looking back I saw that my average rating for all the books I read was 3.9. I think that's low. That means I didn't read enough books that I thought were really exciting. I read lots of “meh” books.
You can see a list of all my read books here.
This year I want to read books that have been on my “to be read list” for some time because they are sequels to stories I already love.
Also, I was inspired by the Reading Glasses challenge (great podcast about Book Culture, BTW) and borrowed some of their ideas to my Reader Goals:
Read a graphic novel (or two...)
Read more of authors I already know and love
Read a book by a trans author
Listen to 1 audiobook per month (non-fiction)
Listen to 1 fiction audiobook [never tried it before!]
Read sequels of the Series I already love:
The Expanse by James S. A. Corey (#4 to #7)
Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (#3)
Old Man's War by John Scalzi (#2 to #6)
Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger (#2 to #5)
The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski
Start Reading The Dresden Files Series by Jim Butcher [never read it before! Wanna try!]
Read books I've already have purchased/pre-ordered:
The Armored Saint by Myke Cole
Paladin of Souls (World of the Five Gods #2) by Lois McMaster Bujold
Changeless (Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger
Enough by Patrick Rhone (Kindle Unlimited)
Drive by Daniel H. Pink
Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport [pre-ordered]
Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff [pre-ordered]
Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier
