2021 was the year in which I became a reader. I read more books last year than I probably had in the last ten years combined.
Having said that, there are still parts of my reading workflow that I would like to change. Throughout the year, there were times when I had more than one book on the go, but I would say that it was more common that I was reading one book at a time.
There is nothing wrong with this, but I know that I am the sort of person who spends a lot of time researching things of little significance. Because of this, there were several times when I had finished reading a book and would then spend a day or two deciding what to read next.
I want to remedy this by choosing all the books that I want to read for the next three months ahead of time and getting them ready so that I can reduce the amount of time where I have no book on the go.
There are two books that I started reading before the end of last year that I haven’t finished yet. I won’t be including these in the list.
The list
- Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan
- A Crown of Swords by Robert Jordan
- Jade City by Fonda Lee
- Jade War by Fonda Lee
- Jade Legacy by Fonda Lee
- Getting Things Done - the art of stress-free productivity by David Allen
- River Town by Peter Hessler
- 活着 by 余华
I really enjoyed the first three books in the Wheel of Time series, but the last two haven’t been home runs with me, so if I don’t enjoy these two, I doubt that I will continue with the rest of the series. It’s pretty weird to feel that I’m already too far in to give up, but I’m only one third of the way in. I guess that was to be expected with a series of this size.
The Greenbone Saga by Fonda Lee is a series that I keep on hearing amazing things about. I’m excited to start reading it and I expect it to be right up my alley.
I recently purchased a paper copy of Getting Things Done, which is unusual for me, as I do most of my reading digitally. This is a book that I plan on taking lots of notes from and hopefully I can learn some new things to add to my org-mode workflow.
My last two books are both China related. A friend of mine is a big Peter Hessler fan and has recommended his books to me on numerous occasions. 活着 is a modern(ish) classic of Chinese literature, some readers might know it better as To Live, which was later adapted to film by Zhang Yimou. It’s a book that I have started reading on more than one occasion, but I was never able to string together consistent reading sessions and never got past the twenty percent mark.
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