I said that I wanted to read eight books in the first three months of 2022, and I did manage to finish eight. However three of them were leftovers from last year.
I have been quite busy recently and haven’t done as much reading as I would have liked. Also, I noticed that I don’t really have the time for listening to audiobooks for long stretches during the day. I was mostly listening to them in bed, and it got to the point where I thought that I might as well be reading on my Kindle.
Spring summary
The Greenbone Saga by Fonda Lee is already up there with my all time favourite series. It had so many things that appealed to me. I really enjoyed all the scheming and clan politics and I could really get into the minds of the characters.
I timed myself reading 活着, and I read it in just under 8 hours. At ~120,000 characters, that gives me a respectable Chinese reading speed of ~250cpm. This book is considered by Chinese learners to be a very easy book. In fact I recently read that the author did this deliberately as the main character who narrates the book has never received formal education.
I knew that I would enjoy reading River Town by Peter H
Summer 2022 TBR list
- Lord of Chaos by Robert Jordan
- Getting Things Done - the art of stress-free productivity by David Allen
- The Blade Itself by Joe Abercrombie
- Before They Are Hanged by Joe Abercrombie
- Last Argument of Kings by Joe Abercrombie
- 1984 by George Orwell
- 撒哈拉的故事 by 三毛
- 许三观卖血记 by 余华
There are two books that have jumped from my last TBR to this one. I think I am going to slow down with the Wheel of Time books. During the last three months, there have been times when I’ve wanted to revisit this world, but it doesn’t have the same pulling power that it did in the past.
The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie is one that seems to be a bit like marmite. Either it’s not for you, or it’s one of your favourites of all time. I have seen reviews by people who recommended other books that I like and I think it could be right up my street.
1984 has been on my Kindle pretty much ever since I got it. I read Animal Farm again last year after reading it in school and it was like seeing it from a different lens. This is one of those books where I’d awkwardly nod and pretend to understand what was going on, but it’s become such a big part of our culture that I really should give it a go.
The Chinese book I read last month was not the first I have read. I think I read four last year, but each one was quite an arduous read. After finishing 活着, I was impressed with how natural it felt. I want to read more Chinese books now that I seem to have had a breakthrough. One of these is by the same author as my previous book, while the other is another book that has been recommended by Chinese learners.
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