2024 In Books

~ Veselin ~ 4 Comments

2024 was the first year in which I managed to go over 100 books. This was a major achievement for me and a result of several circumstances:

  • I reengaged with the gamebook community, which is full of voracious readers (and writers)
  • I discovered the Thraxas and Stephanie Plum series that are super interesting and each book is short, single-thread, bubblegum-ish
  • A few of my friends were inspired to read a lot this year so I was not alone on this journey
  • I ignored several of the latest books by Brandon Sanderson, Joe Abercrombie, Zachary Pike, J.K. Rowling, Liu Cixin just because they were too long. Maybe I go back to these works in 2025. Or 2035. Not soon. Ignoring enormous books by otherwise great authors seems to be a good strategy. TL;DR.

Here are the best finds from reading 111 books and 36217 pages:

Best Series

  • Thraxas by Martin Scott – a Pratchett-style comic fantasy series, which I completed entirely in 2024. There are some hints of exploitation in the first 2-3 books.

Top 5 books

  1. We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor – Bob starts exploring the galaxy and the opportunities are endless
  2. Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel
  3. Kings of the Wyld by Nicholas Eames
  4. Conquer Yourself by Silvia Azdreeva
  5. All Systems Red by Martha Wells

Best Gamebook

Trends

  • Kobolds are everywhere
  • AI is human and should be treated as a life form (yet to find a book say otherwise)
  • Pretty covers sell well

2025

I’m not sure if I’ll try to keep the pace for 2025 yet. I’ll set an official goal to read 52 books, or 1/week for the year.

December in Books

~ Veselin ~ 5 Comments

I read 7 books this month, mostly from the Black Friday harvest 🙂

I feel like I had some excellent hits with 5 great books and only one truly bad, which I read anyway because it was Lee Child.

Best books

  1. We Are Legion by Dennis E. Taylor – an easy to read Martian style book. Loved it and it will be in the top 5 for the year.
  2. Infinity Gate by M. R. Carey – a Star Trek-like story with a million different species but no Kobolds. One of the main characters is a teenage rabbit with exceptionally long ears.
  3. Annie Bot by Sierra Greer – imagines what’s next with intelligent robots.

Worst books:

  1. In Too Deep by Lee Child – it’s time for Jack Reacher to retire. He’s turning into Steven Seagal.

Infinity Gate by M. Carey

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment

Infinity Gate by M. Carey would be the last book I read in 2024.

There’s a way to travel between alternative versions of Earth. Infinitely many alternative Earths. The stars are too far but the other Earths are near. You run out of resources? Next Earth has them and you may not be the only one reaching that conclusion.

Something in the storytelling makes this book exceptional. It sucks you in that world of endless variations. Like a horizontal Star Trek.

I was close to tossing it away in the beginning because it didn’t start well. Happy that I gave it a chance.

5/5.

My own sports team

~ Veselin ~ Leave a comment
Daily writing prompt
If you started a sports team, what would the colors and mascot be?
View all responses

Given my current limited interest in sports, I would do a hiking club. White and green.

My grandmother was a founding member of the tourist club Sarnena Gora, Stara Zagora (in the mid-50s) and remained a member until she passed. I associate these colors with her former club. I was also a member but lost my membership card several decades ago. Of course, there’s no point in establishing a club like that – tourist clubs already exist and carry over 100 years of tradition.

A year in steps

~ Veselin ~ 17 Comments

I started building a walking habit about 2 years ago. I had this crazy annual goal to average over 10K steps per day for the whole of 2024. Happy to share that I could make it with room to spare.

Life is much easier if you don’t need to count your steps every day. It takes time and is often unpleasant. I tried all sorts of tricks, from waking early to spinning the treadmill in the evening. It was all inconvenient. Was it worth it – probably yes. Walking is like mild gym plus mindfulness combined. It unlocked hiking not just for me but also for my family. Helped me with the blog as well – lots of cool things and cats are just hanging out, waiting to be spotted.

My fitness goal for 2025 will be more complex.

  • I’ll try to climb Vihren (2 failed attempts in 2024)
  • I’ll try to keep an average of 10k/day for 2025 as well but increase the difficulty by doing more hiking and less city
  • I’ll try to add 1h/week of gym time, starting with body weight exercises like push-ups and plank. The 1h comes from the 7-minute-workout, 7×7 is 49, or roughly 1h. The idea is to build a habit this year rather than achieve any weight loss or body composition change.

Wish me luck.