2025 Reading Challenge discussion

I have set myself the challenge of reading 52 books in 2015 and so far I'm on track. Looking back, it would have been a good idea to join in January rather than half way through the year!

So far this year I've read:

1. The Man Who Knew Too Much - G.K. Chesterton
2. On Books and the Housing of Them - William E. Gladstone
3. The Thirty-Nine Steps - John Buchan
4. No Greater Ally: The Untold Story of Poland's Forces in World War II - Kenneth K. Koskodan
5. A Narrative Of The Mutiny, On Board His Majesty's Ship Bounty; And The Subsequent Voyage Of Part Of The Crew, In The Ship's Boat - William Bligh
6. The Thieves' Opera: The Remarkable Lives And Deaths Of Jonathan Wild, Thief Taker And Jack Sheppard, House Breaker - Lucy Moore
7. Little Britain - Washington Irving
8. The Invisible Man - H.G. Wells
9. The Underground City - Jules Verne
10. The Innocents Abroad - Mark Twain
11. Autobiography of Ma Ka Tai Me She Kia Kiak or Black Hawk - Black Hawk
12. The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
13. Hero Tales from American History - Henry Cabot Lodge
14. Russian Criminal Tattoo Encyclopaedia Volume I - Danzig Baldaev
15. Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography - Theodore Roosevelt
16. Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts - Frank R. Stockton
17. Wheels of Terror - Sven Hassel
18. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
19. The Fifteen Decisive Battles of the World: From Marathon to Waterloo - Edward Shepherd Creasy
20. The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of York, Mariner (1801) Kindle Edition - Daniel Defoe
21. My Man Jeeves: Revised Edition of Original Version - P.G. Wodehouse
22. Greenmantle - John Buchan
23. Gulliver's Travels Into Several Remote Regions of the World - Jonathan Swift
24. The Napoleon of Crime: The Life and Times of Adam Worth, Master Thief - Ben Macintyre
25. Essential Manners for Men: What to Do, When to Do It, and Why - Peter Post
26. Empire: How Britain Made The Modern World - Niall Ferguson
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.

Finished number 25 last night - Essential Manners for Men: What to Do, When to Do It, and Why



It wasn't what I was expecting and overall this book wasn't particularly impressive. I am interested to read more on the same subject but will research my material more carefully in future...

Number 26 - Empire: How Britain Made the Modern Word, Niall Ferguson



Covering the the entire lifespan of the British Empire, this was a surprisingly balanced view which doesn't shrink from discussing the blemishes on the British record. I will definitely read more of Ferguson's work and find out more about the history of the Empire in general.

Moved straight on to Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut which I've been meaning to read for a while.

Nice - looks like I really committed to this idea... for three days! Fortunately, I didn't stop reading but only failed at keeping my list updated.

If Slaughterhouse-Five was number 27, I then moved onto Auschwitz: A Doctor's Eyewitness Account by Miklos Nyiszli (28). Obviously it was never going to be an enjoyable read but it is an important to read and remember the experiences of these people.

After that, I was on holiday so went for a bit of light reading with The Girl Who Played with Fire (29) and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest (30)by Steig Larsson. I really enjoyed his first book and the second was pretty decent, but by the time I had finished the third I was ready for them to be over. To learn that this was the start of a planned series of ten (I think) books... that would have been far too many!

31. Chris Kyle - American Gun: A History of the U.S. in Ten Firearms - Interesting perspective from someone who obviously knows his guns but I found his style a bit overly familiar and lacking detail.

32. Joseph Furmann - Rasputin: The Untold Story - This one felt like heavy going after a short while and like, I imagine, most biographies of Rasputin, it is based a great deal on rumour and suspicion.

Much better was Tigress of Forli: The Life of Caterina Sforza by Elizabeth Lev (33) which paints an excellent picture of Caterina Sforza throughout the trials and tribulations of her life. This was one impressive woman!

Number 34 was Mr. Standfast. After enjoying the first two in the Hannay series by John Buchan, I was eager to keep going and was not disapointed.

I realised fairly suddenly while browsing my bookshelves that although I am very familiar with the story and have seen the film plenty of times, I hadn't actually read The Great Escape so decided to make that number 35 on my list.

36. Medici Money: Banking, metaphysics and art in fifteenth-century Florence - I was inspired to learn more about the period after reading about Caterina Sforza and for sometime have been curious to learn about some of the famous families of the Italian renaisance. This was a good book but ultimately not what I was looking for as it was a biography of the Medici bank as much as the family. Very accessible though consider it is about 'banking, metaphysics and art'! (It was also the first one I got out after replacing my library card after 2 years in the wilderness.)

37. Beyond The Cascade: Step By Step Guides To 88 Classic 3 Ball Juggling Tricks - I wanted to learn a few new juggling tricks and this book is excellent for that purpose. Brilliant diagrams and descriptions. Would be handy too if you were just starting out.

A bit more Buchan next with The Three Hostages (38) and then The Island of Sheep (39). I thoroughly enjoyed this series and actually there is a good amount to learn from this fiction. I'm looking forward to reading more from him.

I got another one from the library for number 40: Paris at the End of the World: How the City of Lights Soared in Its Darkest Hour, 1914-1918 by John Baxter. At times this book was quite confused but there were useful sections scattered around. I had expected to read about Paris but alot of the time was reading more about his grandfather's experiences (not much of it in France...) or the homosexual conquests of a fashion obsessed amateur poet, battlefield tourist and generally annoying character.

41. Through Siberia and Manchuria By Rail - Oliver George Ready - One day I would love to travel the length of the Trans-Siberian Railway and this is a short account of the author's experience on that journey. From my perspective, it is improved by the fact that he made his trip on the eve of the First World War (the reason for publication of what would otherwise been simply for family and friends).

I spent a rainy sunday last weekend revisiting an old interest in origami and practiced a good number of the ideas in two books: Classic Origami (42) and Origami: The Complete Practical Guide to the Ancient Art of Paperfolding (43). As the title indicates, the first book focuses on classic models and is fairly limited whereas the second really does seem to cover just about everything you might want to make from paper...

I also FINALY finished The Two Towers (44). In a moment of foolish kindness I offered to read my wife to sleep with a book of her choosing. She chose The Lord of the Rings. I am not a fantasy reader and although I find his imagination extremely impressive, I don't rate Tolkien's writing at all. Consequently it has taken me the best part of a year to plough through this one which I also think is the most tedious of the three books. At least they put me to sleep quickly...

Number 45. The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness

The Gentlemen's Book of Etiquette was a fun read at times, the dinner table monologue particularly made me chuckle, but was overall a little dull due to its lack of relevance. While there are lessons to be taken from, for example, the chapter on dress, there is plenty of information that no longer has any useful purpose.