I do not read enough to make too many contributions here, but I might start next year. That said, I did finish a book today:

Age of Conquests: The Greek World from Alexander to Hadrian (336 BC – AD 138) by Dr. Angelos Chaniotis. I bought this book in January but did not finish it until today. Read it a lot in June, put it down, picked it back up in November, read the last two chapters today. I really enjoyed this book from start to finish. There are slow points as it goes from narrative history to topical discussions of the (duh) Hellenistic period but for the most part the author keeps everything interesting. My favorite parts include discussions on religion and the brief history on the Alexander conquests and the successor states.

Being somewhat familiar with the early Roman Empire, the section that deals with that is not as detailed as it could be but does illuminate on certain on aspects as they related to Greeks during the Roman expansion and consolidation of the eastern Mediterranean. I was not as familiar with the various cities offering adulations to the various emperors (either out of genuine gratitude and awe or simple politics). Also, while I remember being fairly familiar with Alexander's conquests I was unaware of the similarities to Dionysus. Also, all of the dynastic complexities, while not explained in too much detail somewhat to my relief, are discussed for the Seleucids and the Ptolemy (author used different transliterations, it's hard getting re-used to the normal ones).

I really enjoy ancient Roman and Greek history and this area was a particularly glaring blind spot for me with regards to the Hellenistic world and it was really nice to finally get this one done.

Nightmares and Geezenstacks (1961) by Fredric Brown: 4.5/5

1961 was a good year for Brown, with his novel The Mind Thing and this collection of 47 stories.
Unfortunately is was also his last good year, and he would only publish a handful more short stories and two crime novels before bad health ended his writing career.

The first half of this collection is a tour-de-force of clever short-shorts, of which Brown was an expert. 16 of them were first published in this collection; I suspect some of them were too "problematic" for the magazines at the time, dealing with or making fun of subjects like incest, lesbianism and Jesus/virgin birth. Apart from a couple of Feghoots, I liked them all. When I first read this collection three decades ago Vengeance Fleet totally blew me away like few other SF has done, and it's still a fun read.
If brevity is the soul of wit, Fredric Brown was one of the wittiest writers.

The second part is a collection of regular size short stories, mostly from among his best stories of this length, and three of them in collaboration with Mack Reynolds (they both lived in Taos for a while). The very dark Dark Interlude was my favourite of these stories.

Quite a varied collection, from the silly and funny to the serious and dark, and from crime to SF.

Wretch of Muirwood (Muirwood Trilogy #2) by Jeff Wheeler. I keep reading his books thinking he can't top the previous but wow.
This was a 9.8/10 (Everything I've read of his was 7+/10)
Fantasy world. Highly recommend.

It seems I had reached a word limit (not line) in my first post in this thread, as I could not add my latest reads.

To fix that I relocated the second portion of that post to my next (second) post in this thread.

My Reading List For 2021

My Projected List For The Year

I've not come across this issue before, though I have read about it.

P.S. Hopefully it hasn't bitten me before, and I've not noticed. Slack that you don't get an error message.

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At this point in the year, as it is unlikely to change now, what have I achieved?

ACHIEVED
Continue on with novels by ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH.
Keep reading J. ROBERT KENNEDY regularly.
Perhaps read some things recommended to me.

PARTIALLY ACHIEVED
Complete the Foundation series by ISAAC ASIMOV and others.
Read more RAFAEL SABATINI ... perhaps complete his works.
Complete the Shannara series by TERRY BROOKS ... two sub series to go I think.
Finish reading the remaining works of TERRY PRATCHETT ... last Disc World novel and Juvenile works and the co-authored 'Long Earth' series, etc.
Get up to speed with VAL McDERMID
And of course continue to eat away at my huge backlog.

NOT ACHIEVED
Get up to speed with CRAIG A. FALCONER's Not Alone (Contact) series.
Read some more of other writers who do Historical Swashbuckling Romance - JEFFREY FARNOL, GEORGETTE HEYER, STANLEY J. WEYMAN, etc.
Get back into reading DAVE DUNCAN, DENNIS L. McKIERNAN, PIERS ANTHONY, RAYMOND E. FEIST, ROBIN HOBB, TERRY GOODKIND, WILBUR SMITH.
Read the other ROBERT JORDAN novels and series ... some written under different names ... have them all I think.
Continue on with the extra DUNE novels and stories by BRIAN HERBERT and KEVIN J. ANDERSON.
Finish a few outstanding PERN stories by TODD McCAFFREY and GINNY McCAFFREY.
I have some non-fiction (biographies) to read ... mostly music (PINK FLOYD, WISHBONE ASH, BILLY CONNOLLY, etc).

WHAT HASN'T HAPPENED YET
And who knows, maybe we will see the next novel in the Song Of Ice And Fire series by GEORGE R.R. MARTIN ... one can always hope (dream).

I must try to do better next year. LOL

What happened I guess, is that I got hooked on DAVID BALDACCI novels and series, so got side tracked ... up to 22 of his novels now, all read this year.

Hans Czynner - Ueber die Fechtkust und den Ringkampf ("On Fencing and Wrestling"), 1538

Haven't read any novels lately but a whole lot of utilitarian books, mostly 15/16th century fencing manuscripts written by hand in Middle High German and Early New High German. It's incredibly satisfying to study scans of 500 year old books, not only academically but to bring them back to life through physical practice. Plenty of challenge for brain and brawn. The sense of achievement is comparable to unlocking skills and achievements in games, just a lot deeper.

It's character count. Actually thought they had lowered it to 5k at some point, but at least it still seems to be 10k, including tags and line breaks counting as two I think.

No worries, thanks for the specifics, which if I had pondered longer would have been logical ... I blame sale tiredness. Reducing number of lines, seemed to make no difference ... but then if they are seen as two characters for each (carriage return + line feed), then I guess I did not remove enough to make a difference.

It'd have been a very small difference anyway. Long links have a big impact, making for large differences between the characters entered and those displayed.

Asta a spus Seneca. Tu ce spui? (Seneca Said This. What Do You Say?)

Counting this as an actual book read feels even more like cheating than the one received when I volunteered in the same place last year, since it's just a collection of quotes with an overly inflated page count, each page containing one to three quotes, at most four in a few very rare cases, even when plenty of those quotes have no more than a few lines, so there are even pages only containing a couple of printed lines.
As for the quotes themselves, the first chapter may do so slightly less, but the next few clearly focus on those main tenets of Stoicism that I was saying a year ago I find infuriating, also being so similar to the crap pushed by the modern professional mental health field, not stopping at reining in excesses but demanding that all must maintain that inner happiness and grin and bear whatever happens, blaming victims and the less fortunate who do not do so and discouraging and even condemning demands for improvement... Which is also hypocritical from someone pushing for the widespread adoption of a certain style of thinking and living. And the chapter about teaching is another I made a particular note of in a negative way, going well past the idea that unnecessary knowledge is forced onto pupils and heavily criticizing seeking knowledge and studying in itself, past what this school of thought deems necessary.
But other chapters are more of a mixed bag, a few even focusing in large part on concepts I can get behind, though there are major contradictions between those about friendship and companionship and those about self-sufficiency. And the title and what's printed at the back are invitations to make up your own mind and argue for your own views, so I'll leave it at that. As I also said a year ago, proper comments about philosophy require far more time and attention than I'm willing to offer this at the moment... Though I will add that reading things from over 2000 years ago certainly shows how little people and society ever really change.

Rating: 2/5

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I have never read this book before. I found it interesting philosophically.
The monster rejected by Frankenstein and society, seeks to terrorize and destroy his creator. I found the monster quite intelligent, receiving his education while hidden closely to a cabin for a year or 2. I thought it notable that the monster recoils from his reflection in the lake suggesting he knew human beauty and ugliness.
Too bad the monster with his education never thought to cloak and mask himself like a monk, claiming injury or burns. Frankenstein might have been better off doing smaller experiments instead of doing one grand experiment, or making his monster handsome. The handsome monster probably still be a demon lost in paradise.

Unde nu-i cap, vai de popoare (Where There’s No Head, Woe to the Peoples)

This is a collection of texts from the Starea Natiei (State of the Nation) show, and I rather added it to get free shipping for the other books ordered, though supporting a rather good show and maybe the only remaining Leftist TV show host around here was a nice bonus. The texts are from five years ago, but while the details refer to that period, the general ideas are just as true now, and in some cases unfortunately even more so. Yes, the texts are short and therefore don't go in depth or offer detailed arguments, but they tackle important topics, are written well and make points I can get behind. And since I prefer to read, not caring to watch or listen to people speaking, and definitely don't want to waste time with skits, this also allowed me to see that the quality I had seen when I somehow happened to catch a piece of the show is the rule for them. That doesn't change the fact that I disagree on some topics, mainly their support for the "right" to not vote and yet still complain afterwards, or for the most part their opposition to deficit limits or military spending and exercises, but those, while important, are just a few issues among many and, if anything, the fact that they don't change my overall opinion only proves that it's not solely a result of agreeing with everything.
But I used the plural and this leads me to the one thing that did make me raise an eyebrow: The show's host is the only author listed on the cover and spine, and apparently also in the National Library's records, yet the first page lists him and Mihai Radu as authors, and the foreword not only does the same, but actually states that the texts on the show are written by Mihai Radu and Gabi Drogeanu, while Dragos just edits them. Sure, it's a matter of marketing, and in the end between him and his team, but it strikes me as particularly unfair from someone who otherwise so firmly advocates fairness.

Rating: 4/5

The Bard's Tale

In terms of length, maybe all three novelizations put together would count as one book, so counting each of them as a book read again feels rather like cheating. However, while I haven't played the game to be certain, as far as I know it's limited in the expected ways by both the hardware capabilities and the game design practices of its time, yet this first book actually delivers more than I expected from something using such a game as source material, being a good example of classic heroic fantasy. It could have lost itself in endless battles, twisty dungeons and confining corridors, yet instead it's engaging and well written, the story and characters are fleshed out to an acceptable degree, and it doesn't overstay its welcome.
You can easily see that it's based on a game and maybe it could have been a little longer, including a couple more battles and areas, in particular the fact that Kylearan's Tower is almost entirely skipped, with the exception of the boss battle, making me raise an eyebrow. But, again, if you take it for what it is, it's more than good enough and makes you want to quickly move on to the next. So maybe the one complaint is that Isobel is awfully infuriating, and irredeemable as far as I'm concerned, even considering the end, yet even that is realistic and to be expected from a character of her class and background. But, since I mentioned classes, I was left wondering whether Dag was supposed to be a second fighter or something else.

Rating: 3/5

I must once again thank Doc0075 for the game and MarkoH01 for picking me as a recipient. No idea when I'll have a computer for the game, but at least I can read these...

And with this, I got to 12 books this year too, though I cheated more than ever for it, considering what I counted as a book read, the total number of pages according to Goodreads being actually the lowest since I've been trying to at least stick to this (in itself embarrassingly low) goal of 12 books / year, if you consider the fact that one of the books read in 2018 doesn't have a page count there yet has 388 and my 2021 count is 374 pages higher than the 2018 one... And less than half of last year's...

Elantris: maybe 4/5 story ok , main characters lame , some others are good , scene good

The background and story seems interesting indeed.

I'm looking for an author whose fantasy books would be similar to Jack Vance's (made up fantasy worlds populated by strange micro-societies, customs etc). I'd rather read a one book story than a series. If you have any suggestions, thank you!

Verno Vinge - A Fire Upon the Deep - I liked this one a lot, the culture/universe is very original
Orson Scott Card - Speaker for the Dead - another unique race/culture the story is alittle bit slow but still okay
this is i think the second in the series, the story is not connected to the first just the main character