Glad you're still trying, but you really shouldn't turn it into a chore. If you force yourself into it, you'll dread it no matter what it is, and then you won't want to keep doing it in the future even if you do manage to tick a box now.

Eat the Reich by Grant Howitt

Eat the Reich is a tabletop roleplaying game where you play as a member of a special vampire commandos unit dropped (via coffin from a plane) into a fictional, Nazi-occupied 1943's Paris. You are to hack, slash, shoot, and drink through hordes of fascists and their supernatural or lab-engineered support in comically absurd, ultra-violent manner. The ultimate goal: exsanguinate Hitler who is sitting in a Zeppelin above Eiffel Tower.

The game system largely puts the characters in charge of building the narrative of scenes, straying in a liberating, welcome way from chiefly having the game master govern in that regard. Designed to be a quick experience, this is aided by having a map with predefined locations and corresponding objectives, which adds a slight board-gamey feel. The mechanics work beautifully, the writing describing the game stays tight throughout.

Presentation is stellar on top: wild, colorful illustrations that deliver setting tone in spades, well-organized display of info, luxurious cover with a myriad of embossed elements (and some glow-in-the-dark detail).

What's hard to stomach is that Howitt feels the very odd need to define his roleplaying book as a work of anti-Nazi propaganda, and goes so far as to suggest that in the real world one should use violence against people who have declared themselves Nazis. Anyone in their right mind can agree that fascism = bad, but attempting to tack a call for actual violence onto a tabletop game appears rather unhinged.

On that topic: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2025/jan/07/66-days-to-learn-to-love-reading-again-ten-pages-in-and-my-brain-is-twitching-with-fatigue

Nice thread! I love reading, so please add me. I'm currently reading The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It's a hefty read, but enjoyable so far.

Best way to feel motivated, I agree. Will do! :)


Thanks so much for this article! It's an accurate depiction of my current struggle with reading. xD The article seems to echo what you said to me earlier, about the importance of trying not to regard reading as a chore, but as nourishment for the mind and spirit. ;)

Thanks.
It was a fair amount of effort spread over time though.

P.S. Now that my program is kind of finished, I don't do much more than type a few characters, and can even avoid that much of the time, so mostly just mouse clicks on buttons or dropdown fields. Author names can be stored and rank per author auto increments. There is a Date (calendar) popup. I also have added lists which be viewed with one of the View dropdown options, so for Lee Child for instance, I have all his books listed in a text file, in the correct reading order, and I just copy & paste as needed. I am big on automation, so I try to minimize manual elements.

Yeah, I also use calibre, but only for basic stuff and conversions, and I've created a bunch of helper programs for calibre for a number of things. However, I am all about full control & adaptability, and so calibre is kind of supplementary. Being retired now, and a coder for many years, I have the luxury to do things my way.

★★★★☆ Rozdroże kruków / Sapkowski, Andrzej

You know this writer even if you've never read his books. He created "The Witcher" world and I really liked these books as a kid. And now, after long years, Andrzej Sapkowski is back with this book, being a prequel to all his Witcher stories. Nothing amazing here, but it's still a decent, well-written fantasy.

★★★★★ Tantie Merle and the Farmhand 4200 / Garcia, R.S.A.

I loved this story :) Polish readers may find it in January 2025 edition of "Nowa Fantastyka".

★★★★★ Strzelby, zarazki i stal. Krótka historia ludzkości / Diamond, Jared

"Guns, Germs, and Steel. The Fates of Human Societes". Pulitzer Prize 1998. Well deserved. Amazing reading for those interested in humankind story.

Also:
★★★★☆ Wyjątkowe Święta Jima / Thompson, Emma
★★☆☆☆ Niebieski dom / Przeździk, Natalia
★★☆☆☆ Uciekaj / Miłoszewski, Zygmunt
★★★★☆ Rozmowy z Bogiem. Tom I: Adwent i Boże Narodzenie / Fernández-Carvajal, Francisco

All books read in 2025 – here.

The Thief of Always by Clive Barker

I've made my pick! ;) To help me resurrect my inner reader and to get back into the habit of reading after more than a decade of literary neglect, my first book of the year will be an easy re-read. The Thief of Always is a book I discovered as a young adult and I recall loving it very much back then. Just the other day, I was rummaging through several storage boxes for a book to read (as the books on my bookshelf are a bit too challenging for me at this stage) and when my eyes caught sight of this Clive Barker book, a flood of positive emotions washed over me. :D I remember everything that appealed to me about this story: the fact that it was a dark children's fantasy horror novel, with a cast of very unconventional characters; I recall how mesmerized I was over the uncanny illustrations that were included on some its pages. Even moments before posting this, I quickly flipped through the book to revisit each of those illustrations (see attached pics). So, so many fond memories! Hopefully, all of this nostalgic excitement will ease me back onto the forgotten journey of reading for fun... ;)

The Deep Man, by Michael Mersault. This is military sci-fi in which the world is designed in such a way that the futuristic military operates like a pre-modern society in which people will draw swords and duel if they feel their honor is impugned. The hero is a young prodigy representing a venerable but declining house/clan but of course the story is that he's going to get a humble ship to command and find an adventure in which he and his crew distinguish themselves against all odds.

The title refers to a sort of philosophy/martial arts discipline his house uses to manage fear by sort of focusing on their primeval self. The way the general culture works is that humanity is ruled by an emperor who seems to be Chinese-descended. Hundreds of years ago, humans successfully fought a war against aliens, but then far more technologically-advanced aliens appeared who were peaceful and simply wanted to trade, so humans got much better technology that allowed them to spread much farther in the galaxy in exchange for peculiar and seemingly random shopping lists the aliens bring every few years. Houses become rich when they happen to have exactly what the aliens want, but no one really knows what these Shapers will want next time around.

The actual story involves the hero uncovering a strange conspiracy that wants him and his house dead, so he can't really trust anyone around him, and spies are even planted on the ship he commands. His best defense is his right hand, a woman from his house who's been augmented with Shaper technology to be a super intelligence operative. The dynamic is very Aubrey-Maturin, except Maturin is an attractive woman who constantly eats snack bars because her cybernetics impose severe dietary requirements on her physiology.

I wanted to like this more than I did. It's alright but it's rather dry, with pages peppered liberally with technobabble and not a very lively plot. The characters tend to not have much depth - the hero Saef is very serious and honorable and Inga is mysterious and responds to everything with some form of smile, either a half-grin or full grin or a smirk or whatever. The rookie navigator stutters a lot...because he's so nervous, you see. It occurred to me midway through that this is very much the first book in a series because it ends right after an initial battle is fought and lots of stuff is left hanging. The author has done at least one sequel, but while I won't rule out reading it, I'm not going to be in a hurry to check it out, either.

Jurassic Park (for the 3rd time): I mean, yeah. Jurassic Park.

The Complete Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft: self-explanatory.

Annihilation: novel that serve as inspiration for the movie (enjoyed the movie more but we'll see after I read the following two novels).

Hour of the Huntress: pulpy story about an Arkham Horror character.

DDD Decoration Disorder Disconnection I: fan translation of a Nasu Kinoko novel (I still prefer his earlier works like Kara no Kyoukai... but I still have Volume II to read so we'll see).

Tsuki no Sango: short story about the future of humanity not wanting to do anything...

Who Goes There?: the novella that inspired The Thing. I enjoyed it, though I still prefer the Carpenter film. I will check out Frozen Hell afterwards to see if it's better (opinions are a bit mixed given some prefer the shorter story and others prefer the extra scenes).

Oh, that's a bit worrying. I was always afraid of removal of books I've added as "read" or "want to read". However it may be a reasonable cost of using someone's database. No full control, but also no huge effort.

As I read in Polish I add my books quite often, I'm librarian there, so I didn't noticed some changes you've mentioned.

Hello jonridan!

Good read, a classic and favorite of mine, too. Last time I finshed reading it again was in August laast year. (I stopped counted how often though.)

Another one of Micheal Crichton's books that I would recommend is "Timeline".

The only thing I am not so fond of in many of Crichton's novels is the (almost) always samey and therefore predictable ending/outcome for the Character in the position of responsibility. Usually a lack of acknoledgement of their error(s) and a gruesome death without a chance of redemption.
Interestingly, some of the movie adaptations (such as the first "Jurassic Park") changed especially that aspect.

Kind regards,
foxgog

Strangely I read The Lost World before Jurassic Park, and I will be re-reading TLW again in a couple of weeks (finishing a couple of Arkham Horror novellas at the moment). I have to say that my favorite between JP and TLW is hands down The Lost World though. Can't beat those Carnotaurus he, and the location is also more to my liking: abandoned industrial village versus theme park. Plus the real Sarah Harding (how could the movie destroyed her that much...)

I haven't read any other Crichton novels. Only these two given that is dinosaurs and horror and gore... But I did hear nice things about Andromeda Strain as well... I will be checking them out (both Andromeda and Timeline) this year, though I'm not sure when (still going through like 10 backlogged books but going slowly to appreciate the reading). Thanks for the recommendation! :)