2025 - My year in books
Ever since I was introduced to audiobooks in 2015, I have consumed all my fiction books in audiobooks. I have still read my non-fiction books on actual paper - I am computer scientist on most of the non-fiction books that I read contain code. In 2024, I changed things up a bit. I read my first fiction book on paper. Reading on paper instead of listening to the books has also changed my reading habits. But it has been a most welcome change.
Reading on paper
Okay, I said "books on actual paper". I lied. I bought a Kindle Paperwhite to read on. It provides faster access to the books that I want to read and in the long run it will be much cheaper to buy e-books rather than paperbacks. And I have no intention of creating a collection of books at home. I have stuff enough.
It has been change, for sure. Reading, like everything else, feels like a muscle you need to train. Try reading a book for the first time in a long time and you will find your attention drifting a bit and your focus will move elsewhere. "You could stop now and check your phone".
Luckily for me, the reason I changed to paper-books instead of audiobooks was because the latest book in the series I wanted to read had not been released on audiobook yet and I was dying to read it. Book 6 of Ivan Kal's Infinite Realm series, The Runesmith. For me, starting with a really exciting book helped me combat the bad attention span one might have with a first book. And then moving on the next book was a breeze.
Changing reading habits
Being an avid audiobook consumer since 2015, I obviously had to change some of my reading habits. Since 2015 and up until Aug. 17th, I had consumed 8 months and 5 days worth of audiobooks. That was mostly in the car to and from work, on walks, on runs or 30 minutes before going to sleep at night.
Now that I have changed to reading instead of listening, I can read during the days at home as well. I have two kids and a wife, and I do not want to put in earplugs and close myself off to them when they are home. But with a book, I can still listen to when they need my attention. I still read before going to sleep at night. However, I cannot read when driving or running anymore.
Reading has also broadened the amount of books that I can read. Before when I was listening to books I had to make sure the narration was good in addition to the content of the book being good. Now I can just focus on the content of the book. There has been series of books that I had to skip because of poor narration.
Books I read
I bought The Runesmith Aug. 17th. And after that the ball just kept rolling. I finished 18 books in 2024, starting from Aug. 17th. Some long, some short and most of them medium in length. I read mostly fantasy, but also some science fiction. Here is a list of the books.
- Infinite Realm - The Runesmith
- The Sunsurge Quartet - Empress of the Fall
- The Sunsurge Quartet - Prince of the Spear
- The Sunsurge Quartet - Hearts of Ice
- The Sunsurge Quartet - Mother of Daemons
- The Blacktongue Thief
- The Daughter's War
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - Dungeon Crawler Carl
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - Carl's Doomsday Scenario
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - The Dungeon Anarchist's Cookbook
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - The Gate of the Feral Gods
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - The Butcher's Masquerade
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - The Eye of the Bedlam Bride
- Dungeon Crawler Carl - This Inevitable Ruin
- Murderbot Diaries - All Systems Red
- Murderbot Diaries - Artificial Condition
- Infinite Realm - Monsters and Legends
- Infinite Realm - The Price of Power
This amounts to 18 books and approximately 11.500 pages. It feels nice to be actually reading again. I have a lot of books on my to-read list and I might slow down a little bit in order to find a nice pace for myself. But 2025 in books looks pretty good and I am sure I will have a lot of interesting books to read.