I read some more books last year! Maybe not as many as I might’ve, but most certainly more than I mightn’t’ve. So, in the order that I read them:

Miyamoto Musashi – A Book of Five Rings

This was a really interesting read, not so much for actually teaching me how to be a deadly samurai, but more for giving a vivid glimpse into the real mindstate of such a person. It’s a journey way back in time, and it refreshingly reads like something written by a cave-dwelling hermit (which, of course, it was), rather than some modern author doing their best impression of one. The authenticity is what makes it interesting, and the potency with which the author’s heightened, embattled mindset seeps from the page – a warrior’s guidebook from a time so long past that his ideas seem as alien to me as I’m sure mine would to him.

P.G. Wodehouse – My Man Jeeves

My dad’s a huge Wodehouse fan, as are many of my literary heroes. I watched the Jeeves & Wooster TV series when I was younger and loved it, but this is my first experience of the great writer’s prose. Starting from the beginning, I didn’t realise that this volume is in fact kind of a collection of Jeeves stories from before the characters were fully formed. Despite that, their humour, jollity, and palpable descriptive flare were everything I’d been led to believe. They’re just so happy and innocent, the characters, the world, and the words themselves. You can’t help but smile. This was great, and I’m definitely going to read the rest of the series.

Terry Pratchett – Disc World Book 5 (Sourcery)

Running out of things to say about these ones, really. They’re still great! Still really funny in a way that both my outer adult and inner child can appreciate. It’s truly inspired, how the author manages to weave so much humour, so many interesting sub-stories from the rich, magical setting of the Disc World. I’m not even close to finishing this series, but from what I’ve heard it stays consistently good throughout, so I’m looking forward to more. I also happened to watch the early 2000s TV movies this year with David Jason (he was in them, I didn’t watch them with him). I thought The Colour of Magic was pretty great, and Hogfather kind of sucked.

Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now

Welly, welly, well! I’d heard of this book in passing before and thought that it sounded like another bindingful of new-agey, self help, woowoo… And that’s exactly what it is, but for the genre it’s extremely potent stuff. The book tells the reader to ignore the words it uses and to focus on the substance, the experience, the thing it is that the language points to. And I’ll be damned if I didn’t come away feeling really alert and in touch with the present moment, even though I’d feel silly and flimsy quoting any specific passage from its pages to a room full of scowling skeptics. A truly powerful and transformative work – I would recommend this to anyone who doesn’t take pedantic pleasure in correcting other people’s grammar.

Vladimir Nabokov – Bend Sinister

It’s really awkward trying to talk to people about how much I love Vladimir Nabokov, because most only know of his most famous work, and so I have to say, “Yeah, Lolita is about a pedo, buuuut it just so happens to also be one of the most chillingly beautiful masterworks of English literature ever created.” To which they reply, “Okay, so what are his other writings about?” And I’m forced to admit, “…Mostly pedo stuff.” BUT! But, not all of them are. Read Pale Fire, read Bend Sinister. This book touched me, and not in the way you’re thinking! It’s extremely verbose and overwritten in that succulent way that only a genius of Nabokov’s caliber could get away with, but between the lines oozing with indulgent poetry and symbolism there’s a truly heartbreaking story of the stupidity of brutes and the fragility of the goodness over which they trample. I never cry, but the ending of this book brought me close to tears. Read it unless you dislike big words and long sentences, in which case you’ll probably want to give it a miss (along with most of this blog).

Terry Pratchett – Disc World Book 6 (Wyrd Sisters)

Still really good! Even though the style of all these books is similar, each one comes with fresh humour and engaging characters, and a new angle on the same fantastical world. I’m still not bored after 6 volumes, which really shows their quality.

Edward S. Herman & Noam Chomsky – Manufacturing Consent

I enjoyed this one a lot. It really shows why Noam Chomsky (and the other guy, probably) was such an influential left wing thinker back in the days. They meticulously tear down the mainstream narratives around the cold war and U.S. operations in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and various South American countries in the late 20th Century, and demonstrate conclusively that the media was, knowingly or not, blithely doing the government’s bidding during that time while falsely claiming to value the impartial truth. The book does spend a very long time demonstrating the same few points with multitudinous examples, but it’s satisfying throughout because they’re so clearly right. I really felt the relevance of this one, despite the subject matter being before my own time.

Terence McKenna – The Archaic Revival

I’ve been meaning to read this one ever since I first became obsessed with McKenna during my trippy first year at university. The man’s a genius of language and insight, whether you find him a bit wishy-washy or not. Most of the book consists of transcribed interviews and conversations concerning his experiences with Psychedelics (primarily ayahuasca) and his thoughts regarding the future of humanity. There were a few sections where he lost even me down rabbit holes regarding UFOs and other freaky topics, but I mostly found it very compelling. I would say, though, anyone who isn’t already a fan will benefit much more from listening to his recorded speeches and lectures on Youtube as a starting point.

Christopher Hitchens – No One Left to Lie To

I said I was gonna read it! This was a very enjoyable experience, a classic Hitchens polemic, surgically indicting and verbally executing a corrupt and immoral stooge who somehow rose to the highest office in America. Bill Clinton truly gets destroyed with facts and logic in these pages, his sins and sophistry laid bare for all to see. This, again, is a book concerning events from before I was around, but having grown up knowing the man’s name, it’s still fascinating to see what a sizeable gap exists between his public persona and reputation and the actual facts of his horrendous record as a politician and a human.

Carl Sagan – The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

Carl Sagan is a man who should never be forgotten. The passion and clarity with which he explains complex scientific ideas is infectious, and even as someone who has always been into science, I still felt my interest softly rekindled as I read through this work. With sincere inquisitiveness, he challenges commonly held myths and half-truths and coaxes his reader towards a more solid and skeptical understanding of the true workings beneath misguided ideas. I really enjoyed this book and will be reading more of his in future.

Professor David Nutt – Cannabis: The New Science of Cannabis and Your Health

Professor Nutt’s story is a fascinating one, and his relentlessly calm and grounded exploration of this topic is refreshing whether you’re new to the discussion or already entrenched in your views, like me. A welcome juxtaposition after reading someone like McKenna, I was eager to learn of the new developments in understanding cannabis on the chemical and physiological levels, and I wasn’t disappointed. He also weaves into the book the tragi-comic tale of his own ousting from the dogmatic and corrupt British government, due to his evidence-based views on drugs and drug treatment. I really enjoyed this and have already picked up his other works on alcohol and psychedelics.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn – The Gulag Archepelago: Part 1

This incredible historical and political book reads almost like some dystopian fantasy, a la Orwell’s 1984, but you have to constantly remind yourself while reading it that every word is, in fact, true. The utter horror, torture, madness, and evil of the Soviet regime is examined in excruciating detail within, and yet somehow the author manages to also make the telling darkly humorous and entertaining, sarcastic and deeply human. I’m going to tackle parts 2 and 3 when I’m ready, but for now I’d recommend this book to anyone who’s curious to confront the stone cold reality of our recent history with open eyes; in Solzhenitsyn’s words: to think, to suffer, to live.

Garth Marenghi’s Terrortome

This was a strange one. I love the TV show, Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace, and would recommend it to everyone, but I was a little bored by this book. It’s extremely funny and ridiculous, but the annoying thing about an intentionally badly written book is that it is still badly written. When the fictional author repeats the same drawn-out lines over and again, it’s funny because it’s bad, but that joke does get a little old by about half way through this book, and you’ve still got half way left to go. I did enjoy it, but I’d say just watch the show instead.

Alan Watts – In My Own Way

I started this one and gave up several years ago because I didn’t have the attention span for it, but that was my error. Don’t read an autobiography if you’re not looking to learn about the minutia of the subject’s life. I’ve learned an awful lot from Alan Watts’ books and lectures over the years, and I finally got around to finishing this, the story of his own life. It was charming, intelligent, and sensitive in just the way you’d expect. He goes into great depth in recounting and analysing his personal history, and as a fan I enjoyed feeling even closer to one of my heroes, but I can’t in good conscience recommend it to anyone who isn’t already an admirer of his. Read The Wisdom of Insecurity and then come back to this one if you liked it.

Alan Moore – Saga of the Swamp Thing

This one’s a graphic novel, but I thought I’d include it anyway. I love Alan Moore’s work, and I went into this knowing only that. Although this isn’t the complete collection of Swamp Thing stories, I gather this covers the golden age, and I can see why that is! Only Moore could take such a seemingly silly and surface-level character as the swamp thing and transform them into a tragic hero of such depth and beauty. This truly is a complex and touching fantasy, spanning many worlds both physical and of the mind, and I’d highly recommend it.

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So, yeah, those were some great books. Go and read them if you want. More to come in twelve months’ time. And if you got this far, why not comment with some recommendations of your own? I swear I’ll read and review them some time within the next ten to twenty years.

Written and published January 2025

Featured image by Olena Bohovyk on Unsplash