(I don’t have my regular editing equipment and want to post something before the new year. So please forgive any mistakes.  When I get my normal program back, I’ll try my best to edit it.) 

I guess I should do a recap of the books that I read this year: 

Firstly, I read books 4-7 of the Harry Potter series.  

I started reading the series in NOVEMBER  2023, and I had to finish the series before my birthday trip to Harry Potter trip in FEBRUARY. I have done it with a week to spare. I doubt I have to stay much about these books.  Just read them!  (I might have plans to do a deep dive into these books. Ummm, I am still undecided on that.) 

2. The Scrons of Shannara by Terry Brooks

At this point, I moved to Dad’s and tried out the Kindle for the first time.  I love the Shannara series and would love to finish all the books at some point.  With that said,  because I leave such a long gap between reading these books,  I must admit that getting back into the Shannara world can be a struggle trying to remember everything happening in the earlier books. I know there are split into separate stories, but it is nice to have some idea what the overall story is at the back of my mind while I’m reading the next book.  

I still finished the book, but it was book one of four, and I haven’t gotten back to finish that story. ( and I left it too long. I might reread the book to remind myself what happens in ‘The Scrons of Shannara’. 

3. The Lighting Thief by Rick Riordan 

I needed something a bit lighter, so I tried reading Percy Jackson.  The only thing I know about this series is that people often say you are in Percy Jackson, or you’re in the Harry Potter camp.  I was in the Harry Potter camp, so it was interesting to read the first book of the series. 

And 

(Don’t worry.) I like it.

Combining Greek mythology with YA characters was fun. Reading about our heroes talking and fighting with Greek goods was entertaining.  

My tiny, tiny, tiny bit of confusion with book one (and I assume the series) is when you get a story with Greek gods and other mythical creatures and then start reading about our characters wearing modern clothing, drinking ‘modern’ sodas, or using ‘modern tech’. I don’t know why, but that briefly takes me out of the story for a second.  

Am I the only one? Or just me?

4.  The Art of War and The Book of Five Rings 

I am unsure if these are self-help books, but I heard good things about them and tried reading them once. I don’t think they were meant to be read once.  

I don’t know why, but I struggle to use self-help or improvement books. They just never work for me and my situation. 

I might try rereading them once I’m in a better place and more open to ‘improving myself’.

5.  Starships Troopers

What can I say about Starship Troopers?

Okay, I think it’s important to know that the movie version is one of my favourite ‘bad’ movies of all time. I love that film. So when I started reading the book, I was expecting a high-action, over-the-top nonsense book about a space army killing thousands of mindless bugs. 

Oh boy, I wasn’t expecting that the book that the movie is based on is totally different.  The book has a little action right at the beginning and in the third act. However, the morality of the book is more about training the fresh recruits and stripping away their…. Humantaltly away.  Moulding you into the mindless killing machine that only follows orders. 

I personally find this interesting. However, I was hoping for more action, just like in the movies, so it was a little bit of a struggle for me to get through.

I only really started sci-fi books, so I wouldn’t know, but was this the ‘grandfather’ of Military Sci-fi?  Or would it be ‘Dune?  Ummm, ‘dune’ is more about the political game.  I dunno? 

678: Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic, The Light Fantastic and Equal Rites 

After reading so many books with heavy, complicated themes, I wanted to try something lighter and more fun. I sometimes come across YouTube videos about Terry Pratchett and the Discworld books. I went a little crazy, and I bought the whole collection and started reading the first three books.  

The first book was a good introduction to this crazy, strange world, and the story was mostly low-stakes. What struck me was how funny it was, with good ‘old school’ British humour, which I always enjoy.  

I didn’t expect to read that the turtle with elephants on its back and the world on top of the elephants was an actual physical being that the characters could see and touch.  At least the fantasy that I read.  You rarely see and interfere with the ‘god’ of that world.  Often, it is described as background worldbuilding stuff, not a physical being, which was pretty cool. 

(Also, the character of ‘Death’ is super interesting.)  

And 

Book two follows up from book 1.  However, the stakes are  ‘end of the world’ stuff.  You even got a ‘chapter’ from the turtle pov at one stage! : O.

Lastly, book 3,  ok, at this stage, I read ALOT of fantasy books in such a short time!  I don’t know if I was getting tired of the repleting troops.  But this book was a bit of a struggle for me to finish. I even had to take a short break, leave it for a week, do something else, and come back all fresh!   

I think my issue was the main character of the story. ‘ESKARINA SMITH’ or ‘ESK’, a young nine-year-old witch ( I think she’s 9, I can’t remember).  I don’t know why, but because of how she was written and how she acted in the story, it was difficult for me to follow the story properly.  (Or maybe that’s how Terry Pratchett wanted me to feel about ‘Esk’?  If so, well done, she was so ANNOYING!) 

Her mentor ‘Granny Weatherway’ was by far the best character in that book. The old mentor troop with funny one-liners. 

Despite my struggles with the book, I was fully invested in the big battle at the end. It was an epic use of magic.    

After I finished that book, I moved away from the fantasy genre for a bit. So the next book was:

9.  Dark Matter by Blake Crouch. 

I already have a non-spoiler review of this fantastic book on my site.  I leave a link to the page:

Link Dark Matter By Blake Crouch 

10-11 Killing Floor and Die Trying by Lee Child

I still haven’t fully returned to reading, and I needed a break from Dark Matter. I watched the TV show Jack Reacher and loved it, so I re-read (listened to) The Killing Floor.

 (The first season and the first book were so similar that I decided to listen at 2x speed to see if there are many differences between them.  They weren’t!  The show was pretty much word for word, like the book.)

I also re-read book two, Die Trying.  

(I need to re-read book two and really read it before I can review ‘Die Trying’.

12-13 Panacea ad Metanuia by Alex Robins

I found these books in Facebook ads, and I saw the cover. I love it!  

I try and get a photo….

The movie ‘300’ is my favourite movie, so seeing a Hoplite standing in front of a minotaur, I was like YES.  

It is funny that reading these books reminds me of when I moved on from Harry Potter to more ‘grown-up’ books (like Game of Thrones, Lord of the Rings, or even the Shannara books). As I read these books about humans mixing with Greek gods and mythical creatures, I can’t help but remember that they remind me of the Percy Jackson book I reviewed earlier in this blog.

And the 2nd book reminds me of the movies ‘Clash of the Titans’ and/or ‘Wrath of the Titan’. If you’ve seen those movies, that’s kind of the set-up in book 2. 

my only little ‘bad thing’,

I must admit there’s a bit of a reading curve with these books because of how everything is described in the book.  The author uses the proper names to describe everything. Which is well-written and researched; however, it does make for a tricky reading experience at times.  (It does get easier the more you get used to the names.) 

Kinda like ‘Game of Thrones’, there’s also a political game. It was playing as a B plot, which was a little tricky for me to follow, but I pushed through to get to Hoplites stuff, which I personally enjoy. 

(There is a third book, um, what’s it called…… ‘Titanica’,)

(which I was hoping to finish by the end of the year. However, November and December were ‘bad’ for my mental state, and I did zero reading.  Hopefully, things will get better soon so I can finish the series. 

 More information on this later on the blog.) 

The following five books:

• Stephen King IT 

• THE SHINING 

• The Exorcist 

• The Haunting of Hill House 

• HIDDEN PICTURES

I’ve already got reviews on this site. I’ll leave a link to the pages below.

Exploring Horror: Must-Read Books for Spooky Season

I guess I say what my favourite books I read this year were.  I can think of two:

Dark Matter by Blake Crouch 

And 

Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak (I hope I spelled the name right!) 

I had the most unique book-reading experience with these two books, and I’m glad I read them. Also, they’re still thinking about them even now, MONTHS after I read them. 

Ok, I think that’s the book review part of the blog that’s done if you stop reading from here. 

Thank you for making it this far. Hopefully, I will write another reading blog in the new year. I’m not sure. I am still struggling a little bit. 

I will write a speedy update below if anyone is interested. If not, it is good for me to write this down and get it out of my system…. 

quick update:

I have to be honest with you all. You have probably seen people’s blogs or videos with this title: ‘2024, what a fantastic year; 2025 will be an even better year. I can’t wait. This was going to be the end of the year for the 2024 blog, and 2025 will be a better year. I can’t wait to see what happens in the new year’s type of blog.

Im already starting to see them on YouTube! 

However, I can’t bring myself to write that type of blog.  Looking back, I’m struggling to think of any positives after February (after the trip to HARRY POTTER WORLD)  that happened.  I don’t want to repeat what I wrote here again, so if you want more details, please visit these blogs if you want to understand better:

Recap of the last four years (mid 2020-2024)

Well, that didn’t take long now, did it……

Since March of this year, this has been a real struggle, and over the course of the year, it has kept getting worse and worse.  Don’t get me wrong, when this got tough in the past, I was a pretty good take on the chin, and I learnt to ignore the pain and move on with my life. (Mostly, I bottle it up and store it at the back of my mind.)  which is not the healthy thing to do, I know, but I have to do it as a ‘man’, I guess. 

With that said, there’s something about this year that life just kept kicking and kicking and kicking……. I have to say that this year (past FEB) has to be the toughest, soul-destroying and worst of all loneliness year I have had in some time.  I think the last time… I haven’t had a year this bad since my high school days.

Of course, my living conditions don’t help either, as where I live in an old people’s retirement area!

There are only coffee shops or charity shops here.  There is nothing really for a 30-year-old soul to really engage in. No hobbies, no jobs, no friends. And you can forget about ‘family’.  I don’t think that we even understand what ‘family’ means.  We just share the same last name. THATS IT! 

(I am going off tracks now… try and reel back.)

(Last little thing, I promise.) 

My carer timetable is getting dumb now, so I am combining it with my dog timetable. Things are getting really dumb now. I have something going on every day of the week. At most, I have two hours free to myself before the next person comes around, which is not enough time to do ANYTHING!

It’s no joke. I constantly check the time, waiting to see when the next person will arrive. I have no time to relax. 

Now, combine that with the fact my physical health is even worse than ever now.  Basic activities that I could do without thinking are now becoming impossible.  I am even trying a new Phisyo program (on top of having my carers network still in effect), and my body is getting too exhausted from trying to do EVERYTHING at once. 

I managed to get 4 weeks ‘holiday’ off (21 DEC. – 21 JAN), but honestly, I don’t think that is enough.  

I would love to say that I’m looking forward to what 2025 has to bring, but I can’t see it.  

I reckon next year would be busy finding a new house and rebuilding it to my liking/specs.  Who knows what will happen with that or how long it will take? ( I’m guessing the whole of 2025.) 

Ok, for now, that’s all I want to say. I try to keep some details to myself. 

If you made it this far, then thank you, and happy New Year to you!