Reading Challenge [2024]

Today I’ve finished: Mark Twain - Letters from Hawaii
This is the book number 7 I’ve read this year.

 

Read

Amos 6
Proverbs 17
JoJo Bizarre Adventures Part 4: Diamond is Unbreakable vol 1-2
Retribution by Max Hasting 76-103

 

I want a 1914-1918 book by Hasting made like 1939-1945 (focus mostly on peoples experiences during the war). He did ''1914'' that is great and I'm grateful that it exist, considering it's the most interesting part of ww1. but (39-45 Is like 1000 pages....1914 alone is like 700 pages lol) I WANT MORE. I honestly want a 1917-1918 book made by him, you know Kaiserschlacht, American intervention, commies take over of the new russian repubblic. I probably like Hasting more than I should, since It was the first book I've read in my life (a birthday gift in 2015, that initiated me to the book universe except Neverending Story at school, but read at school was shit, so I had to read Neverending story again at home because school make it looks boring and I remind nothing).

 

Today I finished the read of “Jack London - Revolution and other Essays”, the book number 8 I’ve read this year.

 

I really need to read more WW1 stuff. The only things that I have read, besides that book is John Keegan's The First World War, another fairly famous British military history. And I also read Black Jack's memoir. Those are the only two and I really think that I need more stuff to read on that subject.

 

Barbara Tuchman - The Guns of Augusts
Max Hasting - 1914

These are the two bricks for starting in my opinion (both of them explain how the war start and the first year of 1914 so all the stuff of Serbia and Austria, The retreats of the allies, Tannenberg, ecc...)

Take a look to the two satirical books ''The good Soldier Svejk'' by Jaroslav Hasek and ''The last days of Mankind'' by Karl Kraus.

There are many books about ww1, another one I have in my mind like ''The Red Wheel'' that's a cycle of novel books by Solzeniycin that show how the Russia lost the war.

 

Just started A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles, describing the bizarre situation of a Count during the Bolshevik revolution who is spared the firing line because of a poem he'd written that inspired the initial stirrings of the communist regime years prior, yet is nevertheless sentenced to a life in the servants' quarters of the Metropol hotel for his crime of being a member of the bourgeois...

Interesting shtuff!

By the by, in the age of podcasts, viz games and instant gratification, it's heartening to see so many readers on here...

Kudos to ya'll!

 

I started The Foxglove King by Hannah Whitten enjoying it so far

 

I’m on waitlist at my library for this book. I’m excited for it. Got a copy for my bro for Christmas.

 

Finished Dune by Frank Herbert. A sci fi classic. Published in 1965. Still holds up really well. I like that a lot is not explained explicitly in the book and you have to infer certain things about the universe. Lots of aspects kept me interested; the politics, the religion, the conspiracies, the fighting, the economy, the self mastery and training, the sand worms. Most of it is believable. Like it could happen in reality. The only thing I had a hard time with was the prescience that the spice gave people. Not sure how that would work. He went into space time and branching timelines and all that but that wasn’t really explaining how someone could see all that. Maybe unlocking parts of the brain that can simulate all the paths and likely holds?

 

I've completed two books this week:

Book number 9: History of Canada (700 pages) - Really Interesting, I've discovered many interesting facts but it seem like Canada on political levels have the same issues of USA, having just two relevant political parties, all of what I've read is useful, especially the history of Quebec. It will be useful and I'm going to bring it with me in my next trip.

Book number 10: The Red Book by Eliphas Levi (300 pages) - A book by Eliphas Levi about Alchemy, Magic, Astrology, Qabbalah, but not only this. I was surprised to discover that Levi, a french freemason was an apologist of Catholicism, considering that wasn't well seen to be a freemason in these times and condemned by the Catholic church.

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I'm now reading a 600 pages book about the Jugoslavian Wars and I already have other books on the list. One of these is a short book of the Italians that leaded a revolt in the City of Fiume (Rijeka now).

 

I completed my first book of the year! VERY happy about it.
Going to aim to finish reading 2 books in Feb, inshallah

 

Finished Dune Messiah by Frank Herbert. #2 in the dune series. Not as long or as epic as the first Dune. The story was stranger than the first. It was very different from the first book. Got more into sci fi with the bene tlailax and the ghola. Leaned into philosophy a bit more too.

 

I am currently reading "Awaken the Giant Within" by A.Robbins.

The next books I want to read are:
- Million Dollar Habits - Brian Tracy
- Power of Your Subconscious Mind - Joseph Murphy

And this year I finished reading: The 48 Laws Of Power - Robert Greene.

 

Oooh, I remember that one. I started reading it but left it in the middle.

I have heard a lot about “Awaken the Giant Within”. How are you finding it?