Books I read in 2018
…were too few. Even worse than 2016 from which I lifted this post’s beginning. At least none of them were duds. All of them are worth reading, but I reserved bold for those that are not too niche.
Links lead to Smile Amazon. I still get nothing from referrals, but at least some charity might get few cents instead of also nothing. Brodeck Report is lacking a link because graphic novel has not been translated to English yet. Book titles are in the languages in which I read them.
The list:
- The Magic of Watches by Louis Nardin. A very fine introduction to the world of (wrist)watches and one of the best designed books I own. A very good introduction for already interested that is at its weakest when it is trying to sell you this hobby, but more than makes up for it elsewhere.
- Platero y Yo by Juan Ramon Jiménez. Bittersweet stories about author's friendship with a donkey. Above my Spanish level and will have to read it again some day. Lovely prose where my understanding was not too foggy.
- Brodeckovo poročilo (Brodeck Report) by Manu Larcenet. A fantastic graphic novel based on a novel by Philippe Claudel about difference and intolerance in a village near French-German border soon after WW2. Wonderfully drawn and impactful, it would be difficult to imagine it is not doing justice to original material which I have not read yet.
- Architecting Angular Applications with Redux, RxJS, and NgRx by Christoffer Noring. I have mixed feelings about this book. It is a good introduction to the topic, but I am still not persuaded about the approach. I have some qualms about organisation of the content as the book seems to be confused about who its audience is and certainly about many technical mistakes in code samples, but I would still recommend it as the best introduction to those who need to get acquainted with its topic.
- The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories by P.D. James. Judging by this book P.D. James deserved her high reputation. Crime stories best read around Christmas, all of them superbly conceived and written. Highly recommended.
My plan for this year is simply to get into a habit of reading books again with a healthy mixture of fiction and non-fiction. No particular number in mind, but single digit would be disappointing as it would mean I again wasted too much stuff on mostly short fluff found on the net.
It would be great, if I managed to rise to last year’s challenge of reading a book in each to me familiar language, but probably won’t.