Year and a couple of months ago I’ve been very proud with my 32 books read till then. Something weird happened then, and all big and important faces on this planet announced their “read challenge” for 2015. Bill Gates suggested some books a couple of times throughout the year, Mark Zurckerberg said he will try to read many new books, Jeff Bezos and all other hot shots suggested at least one book at that point. And I thought, well – I did 32 in the past year, I will do more or less the same this year.
Hm. ๐ And then I’ve changed a job in February, I stopped travelling 40 minutes to work every day, and suddenly my time for reading books shrank. However, I think I am still OK, as I’ve red quite some things.
Let’s see. I just started “The Book Thief” by Markus Zusak when I did my previous post so it’s on this list again, but I was re-checking some parts later in the year since we watched the movie “The Book Thief”. I’ve picked this book as a recommendation from other book about “How to write for teenagers”. “The Book Thief” was suggested as one of the biggest hits and listed on 100 Young Adult Books to Read in a Lifetime. Very nice and very emotional book.
In the same book, recommended as an evergreen, and just a few days before our trip to Copenhagen – “The Complete Fairy Tales” by one and only Hans Christian Andersen. It’s a great collection of fairy tales that can always be handy. ๐
“Shy Feet” – A book inspired by travel stories by Frances M Thompson. Since I’m a self-proclaimed traveller who writes, it sounded like a perfect book to read. It’s a collection of interesting and moving stories.
I got “1000 Days of Spring” by Tomislav Perko, Croatian travel writer, as a gift and read it in a blink. Sequel should be out soon. I highly recommend this book to everyone!
When we made our final decision that we are going to Japan this year, I was looking for some Japan oriented books. “My Tokyo Weekend” was a good but confusing read before going to Tokyo, but much easier and better after the visit. Still, we’ve seen some of locations in Tokyo as a result of reading this book. ๐
“My Tokyo Weekend: Best 3 Day Guide from My 10 Years in Tokyo” by Keita Shimbo
And last but not least, I’ve managed to buy the kindle edition of “Millennium”, but I can’t find it any more as such. It seems that one huge book is just to big for most of the readers. ๐
I’ve read the first book 3 years back at home, and as everything else I just hate when I read / watch just part of the series. I’ve seen all three movies in the meantime, so I want to finish all three books too. It’s an excellent trilogy, with lot of complex characters, love, hate, drama, thriller. If you like such books it’s definitely worth reading.
“The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium Series)” by Stieg Larsson
“The Girl Who Played With Fire (Millennium Series)” by Stieg Larsson
Well, to be honest, I’m still not finished with the last one, but almost there. ๐
“The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (Millennium Trilogy)” by Stieg Larsson
Along with these novels and fairy tales, I’ve read a couple of books that are business or carrier oriented. First three are books that people recommended to improve management skills. I guess I will read at least two of them again next year. Learning requires reading multiple times. ๐
“The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable” by Patrick Lencioni
“A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge ( PMBOKยฎ Guide )”
“The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur: The tell-it-like-it-is guide to cleaning up in business, even if you are at the end of your roll.” by Mike Michalowicz
These are as well books that I open from time to time when I want to check how to do some things at my everyday work. First one, “More Agile Testing” is actually a great read for anyone working in Software development and testing and other two are for Python enthusiasts.
“More Agile Testing: Learning Journeys for the Whole Team” by Janet Gregory and Lisa Crispin
“PYTHON: The Smartest Way to Learn Python Programming For Beginners”
“Python for Informatics: Exploring Information” by Dr. Charles R Severance
I love small phrasebooks. I think I’ve left 5-6 of them in Umag, those that I used to use while I worked on river ships around Europe. Those small books contain a load of important information for everyone travelling around especially if you have no clue about the local language, and you are aware that you’ll need some help from locals. We bought two different phrasebooks, one for each of us in case that we get lost or that we need it. It was very useful in several occasions, and I’m still browsing them once a week, just to maintain my level of “Basic” Japanese. ๐
“Collins Gem Japanese Phrasebook and Dictionary (Collins Gem)”
“The Rough Guide to Japan”
A year and a few months ago I was delighted with my at the time year old Kindle Paperwhite
My opinion did not change a bit. I have 3 years old model, that is lacking RAM (has only 1 GB) which causes often crashes if you are reading PDF books with photos. Since I’m mostly reading books purchased from Amazon, in this past period I had issues with only one book. However, Amazon figured out that it’s a problem, so after a couple of months they published new 6th generation of Kindle Paperwhites which work like a charm. (Our second Kindle is the new one, and works without any issues.)
If you like to read and you still don’t have a Kindle Paperwhite
I’ll do my best to give you a longer and nicer list in the end of 2016! ๐
Till then, if you have any good book to suggest, please do not hesitate to contact me or leave the comment on my Facebook page! ๐
(Oh yes, if you decide to buy any of these, buying it through affiliate links might make a few cents to the author of this Blog, so don’t be shy. ๐ )