Hi, how are you? It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Eighteen months, in fact. For eighteen months, this site has been lurking at the back of my mind, and I’ve felt guilty about letting things lapse.

I don’t have a really good reason for doing that. But 2024 was actually a decent year for me! I did not get laid off, despite the general hair-on-fire-vibe of the tech industry. I started a DnD campaign with some friends. I played a bunch of board games. I even took a trip to Iceland last summer. Iceland!! It was wonderful and I will share photos and a recap here eventually.

I also finally left Xitter for good after That Asshole got re-elected. I am now pretty ensconced on BlueSky, and I’ve also dusted off my RSS feed reader to start following a lot of new blogs. And that’s why I’m back here. The internet is awful, but individual bloggers who run hobby sites are still one of the things that make it bearable, and I’m trying to be part of the solution. So we’ll see how long this burst lasts before I give way to inertia and anxiety again.

My 2025 reading challenge

As part of this, I’ve also decided to give myself a reading challenge for 2025. This was inspired by the Reading Glasses podcast, which gives its listeners an annual challenge of various book-and-reading-related tasks.

In 2024, and for the past decade, the vast majority of the books I’ve read have been either non-fiction or spec-fic. In 2025, I want to expand my reading horizons, so I’m going to try reading a wider variety books, including:

  • A book written before the 20th century
  • A book translated from another language
  • A romance novel
  • A re-read of an old favourite
  • A mystery novel
  • Only Black authors in February
  • A non-fiction book about the tech industry
  • A book about Canadian history
  • A non-fiction book about urban planning
  • At least one Hugo or World Fantasy Award winning book (novel, collection, anthology or non-fiction) from the last 5 years
  • A celebrity memoir
  • A new author’s debut
  • A book published in 2025
  • A book with a lot of current buzz
  • A book I know nothing about, based solely on the cover
  • A book set in Scotland
  • A non-fiction book about food
  • A book that is out of print

So far I’ve finished Consider the Fork by Bee Wilson, so that crosses the “non-fiction book about food” item off the list, and I’m currently reading The Restaurant of Lost Recipes by Hisashi Kashiwai, which takes care of the “translated work” one. I’ve also got my eye on reading Independent People by Halldór Laxness, since I bought it on my trip to Iceland last year.

What else is on my reading radar? I have a few other titles in mind, but part of the fun is just waiting to see what new and unexpected titles there are out there.