I tend to do extreme things when I am stressful. And 2024 was a very stressful year where nothing seemed to go according to plan. The extreme thing I did as a result, well, was back to reading physical books and managing to finish 38 books. A few of which, admittedly, were books I have read. But it was more than 10 years ago, I read them completely differently. Same books read by a different me should count.
Osamu Dazai
I reread No Longer Human. It was a big mistake since it was in January and it might have set my mood for the entire year.
I don’t regret it though, but it should be a topic for a separate occasion. I read three other books by Osamu Dazai, two novels and one compilation, namely The Setting Sun, The Flower of Buffoonery, and Blue Bamboo. I enjoyed Blue Bamboo the most, but found all of them refreshing.
Side note: I found out randomly that my mom has copies of the translations for both The Setting Sun and Schoolgirl. I am both scared and morbidly curious about discussing the two with her.
I am a cat
It is a masterpiece. I wish I have read it 15 years ago just so that I could know what my 20-year-old self would think about it.
House of Leaves
I have read it pages to pages but I am pretty sure I haven’t read it. So should I read it in 2025? And would I be reading it again or for the first time? What a weird book. Addictive read though, that I can’t deny.
Poems by Wisława Szymborska
I used her poems to practice handwriting. Beautiful and haunting lines as ever. My 4th most written practicing line was Nothing can ever happen twice simply because it goes so well with Everything means nothing to me.
Bunches of books supposedly for work
I didn’t feel I was good enough for what I wanted to achieve at work. I dreamt too big and had to improve myself to catch up. So I read a lot of books on a wider and wider range of topics related to engineering management, problem solving, and organization design.
Those built upon what I read in 2023 like Images of Organization and Reframing Organizations. At a certain point in 2024 though, I simply read them because they were damn interesting and exciting.
In no particular order, my favorite and most enjoyable read were:
- An Elegant Puzzle: Systems of Engineering Management (Will Larson)
- Design is Storytelling (Ellen Lupton)
- Storytelling with Data: A Data Visualization Guide for Business Professionals (Cole Nussbaumer Knaflic)
- Domain-Driven Design: Tackling Complexity in the Heart of Software (Eric Evans)
- Peopleware (Tom DeMarco, Tim Lister)
- Scaling People: Tactics for Management and Company Building (Claire Hughes Johnson)
I learnt two things about 2024.
One, rereading books is great. I meant, I have read One hundred years of Solitude many many times since I was 11 it became a habit to read it once in awhile. But rereading books like No Longer Human after 15 years was an entirely different experience. The stark constract between what I remembered about the book and what I read was revealing. I didn’t just read the book, I was learning about my past as well.
Two, I love theory. I don’t like the conclusion, I like going through the thought process behind in order to come to my own conclusion. I wish textbooks would become less expensive since they seem to be exactly my kind of books.
First book to finish in 2025, unless anything happens, would be Finite and Infinite Games by James Carse. I don’t have a reading list for 2025 beyond that yet, but I have plans to revisit many of the books I have read in 2024 and some literatures from 10 – 15 years ago. Probably amongst the most exciting parts so far in 2025 for me.