Since the beginning of 2009 I’ve been trying to keep up with a personal challenge to read one book per month and so far it’s been going well, so well in fact I have managed to keep a book ahead by reading two during May while on Holiday. My recent reading list has included:
- Bit of a Blur – Alex James
- Grow Up – Keith Allen
- Watchmen (Graphic Novel) – Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
- Moab is my Washpot – Stephen Fry
- America Unchained – Dave Gorman
- Anyone can do it: My Story – Duncan Bannatyne
My brother bought me the first two books as a Christmas present. I don’t remember having read any autobiographies in the past couple of years so it kicked off a trend. I find them interesting in that those who write them seem to have impeccable memories for events occurring decades earlier. As someone who can’t remember what he had for lunch yesterday I find this ability quite something. Keith Allen’s in-particularly had a great amount of detail of his early years and yet the most recent decade was almost a footnote, which was a shame because it was a fun read and I’m sure there must be more to it. Duncan Bannatyne’s however was more what I expected, knowing his audience his detail focused on his early career years up to the modern day and at points admitted uncertainty about events early in his life which is unique on the books I’ve read and far more believable!
Something went a bit awry with my challenge recently however as I took to reading more than one book at a time which I usually avoid doing as it leaves a lot of unfinished stories but this time round I’ve made enough time to continue a few. It started by reading a non-fiction book to learn the Python programming language called ‘Dive into Python‘. It started well, I was absorbing lots of new knowledge at a rapid rate but by the 6th chapter I realised that I had gaps in my knowledge as reference was made to concepts I had no understanding of which presented a big brick wall to my progression. I accepted this book was too advanced for my level so I switched to ‘Learning Python‘, a book from the ubiquitous O’Reilly series which had a good write-up. I bought this book for 99p on eBay (see last post) and it has been good so far. Learning the Python language has involved a lot of additional reading on the web and another book kept coming up which was ‘Think Python‘ which was available for free download and so I started dipping into this one and now I’m about half-way through both books covering the same subject at the same level although both approaching it in a different way and I’m learning different things from both which dissuades me from dropping one of them, forcibly continuing my efforts with both!
Similarly I bought a few of the River Cottage handbooks a few months ago and I’ve been dipping in and out of them since I received them as I’ve been growing veg – the subject of handbook 4 – and I’ve been learning to bake different kinds of bread – the subject of handbook 3. I’ve also been reading an old classic ‘The Richest Man in Babylon‘ and I’m half-way through Barack Obama’s ‘Dreams from my Father‘. Without realising it I’ve stretched my reading time rather thinly and I expect I may fail my new year’s challenge for a few months then rapidly catch up unless I can find more time with my now substantial stack of dead trees!
One thing’s for sure though, I’ve been reading a lot more this year so in a sense, even if I fail my challenge I will still achieve my goal!
