Reading log - zerosleeps

May 2025

Babel

R.F. Kuang
★★★☆☆

A recommendation from a friend 😏 It took me ages to get through this one. It had some properly thought-provoking ideas, but it had too many of them so as a result nothing was properly explored. It kept turning in directions I didn’t expect though which I always enjoy, so it gets a star for that at least.

Also it has footnotes? A fictional story with fictional footnotes?? No. No no.

March 2025

Project Hail Mary

Andy Weir
★★★★★

Sixth read. I could feel my love of reading waning after the last book so I reached for an old friend.

I’m Starting to Worry About This Black Box of Doom

Jason Pargin
★★★☆☆

Good grief this was a long book that took me ages to get through. Always fun enough to keep me interested though. There were a few long-winded monologues that perhaps could have been cut. Thought provoking in a pointing-out-the-obvious kind of way.

February 2025

Milk

Matthew Evans
Abandoned

I got fed up reading lists of what is and is not in milk. Was hoping it would be more about the production and distribution of milk.

January 2025

The Examiner

Janice Hallett
★★★☆☆

This was on track for an easy 4-stars until about 80% of the way through, at which point it kind of went off the rails and lost me. Up until then I was enjoying the storytelling method and the twists, but it ended up feeling more complicated and far-fetched than it needed to be.

Casino Royale

Ian Fleming
★★★☆☆

Decent beginning, exciting middle, but the final third was repetitive and unsatisfying.

The Martian

Andy Weir
★★★★★

As is tradition around here, starting the year by reading my favouritest of all time 🙂

A Voyage Around The Queen

Craig Brown
★★★★☆

A good title - loads of stories of stuff that happened around the queen. A behind-the-scenes, if you will. Good fun.