Plenty of travel in October, with trips to Turkey, Luxembourg and France, which normally means I get a lot of reading done, and yet I didn’t manage more than three books:
Democracy Awakening (Cox Richardson) – an important book, chartering the rise of fascism and autocracy in the US, and the fight against those ugly phenomena. 5/5
Gut (Enders) – a charming book about our innards. It’s not all shit. As it were. Funny and enlightening in the darkest of areas. 4/5
Invention and Innovation (Smil) – the author of “How the world really works” takes on innovations that never were, or never were as good as touted. Not nearly as good as HTWRW, but still erudite and interesting. 4/5
(The main reason I don’t have more books to report on is that I started on a whopper of a tome, 1260 pages long. I will continue on that while also reading shorter ones in parallel – if I don’t I risk having zero books read by the end of November…!)
What happened? One minute it’s still summer, the next autumn is in full swing. My September was marked by a return to work, which has thankfully been more relaxed than it was this spring, and a nice hiking vacation. However, neither is to blame for my poor track record in terms of reading – for that, I have two explanations (if not excuses): bad books and poor discipline.
I find it hard to keep reading if a book is underwhelming. Even just whelming books are a struggle, so I tend to leave off and move on to the next one. This month I decided to keep going regardless – which is a kind of discipline, I guess – but that also meant that I struggled to bring myself to read as regularly as I usually do. Other temptations suddenly became more alluring, and I spent altogether too much time death scrolling, playing Wordfeud…
Anyway. To sum up, I only got through two books this month, and here they are:
Antwerp – the Glory Years (Pye) – it’s a ramshackle account of the city in its heyday, taking a hodgepodge of events, describing them in oddly structured sentences, without any overarching structure, to compose the worst history book I’ve read in a long time. 1.5/5
More than you know (Mauboussin) – the subtitle is “finding financial wisdom in unconventional places”, and it is justified, in part. It could equally be “contriving to make connections where there ain’t really none to be had”. It’s not horrible, but it certainly isn’t as great as it is made out to be. 3/5
Meagre? Yes, perhaps, but I’m not a machine. I have to remind myself that I have already read 36 books this year, and can’t always keep the same pace. Besides, autumn beckons, and then winter is coming – good times for books. Stay tuned.
The Swedish Presidency of the EU came to a grand finale this month, with lots of work, controversies, trips abroad and high level meetings and summits – and a bizzare episode which saw me taking a whizz in a small bathroom while the Swedish prime minister was brushing his teeth over the sink next to me. Such are the vagaries of life as an interpreter, I suppose.
None of it distracted me from my reading, however. Four books made it onto my list this month:
Bad Science (Goldacre) – an eye opener on the shortcomings of media, Big Pharma, snake oil merchants and others with regard to how scientific data is used and abused. (4.5/5)
Dollars and Sense (Ariely) – on money management. I honestly cannot remember a single thing that this book taught me. The title is probably the best thing about it. (2/5)
The Art of Learning (Waitzkin) – an autobiography more than anything, it charters the author’s path from chess wunderkind to martial arts champion. Some interesting insights into meta learning. (3.5/5)
Pathogenesis (Kennedy) – This was gifted to me, and I loved it! How germs have shaped the course of history. Insightful, surprising, learned and easy to read – everything a book should be! (5/5)
And now, finally, holidays! Time to do some serious reading…! 😄
Well, it’s the first of June, and it feels like summer has been here for weeks already. I keep trying for four books per month in order to get one read every week, and I don’t quite manage every month, but this time I did. Hopefully long, light June evenings on the terrace will help me improve, but for now, here are the titles I read last month:
Poltava (Englund) – the first book I’ve read in Swedish for a while, and what magnificent Swedish! It describes the destruction of the Carolinian army in Ukraine in gory detail, but also provides a look at the psyche of people back in early 1700’s, and how foot soldiers can be made to make the ultimate sacrifice for little or no reason. Seemed topical. 4.5/5
Under the skin (Villarosa) – a harrowing, unflinching look at what it means to be Black/Brown in the US, specifically in regard to health care, and with special attention to the compounding effects of intersectionality. Not an easy read. I knew it was bad, but not that bad. 4/5
A Thousand Brains (Hawkins) – an interesting insight into the brain and how it functions, this also offers an exposé of what intelligence is, and what it can mean for our species. Fittingly, it’s thought-provoking. 4.5/5
Learning in the zone (Magana) – this book purports to describe habits of meta learning. It does not. This is the worst jumble of pseudo-scientific goobledigook I have ever had the bad luck of encountering. Awash with cryptically contorted nonsense-statements and with precious little on offer in terms of actual advice, this book serves one purpose only: providing a zero on the scale on which to measure good books. 0/5
Despite a lovely sojourn in Italy where I didn’t get any reading done, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I still managed my apparent quota of one book per week – and that’s not counting the three others I began but didn’t finish! Anyway, without further ado, here are my books of April:
Deep Work (Newport) – on the importance of putting in enough focused time and effort into any project in order to reap the most benefits. Ties in nicely with books like Discipline is Destiny and Learn Like A Pro. (4/5)
The startup of you (Hoffman) – no surprises concerning the content here; the author proposes to plan your life and work as if you were a startup company. Not a great book, but some lessons even so: It’s always Day 1. (3/5)
Learning how to learn (Oakley) – the second title I read by Oakley. I hadn’t realised it was aimed at kids, but regardless of that it isn’t as good as Learn Like A Pro, so I can’t recommend this, unless you have tweens. (2/5)
Doing Good Better (Macaskill) – an interesting title, written by the man who authored What We Owe The Future, who is also the co-founder of 80,000 Hours. It covers much the same territory as the latter, i.e. how best to spend your time and money, and provides a lot of food for thought. (4/5)
There you go. I’m going to branch out and try some other stuff in May – time to move away from all these do-things-better books, and into other areas. Here Be Dragons?!
March was busy, so I felt good about getting as much reading done as I did. I use the pomodoro method, planning my free time in chunks of 30 minutes, so I’ll spend 30 minutes walking/weeding/reading/playing the piano/whatever and then move on to something completely different – it works because you can do these things in a more focused manner this way than if you flutter back and forth between things. It, too, comes recommended. But I digress: this month’s books are
Colors (Finlay) – another cultural history book by a new-found favorite. Warmly recommended – as someone said, I was color-blind before I read this book! (4/5)
Mountains of the mind (Macfarlane) – one of the best natural history authors around, and somehow I had overlooked his first work. Brilliantly evocative, it explains the modern-day fascination with mountains and puts it into a historical context. (4.5/5)
Creativity (Cleese) – it’s a booklet rather than a book, but given that it is an interesting topic and is written by a comedic genius it is still worthwhile. 5/5 for quality, 2/5 for quantity – he could have put some more work into it.
And speaking of putting time in to work:
80,000 hours (Todd) takes its title from the amount of time a typical person has at their disposal during their career. This book discusses what constitutes your ideal career and how best to plan it. Interesting ideas and approaches to an oft overlooked decision-making process. (4/5)
Next month will be filled with hard work, travel and visitors, so we’ll see what happens, but I’m hopeful I’ll be able to stay the course; see you then.
This month I haven’t managed to read as much as last, but this is partially a good thing, because the books I have read have required slow, thoughtful reading – the kind where some sentences cause you to look out into infinity for a long time.
I started on several books, and at least one of them will be devoured in the fullness of time, but I will hold myself to my self-imposed rule and only report on the two I have finished in February, both by the same author, Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Wall Kimmerer is a botanist and expert on mosses, and she combines her scientific knowledge with a native American’s approach to the natural world, which is deeply touching. The first book by her that I read is called Gathering Moss (4/5), and is a collection of essays on all things moss-related. It is very poetic at times, and makes you want to bring a magnifying glass to otherwise forgotten corners of the garden. I learnt a great deal from it and would recommend it to anyone interested in nature, but it is the second title that hit me like an iron rod.
At 85 pages this is a booklet rather than a full-sized book, and yet The Democracy of Species (5/5) is very, very powerful. It is one of those books that, like The Inner Life of Animals, I will carry with me for a long time, hopefully forever. The message is that Western culture, through the way in which our thinking and our language turns matter and animals into objects, has reduced nature to resources to be exploited, rather than intricate pieces in a vast, interconnected net of subjects, all bound together by our reciprocal gifts to one another. The concept of the Honorable Harvest, where you take only what is offered, and give something in return, is a practical reflection of what an alternative – and truly sustainable – approach looks like.
It is a title that I will buy over and over again, to gift to anyone and everyone, as it is the embodiment of perhaps the most important message of all. Read it.
So instead of rattling off all the books in one go at the end of the year, which isn’t inductive to readability for you, nor encouraging me to stay on track, I figured I’d report on my reading once per month. So without further ado, these are the titles that took me through a rather soggy and dark January:
Women I think of at night (Kankimäki) – an antology of biographies on various impressive women, all role models to the author. The biographies are interesting, the author’s autobiographical musings less so. (3.5/5)
Zero to One (Thiel) – an innovative entrepreneur’s world view. Quite inspiring and readable, even if it’s not super-relatable all the time – unless you’re Elon Musk, in which case I want to go to the moon. (3.5/5)
The magic of thinking big (Schwartz) – an old book, which shows in part, but the message is as eternally important as ever. (4/5)
Jewels – a secret history (Finlay) – after her book on fabrics I had high hopes for this. I wasn’t disappointed. Anecdotes and facts akimbo – a real gem! (4.5/5)
And that’s it. Don’t suppose I can keep up the rate of one book per week, but I will try. Do let me know if you read any of the titles!
Last year was a year of reading for me. Specifically non fiction, to learn more about any and all things. Terentius, African slave and later Roman playwright claimed that “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto“, or “I am human, and I think nothing human is alien to me.” I’m not quite there, yet, but what better way to ensure that changes than to read? So, without further ado, here are some mini reviews of the (rest of the) books I read last year:
Monuments Men (Edsel) – the story of the men who saved untold treasures from the Nazi looting effort towards the end of World War II. A little fragmented but interesting. (3/5)
Nonviolent Communication (Rosenberg) – took a while to get into (very Merkin) but it’s a classic on the topic for obvious reasons. (5/5)
A Life on our Planet (Attenborough) – harrowing and profound, inimitable and joyful. As autobiographies go, they don’t get better. (5/5)
Remarkable trees (Harrison) – a run-through of exotic and astonishing trees with lovely illustrations. (4/5)
The Golden Atlas (Brooke-Hitching) – various stories about maps, map makers and the explorers that filled in the blanks. Very interesting. (4/5)
Human Compatible (Russell) – Artificial intelligence and how to ensure it doesn’t go Skynet on us. (4/5)
Pixar storytelling (Movshovitz) – a schematic of what makes Pixar movies great. (3/5)
Undaunted Courage (Ambrose) – Lewis and Clark’s expedition across the American continent retraced. (3/5)
All of the Marvels (Wolk) – The entire Marvel universe analyzed – all 200 gazillion pages. 2/5 unless you are a super fan, then 4/5.
Citizen Soldiers (Ambrose) – Band of Brothers but covering many more people – and a little less interesting for it. (4/5)
Life 3.0 (Tegmark) A.I. and humanity and how to make them compatible, take 2. (4/5)
How the world really works (Smil) – a cold, hard look at the world. A good companion piece to Attenborough. (5/5)
Map stories (Matteoli) – similar to the Golden Atlas, but suffers from poor translation. (3/5)
T Pratchett: a life with footnotes (Wilkins) – the P.A. of Pratchett tells of the latter’s sad demise. 4/5 if you’re a fan – and otherwise, what’s the point?
Quid Pro Quo (Jones) – erudite run-through of how much Latin still influences modern languages. (5/5)
Eureka! (Jones) – ditto for Greek (4.5/5)
Learn like a pro (Oakley/Schewe) – tips and trick to get better at studying. (4/5)
The secret lives of garden bees (Vernon) – cute book about all those other bees that also need protecting. (3/5)
Discipline is destiny (Holiday) – very good book on how to structure your life in order to achieve more. (5/5)
Playing with FIRE (Rieckens) – one couple’s quest to get financially independent and retire early. (3/5)
Veni Vidi Vici (Jones) – how the Roman world still influences us. (4/5)
The world of ice and fire (Martin) – not strictly non fiction, but written like a history of Westeros. Monumental. 4/5 if you’re a big fan, otherwise maybe don’t.
Fabric (Finlay) – the cultural history of various kinds of cloth. More interesting than it sounds. (4/5)
And there you have it. I hope there’s something of interest there, and if not, feel free to point me in the direction of books you think I should read. I have every intention of keeping up this habit, so tips are always welcome!
One of my ambitions for this year was to read at least 25 books of non-fiction. I figure that exercise works on the brain much like on any other muscle – push it, and it will develop. So, in order to encourage others to follow the Way of the Librarian, here is a short overview of the books I’ve read thus far this year:
Life Leverage (Moore) – a self help book to get more out of life, based on efficiency, a creative mindset and economies of scale. Quite good, actually. 4/5
Consider This (Palahniuk) – Palahniuk is an extraordinary writer, and this book on writing doesn’t disappoint. 4/5
Take a Thru Hike (Mills) – on the joys (and tribulations) of long distance hiking. Not great. 3/5
Awol on the Appalachian Trail (Miller) – a personal account of thru hiking the AT. Not in the same league as A Walk in the Woods, although it covers the same ground. 😉 3/5
Leaders Eat Last (Sinek) – I like his TED talks, but his books are not reaching the same heights, to my mind. Still good. 4/5
The Emperor (Kapuscinski) – fascinating eye witness accounts of life in Ethiopia under the last emperor. 4.5/5
Shah of Shahs (Kapuscinski) – similar concept to The Emperor, but set in Persia/Iran, and unfortunately not as complete. 3.5/5
Utopia for realists (Bregman) – a look at ways in which to reinvent society to better cope with our new reality. Thought-provoking. 5/5
A Burglar’s Guide to the City (Manaugh) – written by an architect, I loved the idea of getting into burglars’ mindsets, but unfortunately the author doesn’t quite deliver. 3/5
Walking the Bowl (Lockhart) – an account of street life in Losaka, Zambia. Horrid, and unputdownable. 5/5
When we cease to understand the world (Labatut) – a somewhat fictionalized account of some of the greatest brains of our time, and their achievements. Fascinating, but would have been better without the fictionalization. 4.5/5
So there it is. An eclectic mixture, but mostly enthralling stuff – to me at least. Hope something on the list speaks to you as well, gentle reader. Oh, and none of this affiliated sales crap – I just put in links in case you wanted to head straight to the book store. I don’t stand to earn a penny from this. Eek!
Last year was a good year for reading (if nothing else). If you couldn’t work/travel/see people for real, at least you could encounter other worlds/perspectives/minds through the medium of the written word. And so I did. Here are some of the best ones I read, in no particular order:
Mindf*ck – Cambridge Analytica and the plot to break America (Wylie): the very scary story of how Brits and Americans were manipulated into supporting Brexit and Trump. A must read.
The Popes (Norwich): A concise history of all the incumbents who ever had the job of CEO of the most powerful organisation the world has ever seen.
Being a beast (Foster): The author immerses himself in the world of various animals – foxes, deer, otters, badgers and swallows – and tries to live life as they do. Odd but mesmerizing.
The hidden life of trees (Wohlleben): Reading this man’s take on the inner life of animals made me a vegetarian. While not quite as good this is still an astonishing book.
Waterlog (Deakin): One man’s quest to swim the different waters of Britain, this is an ode to the element, and a cultural history of the land to boot.
The wild places (MacFarlane): In search of wilderness in the British isles. Similar in many ways to Deakin’s book, it comes as no surprise that the two authors were friends.
The history of England, part 1 (Harrison): covers the period from the ice age to 1600. Very well written. I read it in Swedish but I believe it’s been translated.
Creating a forest garden (Crawford): While I have some quibbles with the content (or lack thereof) there is no doubt this book influenced me more than anything else I read this year.
Animal, vegetable, miracle (Kingsolver): Horrible title and cover design, but the quest of one family to be locavores (eating locally produced food) for a year is as eye-opening as it is heart-warming.
Gardens of the world – two thousand years of garden design (Pigeat): garden porn at its finest. If you’re not inspired to design landscapes after reading this I don’t know that you ever will be.
Economix – how our economy works (and doesn’t work) (Goodwin): If someone had told me I’d find a comic book about economics interesting I would have laughed, but I did. And it made me laugh, too.
Baustilkunde – alle Epoken und Stile (Reid): If you can’t travel, this books still lets you see all the architectural styles in the world. It’s part cultural history, part house porn, plus the drawings are fantastic.
How to draw (Spicer): I picked this up in London in January – little did I expect that I would find myself with so much time to practice, but what an excellent teacher it would turn out to be.
So there you go. An eclectic mix, and hopefully something for everyone. Whichever one of these you pick up I guarantee they will enrich your lives – and that’s not something you can say of many things. Happy reading!
I always try to sum up the year that was. This time around, it’s both easier and more difficult than usual. Easier, because life has been reduced to the bare essentials in many respects, and more difficult because… well, you know.
Corona/covid came out of nowhere and walloped the world in the face, and the world responded by reeling around like a clown as it tried to come to terms with this new reality.
As the illness went from being an underreported event in a far-flung place to conquering the world, masks became ever more commonplace, as did questions about Sweden’s approach to Covid, which I felt supremely unqualified to answer. Social distancing was the catch phrase on everyone’s (hidden) lips, and then Lockdown was a reality. The inherent flaws of humanity (Loo Roll Riots) and its capacity for empathy (daily Healthcare Applause) were on full display.
In our case the kids and their mom went on holiday to northern Italy in February, just when things got started there, so they had to quarantine before most people. Throughout spring the kids struggled with isolation, an entirely new work interface, and teachers who seemingly had no notion of the burden they were placing on their wards. Luckily for us, there was little work for interpreters, because there was no infrastructure in place to hold large multilingual conferences via internet, so we could help the kids with their transition to distance schooling.
Summer holidays were different, shall we say. Having struggled to even get to Sweden, we isolated as best we could. Whether rafting with the kids and my sister and her family, or kayaking with my brother, I slept outdoors pretty much the whole time – either in a tent or in a hammock slung between a couple of trees. It was lovely, but very brief, as I didn’t get all the leave I asked for (in spite of there being absolutely zero work, my employer insisted on having people on standby…), meaning I had to return to Belgium, where I was forced to self-isolate, and so couldn’t work anyway, of course.
Instead, my mind turned to all the things I had been contemplating doing for a long time, and hadn’t got around to. August saw me take on a flurry of projects: getting solar panels installed, buying a hybrid car, getting bees, planning a swimming pond, constructing a duck house, volunteering at a wildlife rescue center, getting an e-bike, making jams and juice and canning fruit and sauces. It was good.
Then September came around, and a return to school and work, but not as we knew it. School was a strange hybrid, work even more so. Even after more than half a year, both organizations were clearly struggling to come to terms with the new parameters. There was still precious little work for me, so I planned on going to the French alps for a week of paragliding. It wasn’t to be. La rentree had the predictable effect of making cases surge again, and I had to stay home. This was a blessing in disguise, as our beloved cat Misty suddenly died; had I gone I wouldn’t have been there to bury her and grieve her passing with the kids – a poignant reminder of how many people lost loved ones without being able to be there! As it was we buried her in her favorite spot in the garden on the last day of summer. She left a painfully large void in all our lives.
And so we struggled on. Like everyone else we have tried to cope as best we can. In many ways we have been incredibly lucky, in that no one in our family has died from Covid. We still have our jobs. We haven’t been too affected by the many nasty (and under-reported) side effects of Lockdown and isolation, such as domestic violence, depression, substance abuse (ok, fine, sugar consumption levels have been too high). The garden has been an oasis and a constant source of joy.
It does sort of seem like a lost year in some ways, but at the same time I feel very strongly that the world needed this enforced pause to stop and take stock and reflect on where we go from here. I have certainly done so. And even though my ambitions for this year were largely knocked sideways, I have still managed to fulfill some of them: apart from the projects already mentioned I reconnected with old friends and made new ones – you know who you are! – and I did have some fantastic adventures in spite of the limits on travel. Forced to stay at home I did read a lot more than I otherwise would, and played a ton of piano – ninety-nine more years of solitude and I might even get good at it…
So there you go. A year like no other. Some good things, mixed in with a LOT of crap. But this, too, shall pass. Vaccines are coming, the Trump era is hopefully nearing its end (and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want to see him and his cronies go to prison!), and maybe, just maybe, we can build a better world on the ruins of this one*. If there is one thing that this year has instilled in me, it’s the need for everyone to pitch in and do what has to be done in order for all to prosper.
Here’s to making sure that things improve in 2021!
*Of course, we probably have not seen the last of it yet. Trump declaring martial law in 2021 seems unlikely but then so did Brexit in 2015, and now we have Russian oligarchs buying lordships in the House of Lords even as the country prepares to hurl itself into the abyss.
As one of my resolutions for this year I set out to read more non-fiction, and I did – even though many of the books in the original pile didn’t get read for some reason. Amongst the books I did read, the following stand out (in the order my eyes happened to fall on them on the bookshelf):
Recovery (Brand): Russell lends his own mix of philosophy and humour to the AA brand of addiction overcoming.
Homo Deus (Harari): a mind-boggling exposé of the past, present and future of the human race.
Prisoners of geography (Marshall): How landscapes determine the political efforts of nations. An eye opener.
Through a window (Goodall): chimps, and what they teach us about humanity.
Hjärnstark (Hansen): On the paramount importance of ensuring a healthy body to accommodate a healthy brain.
Bird by bird (Lamott): lessons in writing and life, drawn from a life of writing.
Thinking, fast and slow (Kahneman): possibly the best book this year; how rational are we, really? Mind: boggled.
Underland (Macfarlane): this man has written several books I wish I had written. This is probably his best.
Touching cloudbase (Currer): not necessarily the best book I’ve read, but essential if you want to learn paragliding.
—-
So there. Something in there for everyone, I hope. For every one of these I have probably acquired two more, so I will keep this challenge for next year, too. Join me, maybe? #onenonfictionbookpermonth
One of my intentions for this year is to read more non-fiction. Fiction is a different matter – if one of my favourite authors publishes a new book I will read it, simple as that – but non-fiction I have to make a concerted effort to take on.
And yet I find reading non-fiction is the best way of educating yourself, so it tallies well with my ambition to improve intellectually. To quote a colleague who is something of a renaissance man: “I just want to make sense of the world”.
To this end I have a number of books that I’ve ordered (as seen above), on religion, personal efficiency, investment philosophy, human society and contemporary politics, plus a book on rhetorics (in the shape of famous speeches). That should see me through most of the year, but if you have any must-reads that you want to recommend, don’t be shy! I look forward to your suggestions, and will come back with reviews in due time.
I was thinking about what I want to try to achieve in 2018 when I came across some good advice that really resonated with me. If I have failed to reach my goals in the past, it’s nearly always been because I haven’t made sure they were S.M.A.R.T. – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. So that shall be my credo for 2018: be smart about what tasks I set myself.
The fundamentals haven’t changed: I want to develop as a person, intellectually and physically, by testing my limits, working diligently and hard towards certain goals, and I want to travel to see the world and broaden my horizons, ensuring that by the end of the year I can look back and see progress and time well spent.
So: smart intellectual challenges – the ones I’ve worked on for a couple of years now still remain the same: I want to read more non-fiction, get better at piano, French, and chess. That’s not very specific, tho, so measuring progress will be key; I need targets I can quantify. One book per month. One new piece of music learnt every two months. One hundred French words per month. And as for chess… well, getting a rating of 1400 before the end of the year would be an easily measurable goal, if not necessarily that easily attainable. (I’m hovering around the 1300-mark as I’m writing this…). Plus I will note down every half hour spent on each activity, thus keeping a tally for accountability purposes.
So I’ve got all of those down to an A.R.T. Physical challenges are a little different, mainly because of the uncertainty I’m living with at the moment, so for 2018, I have decided to change tack a little. For my first challenge in January I will do a runstreak. Running every day will hopefully allow me to rebuild what was damaged in the accident in November. If that goes to plan, Paris marathon in April will be another milestone on the road to recovery, and if that goes well I’ll sign up for either another ultra marathon, or a full length Ironman. Or both.
Alas, there are too many unknowns at this stage for me to know if I will be able to run such distances again, but if I can, then a total of 1500k each of running and biking seem attainable goals overall. At least I know I can bike, so if running is out then I’m doubling that number for biking (and only watching Netflix while on the stationary bike will kill two birds with one stone – limiting my Netflix binging AND encouraging more time in the saddle!).
Weights have never been anything but a complement to my other workouts – now more so than ever as I try to strengthen my weak leg – but again, if I find I don’t recover my running capacity, I will focus more on getting strong/building muscle. Having always been skinny it would be interesting to see if I could actually muscle up.
As for swimming, I want to learn how to crawl properly! At present I can hardly do one length in the pool, and even though I managed the Ironman 70.3 anyway it would be nice to shave off five or ten minutes from that time, so learning how to crawl at least a kilometre is another challenge.
I will be working more in 2018 than I have for a decade, which will hopefully have the dual effect of giving me the opportunity to take on more interesting work on the job, and allowing me a bigger travel budget, as, happily, my children have said they want to travel more with me, so that will affect what trips I take this year.
2018 promises an Arab spring once more, as I’m going back to Morocco in January and have another trip to Egypt in February (with the kids). I have a week of holidays in March that I don’t know what to do with yet – downhill skiing would be nice, but again it’s dependent on me making a complete recovery. I want to go back to Spain and get a fully-fledged paragliding pilot’s licence. Hiking in Iceland would be lovely, the last part of Bergslagsleden still beckons, and I want to do at least one journey further afield – maybe watching the great sardine run in South Africa? Or taking the kids to the US? There’s no shortage of possibilities.
Other challenges: I wouldn’t mind doing more for the environment. This could involve installing geothermal heating in the house, keeping hens for eggs, joining a wind power collective or other changes. One thing I do know I want to try is becoming a vegetarian. At least for a month.
Not eating any sugar in any shape or form may be another challenge, and limiting my social media intake to half an hour per day wouldn’t be a bad idea either.
And of course I want to continue building my blog, writing about my experiences for the joy of writing, but also as a living testament to what I do with my life when I don’t have my kids. Hopefully my readership will continue to grow, but that is less important. If I can inspire only two people, that is more than enough for me.
Here’s to a S.M.A.R.T.er future!
P.S. All this goes out the window if I were to get my dream job, of course… 😄
It’s fair to say the year ended on a bum note. Things don’t always go as planned. But what of the rest of the year? Time to look back and reflect on what went according to plan, and what didn’t.
But for the butt injury, I might have had a sporting chance at reaching my distance goals for running and biking (averaging a marathon distance per week for each), but realistically that was too much. I did do that much on average when at home, but traveling got in the way, and that lowered total mileage significantly. Need to set more realistic goals, especially with next year’s runstreak requiring time every day.
I did my first ever triathlon – an Ironman 70.3, and the result was better than I had hoped. Still not sure whether a full-length one is worth the trouble, but maybe… saying I did half-something jars my soul!
I didn’t lift weights, swim or do yoga anywhere near as much as I had planned. I did some, but found it difficult to fit it all into my routine. Will have to find another balance to make it all work. And actually learn how to swim.
So much for fitness. I didn’t read as much non-fiction as I would have liked, but what I read was good. I’ve played a lot of chess and piano, and studied French, too, but I’m still not sure how to measure progress here. I know I am progressing, but how to tell? The system of dividing up the day into half hours to ensure that things get done works, at least, so I will continue doing that. And only watching Netflix when I’m on the stationary bike will kill two birds with one stone…!
Travels and challenges, then? I certainly travelled a lot, and two themes emerged: island hopping around Africa, covering Pemba, Mallorca, and Madeira (following on from Malta), and hiking in the alps in France, Bavaria and Sweden (ok, so we don’t have alps, but parts of Bergslagsleden were really hilly!). Add to that the two(!) trips to Andalusia – once to see Alhambra, and once to learn how to paraglide – and a nice long weekend in Paris, and you have what I would deem a pretty good year of wanders. More of that, please.
Lest I forget, the year has brought some wonderful new people into my life, as eclectic a bunch of characters as one can hope for: an Argentinian telenovela starlet in Tanzania, a Scottish philosopher in Spain, my own personal stalker, a Phillipina philanthropist, a Swedish ultrarunner in Amsterdam… in fact, if I were to write a book about them all it would probably seem outlandish, which brings me to my last point: this blog.
I’ve continued to write throughout the year, about everything and anything, from great tits to particle accelerators, and my readership is steadily increasing (visitors up 25% (to 2800+) and views up 50% (to 5500+) at the time of writing), something for which I’m immensely grateful! It’s humbling to foist your words on people and have them not only actually read them but also come back for more. So thank you, dear reader. I hope you have enjoyed the ride this far.
It was 9/11 yesterday. The real 9/11. Trump was elected president. Yet another example of a populist playing on people’s fears and base instincts, but this one now with the power to change the course of history at a pivotal time, crucial for our species’ survival. A denier of climate change. An ingoramous, flaunting human rights and lacking in fundamental decency. The prospect is a grim one.
The only thing I can see that would have made a difference is education. Learning more about the world around you gives you new perspectives, new insights. It’s the responsibility of each and every human to learn as much as they possibly can, and in doing so, exercise critical thinking, the better to withstand the base appeal of trumped-up alpha baboons offering simplistic solutions (or even just sound bites) to complex problems.
I can’t shape education policies anywhere much – beyond the local school – but I can at least try to lead by example. As a birthday present to myself I bought ten books that were recommended by TED lecturers; I figured it was as good a way as any to discover titles that I would otherwise never read. Add to that five books that were gifted to me, and you have fifteen (mostly) non-fictional works that I will attempt to read before the end of the year. 50 days, 15 books, equals one book every 3,33 days.
Tall order? Yes, but I’m going to try even so. Imagine a world in which every single adult read a new work of non-fiction every three days – how much of a chance do you think the Donalds, Le Pens and Borises of the world would have then? Imagine the quantum leap in human understanding, the as-yet untapped potential that might be unleashed for the greater good of humanity.
Remember New Year’s Eve? And the resolutions you made way back then? It’s hard to believe, but the year is more than halfway over already, so it’s high time to have a look at how you’re fairing in regard to these promises – most likely they have fallen by the wayside already, long forgotten – but since I made a commitment to myself (and you) to report back occasionally on how I’m fairing, I will do so, even though – or perhaps precisely because – the results are less than fantastic.
I set out to improve intellectually and physically, and to go on adventures and challenge myself. To ensure that I did so I set myself clear, measurable targets, so how am I doing in relation to those?
In a word: poorly. At least on the intellectual side of things. I haven’t read more than very few books, my attempts at taking piano lessons were foiled by too much travelling, my efforts learning French came to a halt after two months (during which I did learn rather more words and phrases than I had thought possible, but still).
Improving my general fitness level is an area where I have been a lot more successful. Even though I have cycled nothing like as much as I thought I would do, and swum less, I have managed to work out a lot (as evidenced by a nice lady doctor asking spontaneously if I was an athlete of some sort only yesterday(!)). I’ve logged 160 workouts in the first six months of the year, or slightly below one workout per day nine days out of ten. I’ve run two marathons, both well below four hours, and I’m hopeful I will manage Ultravasan and its 90 kilometres come August. Who knows? I might even be reduced to swimming and biking afterwards instead of running, as a result…
On the other hand, my diet hasn’t been anywhere near as strict as I had planned – perhaps precisely because I had no concrete target in mind there. If anything I have been too indulgent, especially in allowing myself too much alcohol, so that’s something to improve upon in the second half of the year, as well.
So far, so-so impressive. Travels, adventures and challenges, then? Well, I did go for a refresher dive at Nemo33 in January, then went skiing in Sweden in February, and to Thailand to dive in March. April I got a new job part time, which wasn’t planned but must count as a new adventure, and May saw me hike Mallorca with my brother, which was quite the challenge – not because of him, I hasten to add! Then in June I explored Luxembourg, and this month I’ve taken the kids kayaking in the Ardennes, and gone to Edinburgh for a quick visit, so overall my track record isn’t too bad, even though I feel it lacks in challenges.
So what to make of all this? Reinforced efforts in terms of reading, playing the piano and learning French; more diverse workout schedule; better food and drink habits; more adventurous adventures and challenging challenges (and trippy trips? No.).
Lined up next: London with the kids, then two weeks without them (good time to improve diet and spend time playing piano/reading/studying, putting good habits in place) before going to Sweden and making final preparations for Ultravasan. After that I’ve got nothing planned apart from a few days in Lugano, as a post-race (re)treat, and then school starts and the rat race recommences. If experience shows anything, it’s that it’s time to start planning autumn now. Maybe that Ironman? Or a climbing course? Or something else entirely…?
Most people’s resolutions for the New Year flounder by February. Actually, most resolutions probably find themselves stillborn on January 1st, but even for those people who do honestly try to effectuate change in their lives, habits die hard, and so I figure it is high time I conducted a health check on my ambitions for 2016 and see what happened to them.
If you recall (and even if you don’t, never fear – all is revealed just one click from here), I set out to improve myself in terms of physique and skills and experiences and whatnot. My idea was to have specific targets for each of these areas, the better to be able to track my progress. So how have I fared thus far?
In terms of improving mentally and intellectually, I have been playing more piano than before, and I have been taking lessons, even though these were temporarily disrupted by my teacher moving to Vienna. I’m not sure I can claim to have played 30 minutes per day, though. I listened to the theme from The Piano and didn’t take to it, so am looking for alternative pieces to learn – Claire de Lune is the current front runner, but suggestions are welcome.
On the other hand I have been diligently studying French, and have accumulated a total of 506 words and phrases thus far, which is a lot more than I would have thought. Have I learnt them all? Not yet, but using CardsOnGo on my iPhone has proven to be a really good method, as I can pick it up whenever I have a moment of downtime and go through my lists. To be recommended.
I’ve only read two non-fiction books thus far this year. I experimented with audiobooks, but found the medium not much to my liking – possibly due to having to wear headsets all day at work – so have gone back to analogue books now, and am ploughing through Bill Bryson’s latest even now (I’m writing this in between chapters).
Staying healthy and getting fitter made up the second chapter in my to do-list. I can’t say I have been wholly successful in staying away from alcohol, as it seems intrinsically linked with going out – something I’ve been doing more of this year, too – but I have stayed away from carbs and sugar for the most part, at least.
Working out is an area that’s been, well, working out well for me so far this year. Even with a week of no physical activity whatsoever due to a persistent cold, I have managed to notch up 69 workouts over 70 days, which is a LOT. It’s been mainly running and strength training, as I had the marathon in Barcelona looming last weekend, but I’m hopeful that biking and swimming will enter more prominently into the equation as the weather improves.
Finally, my ambition was to go on adventures and/or experience something new every month. January saw me go diving down to 30 metres in Nemo33, but in February I didn’t find anything new to do. I did take the children skiing in Sweden, which turned out to be more adventurous than we would have wanted, as one of their cousins fell and broke her leg, but it wasn’t a new experience as such*. All the more reason to look forward to Thailand next weekend!
In conclusion then, I don’t think I’ve been doing too bad so far. Some things haven’t materialised quite as I imagined them, but I’m on track, at least. After all, a map can never fully predict a path, merely point out its direction and features more or less accurately. I will be back with more updates later on.
———
*Having said that, I doubt even Scott (of ill-fated polar expedition fame) had to coax and cajole his companions into pushing on as much as I and my brother-in-law did when stuck on a wind-whipped slope far from the cottage as the sun started to set on day one. Then again, if his fellow explorers had been ages seven to ten and he had promised them unlimited access to iThings once home, I dare say they would have overcome any obstacle.
As one of 
I was thinking about what I want to try to achieve in 2018 when I came across 
It’s fair to say the year ended on 
Remember New Year’s Eve? And the 