Primeval: Extinction Event

This book by Dan Abnett is set in the brilliant world of that old ITV show Primeval - which if you never saw, oh boy were you missing out. It was ridiculous. Though this is only the second-best dinosaur novel I've read recently (sorry Dan, but you just edged out on beating the classic) it is still a thoroughly good novel. The characters are sketched perfectly so it feels just like you're watching the show; the plot is outstandingly well-paced, full of suspense and twists and the page-equivalent of jump-scares; the dinosaurs themselves are smelly and believable. Like most books based on TV shows from over a decade ago this will probably be quite hard to get your hands on, but if you like prehistoric beast-driven mayhem, sneaky Russians, and hard-nosed English paleontologists flailing to keep it all together - you'll almost certainly like this.

Magos

This book is the fourth instalment of Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn saga, comprising a novel and several short stories; I already did a fairly recent post about it but yeh I'm re-reading all his stuff. No regrets.

Ravenor Rogue

Dan Abnett's third Ravenor novel. I am somewhat regretting redoing all these posts; I could have just let it suffice to re-read them all without tooting my horn about it.

Ravenor Returned

Dan Abnett's second Ravenor novel. You know the drill. 

Ravenor

This book is the first of Dan Abnett's Ravenor trilogy. Same deal as the Eisenhorn re-reads.

Hereticus

This book is the third in Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn series - is this a bit self-indulgent? I mean, I already read this whole trilogy only a couple of years ago and then I'd marked the whole trilogy as one book, because it's in one volume. Ech, if I can justify splitting Lord of the Rings into seven, I can split this into three.

Malleus

This book is the second instalment in Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy - as you can probably tell from this flurry of posts, I'm rereading all of his books because last year gave me a real taste for rereading stuff I like.

Xenos

This book is the first in Dan Abnett's Eisenhorn trilogy - which I already read quite recently, so I'll not say anything about it here. Just wanted to note it to keep my numbers up.

2021 overview

This past year I read thirty-nine books - my weakest year since 2016, for which I have no real excuses. Especially since quite a lot of what I was reading this year was essentially re-reading of stuff I've read before. Anyway, let's get into a breakdown of some of the good (and otherwise) shit I got my way through.

• Been reading it my whole life but finally did it cover-to-cover - the Bible
• the whole Darren Shan vampire saga
• the whole Harry Potter series
• Numerous Tolkien works including The Hobbit, Tales from the Perilous Realm, and the Lord of the Rings
• Two lovely little Philip Larkin books - High Windows and Whitsun Weddings
• A classic that shaped our modern view of Satan - Paradise Lost
• E. F. Schumacher's philosophical magnum opus - A Guide for the Perplexed
• Some of the best and weirdest mystical poetry ever - William Blake
• Possibly one of my favourite religious texts ever - Chuang Tzu
• Some very edifying sermons about biblical wisdom - Charles Spurgeon on Proverbs
• A delicate, harrowing novel about love, loss & hate - Rebecca
• Finally a gutsy, explosive novel about capitalistic hubris - Jurassic Park

That's it from me for now - watch this space to see what I manage to read in 2022. Hopefully more stuff, especially more from a diversity of authors, particularly ones I've not read before.

Peace & love

Isaac Stovell

Charles Spurgeon's sermons on Proverbs

This isn't so much a book as it is a collection (available from that link as a pdf - free) of sermons, by the great Victorian preacher Charles Spurgeon, on the biblical wisdom book of Proverbs; I've been devotionally reading it one sermon at a time along with my dad for over a year. Rather than working meticulously through the whole book, Spurgeon selects one or two proverbs from each chapter and reflectively spins these out into biblically-rich, theologically-sound and spiritually-edifying sermons. He manages to walk a fine line incredibly well indeed - both developing the inner concepts of the proverbs to demonstrate their wisdom, and extrapolating from them ways that such wisdom can and should lead us deeper into the realities of the gospel. He was very clearly an amazing preacher and thus is in my view deserving of his reputation; erudite in his speech yet accessible to common language and sensibility. The "Victorian-ness" of the prose is a minor gripe but read aloud, as me and my dad did, this evaporates; you are left with Spurgeon in all his intellectual heft weaving points and leading you into Christian exhortation. While I can't definitively say so, I strongly suspect most of his other sermons to be of equal value, and loads of them are online - so check them out. If you're particularly interested in the gospel-centred application of Solomonic wisdom, check this one out specifically.

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

This book is the final instalment of J.K. Rowling's series. The reason I have said so little about these books in my posts is that the franchise is so ubiquitous that it seems redundant to offer an explanation. Also I'm not going to give a lengthy chunk of reflection on "separating the art from the artist" when it turns out that the author of a series I enjoyed quite a lot as a kid (hence my recent rereading of it - I wanted to see if it was as good as I remember) has committed herself tooth-and-nail to making life painful for trans folks; my reason for not doing this is that Jessie Gender has already done it very thoroughly.* Weirdly for such a self-proclaimed defender of women, this doesn't seem to have filtered through to JK's female characters, as Caroline Easom elucidates (she also has a very long video breaking down the thirty characters who teach children the worst lessons). Moreover, I'm not going to dissect all the problematic elements in the books themselves, because hoots has already done that perfectly (see too - Ember Green also covers its ableism) - and I'm not even going to complain about how the magical franchise has morphed into a grotesquely needless corporate behemoth, since verilybitchie has that covered - nor even the reasonable assertion that the series isn't even that original, as Caelan Conrad explains, or even the far more in-depth critique that Sheep In The Box has done, not to mention the worldbuilding problems. If you're curious, yes I did enjoy rereading them, but I was also far more aware of ways in which they kind of suck more than its fandom gives it credit for. To wrap up I'll leave you with Ursula K. Le Guin's reaction to reading the first one: “I read it to find out what the fuss was about, and remained somewhat puzzled; it seemed a lively kid’s fantasy crossed with a school novel, good fare for its age group, but stylistically ordinary, imaginatively derivative, and ethically rather mean-spirited.” I don't think I'm likely to ever feel the need to revisit this series, so I'm giving all seven to my Hungarian friend who is weirdly obsessed with the stories but has never read the actual books.

* I know I'm linking a LOT of YouTube video essays in this post but honestly the great folks of leftist YouTuber communities have done far more to dissect all that is wrong with Harry Potter far more than I could hope to. I'll unapologetically keep editing this post to add new ones when I stumble across them.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

This book is the sixth in J.K. Rowling's series.

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

This book is the fifth, and in my opinion the best, of J.K. Rowling's series.

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

This book is number four in J.K. Rowling's series.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

This book is the third in J.K. Rowling's children's fantasy series.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

This book is the second in J.K. Rowling's very famous series.

Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

This book is the first in J.K. Rowling's series, and it needs no introduction or explanation. So I won't give you either.