Reading log, first half of 2026
Not a list of recommendations. Just what I got through, and whether it stayed with me.
Two novels I finished quickly and have already half forgotten, which is fine — that is what trains are for. One history of shipping containers that I expected to abandon by chapter three and instead read twice. It is the kind of book where the boring subject turns out to be the whole story: everything about how things get to you was decided by a box.
One I gave up on at page ninety. I used to feel bad about this. Now I keep a note of the page number and the reason, and the reason is almost always the same: the author had one idea and the book was three hundred pages long.
Giving up at ninety is cheaper than giving up at two hundred and ninety, and I have never regretted the ninety.
Currently halfway through something on medieval bridge building. Slow going, but the diagrams are worth it on their own.
Rough count for the half year: nine finished, three abandoned. Better than last year, mostly because I stopped reading in bed and started reading before breakfast.