Thoughts on 2021
It’s tempting to write 2021 off as ‘2020 Part Two’. It’s also easy to look at next year with a sense of dread, for the events of 2022, I suspect, will echo those of this year. However, I for one am looking forward to some aspects of the new year, most notably the release of my mod The Apocalypse.
The Apocalypse has been in development for around 2 years at this point. It has changed quite a lot in that time – I look at the rough story outline I wrote in March 2020 and it bears only a passing resemblance to what I have now.
Is the mod any good? Well, time will tell. I generally go through phases with my mods – I like them, I release them, then I turn against them before finally coming round to usually mostly liking them again. Long-term projects are funny that way. You are with them for so long that you only really know what they’re like years after you’ve finished them.
Turning back to 2021, I did quite a lot of reading this year (33 books, a mix of fiction and non-fiction). Here’s some of my highlights:
Fiction
- Old School, Tobias Wolff (2003)
- A Clockwork Orange, Anthony Burgess (1962)
- The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
Non-fiction
- Letters from a Stoic, Seneca (c. 65)
- Wisdom of Insecurity, Alan Watts (1951)
- Tao: The Watercourse Way, Alan Watts (1975)
- Tao Te Ching (or Daodejing, or 道德經), Lao Tzu (4th century BC)
- The True Believer, Eric Hoffer (1951)
Anybody that is bamboozled by the groupthink we see so much of today should definitely read The True Believer. It’s incredibly insightful.
I would be interested to hear what books you discovered and enjoyed this year.
I’m looking forward to reading the challenge entries this December. It’s always a delight when we get three entries. I’m hoping that when the mod is released Q1 or Q2 of this year I’ll get more time to write again. I’d like to do more novellas like On Certainty, but time will tell if I manage to do so.
Reader comments
That's an impressive reading list! Unfortunately mine is much shorter - I tried and tried to finish Killing Commendatore by Murakami, a favourite author of mine, but time has evaporated with other more pressing life events. I still dream of sitting down and making time for reading. Some day!
With the lack of events or moments in both years, 2020 and 2021 have felt almost indistinguishable to me and recent mumblings about further lockdowns do little to inspire me about 2022. I am looking forward to seeing your mod after all this time however and I will still be writing my stories in the new year, some of which should be a little more experimental in nature.
You have listed some intriguing titles but I am only familiar with one. I have read some books this year but not a significant amount. I covered some literary classics like Treasure Island, The Picture of Dorian Gray and the historical Anne Frank's Diary. Another noteworthy one was Stephen King's short story 'The Cycle of the Werewolf'.