MERRY Christmas everyone! I'm hoping that you're having a FUN day & that you got something special in your stocking this morning..... 

The Last 10 Books (I added to my Wish List) - December 2025. 

Inspired by a recent post over @ Reading Freely I thought that I’d let you know what I’ve been adding recently to my Wish List. Back in the day I used to keep it down to 300 items which, to be honest, was above 99% books. These days I have zero idea just how many are on there. I tend to add things after watching a YouTube video, TV show, movie or from something I’ve read or ‘found’ on various websites of Blogs. So, I tend to add things in clumps... Here’s my last 10 – most recent addition first: 

1929: The Inside Story of The Greatest Crash in Wall Street History by Andrew Ross Sorkin 

Moral Ambition: How to Find Your Purpose by Rutger Bregman 

Battle of the Four Courts: The First Three Days of the Irish Civil War by Michael Fewer 

Shifting Sands: A Human History of the Sahara by Judith Scheele 

The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation by Victor D Hanson 

Violent Saviours: The West, the Rest, and Capitalism Without Consent by William Easterly 

Empire of Ink: The Printers, Rogues, and Radicals Who Invented the American Newspaper by Alex Wright 

American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon by Steven Rinella 

Coyote America: A Natural and Supernatural History by Dan Flores 

Erasure by Percival Everett 

As you can see, my ‘butterfly mind’ is on FULL display here. You can also see one of my very rare fiction additions with the last book on the list. I saw a movie clip and checked to see if it had been adapted from a book – and it had! As to when I’ll get around to buying, never mind reading, this list is ANYONE’S guess. 

Much more likely a BIKE I think.....

Just Finished Reading: Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (FP: 2022) [386pp] 

Elizabeth Zott is a chemist and a good one. She knows it, her colleagues know it and the head of the Institute knows it – especially after she produces some groundbreaking work. But Elizabeth has a few things against her – she has yet to finish her PhD, she’s attractive and, worst of all, she’s a woman in very much a man’s profession. It is, after all, late 1950’s America. It wasn’t long until she clashed with the star of the Institute, a fellow chemist who had been nominated for the Nobel Prize. Sparks flew, arguments raged, and, eventually, respect grew. Before long they had scandalised the Institute and the local community by moving in together – the rent was much cheaper that way – but almost before they knew it, he was dead and she was pregnant. With a child to support and no longer employed by the Institute Elizabeth needed a job, any job, FAST and a mixture of blind luck and desperation provided it. She had, by sheer accident, impressed a struggling TV producer with her cooking skills. Cooking was, after all, just applied chemistry. For more money than she could imagine she would be hosting her very own show – Supper at Six. But it would be HER show. She’d been assured of that fact. She would wear what she wanted, cook what she wanted and use advertisers that she respected. She also wouldn’t be treating her target audience – housewives – as idiots. But then she was used to flying sparks, arguments and arbitrary barriers placed in her way. She would be having none of that... 

I first caught wind of this on YouTube by watching clips from the Apple TV series starring Brie Larson as Elizabeth. It looked fun, different, interesting. Now I’ve read the book I can see that some elements of the show have been changed or removed (although I can’t be 100% sure on this account as I haven’t seen anywhere near the whole thing!) which I can understand. I was actually rather surprised that there’s a fair bit of tragedy in the story – both in Elizabeths (and her partners) childhood as well as in her adult life. There are also rather adult themes (sex, homosexuality, suicide, sexual assault) that I really didn’t get from my clip watching. They certainly didn’t detract from the story of Ms Zott and actually deepened her character in a number of significant ways. Elizabeth is, indeed, a fantastic creation. I can see why she was SO disruptive in that time period (late 50’s/very early 60’s) and why so many people found her frustrating, but I also understand why her partner and her (few!) friends loved her SO much. Her daughter (played by Alice Halsey in the series) was very much a chip off Elizabeths block in just about every way. One thing I didn’t see in any of the clips was the family dog (intriguingly called ‘six thirty’) who was a significant, and often hilarious, presence throughout. I do hope that he got some screen time. He was (again) a great character. 

I zoomed through this excellent novel rapidly and found myself more than once forcing myself to slow down in order to savour things. Although a little different than expected (tragedy etc..!) it was still very much a highlight of the year and yet another 4-5 star read. I hope that the author pens another (maybe a sequel that, undoubtedly, her publishers are badgering her for!) which would be an auto-buy for me. Highly recommended for anyone wanting a bloody good read. The more sensitive amongst you will need a tissue (or two) handy for the sad bits – but you’ll definitely be laughing out loud too! 

...and now TWO more.....?

Happy Birthday: Alain de Botton FRSL (born 20 December 1969) is a Swiss-born British author and public speaker. His books discuss various contemporary subjects and themes, emphasizing philosophy's relevance to everyday life. He published Essays in Love (1993), which went on to sell two million copies. Other bestsellers include How Proust Can Change Your Life (1997), Status Anxiety (2004), and The Architecture of Happiness (2006).

He co-founded The School of Life in 2008 and Living Architecture in 2009. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 2011. In 2015, he was awarded "The Fellowship of Schopenhauer", an annual writers' award from the Melbourne Writers Festival, for that work.

De Botton was born in Zürich, the son of Jacqueline (née Burgauer) and Gilbert de Botton. Gilbert was born in Alexandria, Egypt, but went to live and work in Switzerland, where he co-founded an investment firm, Global Asset Management; his family was estimated to have been worth £234 million in 1999.

Alain de Botton's Swiss-born mother was Ashkenazi, and his father was from a Sephardic Jewish family from the town of Boton in Castile and León. De Botton's ancestors include Abraham de Boton. De Botton's paternal grandmother was Yolande Harmer, a Jewish-Egyptian journalist who spied for Israel and died in Jerusalem.

He has one sister, Miel, and they received a secular upbringing. Alain spent the first twelve years of his life in Switzerland where he was brought up speaking French and German.

Just Finished Reading: 1916 – The Mornings After: From the Courts Martial to the Tribunals by Tim Pat Coogan (FP: 2015) [311pp] 

This is not the book I was looking for. I had assumed (wrongly it turned out) that this was about the immediate aftermath of the 1916 Easter Rising in Dublin. It actually turned out to be MUCH broader than that. Essentially the book was in three parts. 

The first (roughly) third did indeed look at the Rising itself although it only got a handful of pages dedicated directly to it. Even so, I picked up a few more details I was previously unaware of. The rest of that section looked at the trials, executions and reception of the survivors. Quite quickly afterwards there was some discussion of the demands for Independence (post Great War) and Britains reluctance to grant such followed by the ‘compromise’ of essentially Dominion status within the Empire – the Irish Free State. Micael Collins (as well as others) saw this as ‘the freedom to work towards freedom’ but other hardliners saw it otherwise – as capitulation or defeat. Tensions between the pro and anti-treaty groups deepened and, no long after, they started fighting leading to the Irish Civil War and (finally) Independence and partition of the north (Ulster). Overall, it was a quick but reasonably detailed look at the period. 

The second section jumped forward to the 1960’s and the Troubles looking at things from both the perspective of the North and South. As the author (a journalist at the time) reported on and often knew the people involved this had both an interesting personal view of the period as well as a level of knowledgeable detail often missing from more professionally historical accounts. Again, I’m reasonably aware of the events covered – partially by reading about them in other works and partially from watching the events on the nightly news – but the authors insights and access gave them an extra valuable impact. 

The final section I found least interesting. Here the author turned much more polemical as he looked at the failures of Irish governance, the scandals inside the Catholic church and the financial failures that led to the Irish banking crisis post-2008. Again, as a journalist, the author both reported on and often interviewed the people involved so had a very good grasp of the events. I did, however, think that for a general (non-Irish) readership he went far too much into the weeds of things and more that once I found myself lost in the detail. A few times I honestly skim read bits just to get the gist of things. 

So, although this was somewhat disappointing for all of the reasons above I still picked up a few extra nuggets of knowledge and will be back to look at 1916 again – hopefully this time with the book and the focus I do want. Reasonable. 

Just Finished Reading: Four Seasons in Japan by Nick Bradley (FP: 2023) [325pp] 

Her friend Makoto was right; it's always a bad idea to achieve your dream. Flo Dunthorpe was living in Tokyo, had mastered the language and had just had her first translation of a collection of obscure Japanese science fiction stories published. But now what? Her indecision was driving everyone around her crazy. Her fellow workers at the publishing house couldn’t understand her, her girlfriend couldn’t understand why she wasn’t willing to move back to the US with her. What to do? Travelling home on the subway on the verge of a nervous breakdown Flo noticed a book left behind by careless passenger. Picking it up she began reading and automatically translating the text into English. Struck by the power of the narrative she began to wonder if she had found her next project completely by accident. But who was the author? She had never heard of him and the book itself gave very little detail of who had even published it. Before she made any move to translate further, she needed to know more. Maybe the text itself would help? As she delved deeper, she lost herself in the story of the struggle between a grandmother with a tragic past and a grandson living with the shame of failed examinations, a talent for art and the desire to know more about a father he never knew and no one ever talked about. 

As usual with these things, I picked up this novel because it ‘looked different’. Being published by Penguin and having a cat on the cover certainly helped though! Going in I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect. I certainly had no idea that I would LOVE the story (actually stories) so much. It was, I must say, a bit of a weird one. Although the (arguably) main character is the American translator Flo most of the narrative – around two-thirds I would think – is her translation of the mysterious found book. That story revolves around 19-year-old Kyo who had been sent to stay with his grandmother far from Tokyo in order to attend a local crammer so that he could pass his university entrance exams on the second try. I honestly didn’t like Kyo very much to begin with but, after a while, I began to understand why he was SO unsure of himself and overthought EVERYTHING. His grandmother Ayako was fantastic. Hard as nails (with VERY good reason) and very demanding she was the core of the story and I really liked how we, the reader once removed, slowly found out more about her life and the life (and death) of Kyo’s father – her son. Every time I opened the book I FELL into the story and lost all sense of time and place. You could almost smell the cherry blossom... 

To say that I loved this book would be an understatement. Although definitely not my usual read – by a long way – I found myself totally absorbed by both Flo’s and Kyo’s journey, both figuratively and literally. Even the rather annoying Kyo grew on me (eventually) especially when he delivered one of the best put-downs I’ve heard in many a year! This was definitely another highlight of the year and is, of course, very highly recommended. Be warned however, the more sensitive amongst you will need a tissue or two handy at times. 

..and Political History... Economics..... SO much more!

The Last 10 Movies – December 2025 edition.   

A slow round of movie watching again but I did plan to post this last week – and forgot! All re-watchers this time but I do have a few new (to me) films in my next post.  

Gladiator (2000) 

I’m not exactly sure just how many times I’ve seen this now, but I always enjoy it. A little slow in places but the action scenes are VERY good. 

Back to the Future 3 (1990) 

My 2nd favourite outing for the franchise. I did like the ‘old West’ idea and thought it worked really well. Plus, I liked the way they interweaved items from previous movies. Oh, and it had one of my favourite movie lines ever: Is this a holdup? [pause] No, it's a science experiment....   

The Italian Job (1969) 

Classic British movie of the ‘swinging 60’s. I know this FAR too well to fully enjoy it anymore, but it still makes me smile. 

Bridge of Spies (2015) 

Quite excellent Cold War spy film with Tom Hanks. LOVED every moment of it and was totally transfixed at the movies. 

Jason Bourne (2016) 

Definitely a movie of two halves. Actually, the opening set piece in Greece was VERY good and then went RAPIDLY downhill. I think this is the worst of the Matt Damon Bourne films. 

Point Blank (1967) 

A decent late film noir starring Lee Marvin. Near the end I actually had a revelation about it. Marvin is shot at the beginning and spends the rest of the movie on a revenge trip. I thought that the ‘revenge’ might well be his dying brain coming to terms with things as he bled out. Although that might have been a little too ‘advanced’ for an audience at the time! 

Casino Royale (2006) 

I found this surprisingly dull considering I’m quite a Bond fan. The addition of the delightful Eva Green certainly helped my enjoyment. 

Alien: Resurrection (1997) 

A reasonable addition to the franchise but I really didn’t like the ending. I did like the way Weaver played her role of Ripley/Queen and Winona Ryder was a FUN addition. Cool story about the basketball scene too! 

The Blues Brothers (1980) 

Completely over the top ‘chase’ movie (with Blues music) as two ex-cons try to get the money to save the orphanage they grew up in. ALMOST too silly but manages (just) to hold it in check. LOVED the cameo by Carrie Fisher!  

Koyaanisqatsi (1982) 

STRANGE but effective ‘documentary’ about the US in the late 70’s/early 80’s. The word means ‘Life out of Balance’ and you can certainly see why from the video.   

Happy Birthday: Amy Lynn Lee (born December 13, 1981) is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She is the co-founder, lead vocalist, lead songwriter, and keyboardist of rock band Evanescence. A classically trained pianist, Lee began writing music at age 11 and co-founded Evanescence at 13, inspired by various musical genres and film scores from an early age. Lee has participated in other musical projects, including Nightmare Revisited and Muppets: The Green Album, and composed music for several films, including War Story (2014), Indigo Grey: The Passage (2015), and the song "Speak to Me" for Voice from the Stone (2017). She has also released the covers EP Recover, Vol. 1 (2016), the soundtrack album to War Story, the children's album Dream Too Much (2016), and collaborated with various artists including Korn, Seether, Bring Me the Horizon, Lindsey Stirling, Body Count, Wagakki Band, Halsey (singer), Poppy, and Courtney LaPlante.

Alongside her awards and nominations with Evanescence, Lee's other accolades include: the Songwriter Icon Award from the National Music Publishers Association (2008); Best Vocalist at the Revolver Golden Gods Awards (2012); Rock Goddess of the Year at Loudwire Music Awards (2012); Best Film Score by the Moondance International Film Festival for Indigo Grey: The Passage (2015); and the Hollywood Music in Media Award for Best Original Song in Independent Film for "Speak to Me" (2017). In 2012, VH1 named Lee one of the top 100 greatest women in music. Lee is the American chairperson for the international epilepsy awareness foundation Out of the Shadows, and in 2012 was honored with United Cerebral Palsy's Luella Bennack Award for her work.

"Political myths don't exist in a vacuum, they compete with other myths to define the identity and political belief systems of national populations. This is why political leaders, whether they represent or wish to challenge the power of the state, place so much emphasis on their development."

Mark Jones: 1923 - The Crisis that Led to Hitler's Coup.

Just Finished Reading: 1914 – Fight the Good Fight: Britain, the Army & the Coming of the First World War by Allan Mallinson (FP: 2014) [551pp] 

Britain was unprepared for war in 1914. Despite rising tensions on the Continent since the assassination of the Austrian Archduke (and actually long before that) Britain was, as always, focused on the Empire. Despite the Entente Cordiale signed with the French in 1904, Britain had no intention of getting entangled in another European conflict. For more than a hundred years the British policy in regard to Europe was simply to prevent one power becoming all dominant and, therefore, becoming a threat to British and Imperial interests. Also, being primarily a maritime power, the British army was tiny in comparison to its European counterparts. Indeed, the German Kaiser himself called it contemptible and quipped that if it entered German territory, he would have the local police arrest them. 

Just how unprepared the British were was made clear in this excellent book. The Germans had a very detailed plan (flawed but VERY detailed) as to how precisely they were to remove the French threat prior to engaging the large, but slow, Russian one. With France and Russia being allies the LAST thing the Germans wanted was the dreaded “war on two fronts”. So, knock out the French with the majority of their army and then entrain everyone for a swift redeployment in the East. Simple. Except that they should have remembered that NO plan survives contact with the enemy. Unfortunately for Germany (and to be honest the whole of Europe) the Schlieffen Plan had no flexibility built in. NONE. The French plans were almost as detailed. They even had several plans to work from. Unfortunately for France their plan(s) was based on two assumptions – never of which were true – that the Germans would hold back their reserves and leave more divisions in the East than was actually the case and that they would behave exactly as the French expected them to. Meanwhile the British... well, THEIR plan (such as it was) was to deploy their entire available force – minus some divisions kept back for home defence until the possibility of invasion had passed – on the left of the French line... and that was IT. At least it had the advantage of simplicity. 

Despite aerial reconnaissance by both sides (although still VERY much in its infancy at this point) the British managed to blunder into the main German thrust where they found themselves outnumbered by roughly 8 to 1. Despite everything the British actually managed their ‘first contact’ surprisingly well being both highly trained and highly professional with the painful experience of the Boer War still very much present. Struggling to disengage during their subsequent retreat (strategic withdrawal?) they finally managed to do so and continued the retreat until finally they managed to reform and reinforce. In coordination with the French, they launched a significant counterattack and knocked the Germans on their heels. The Schlieffen Plan had failed, and a long war of attrition was about to begin. 

This quite outstanding book is focused very much on the beginning of things and only really covered the first few months of the conflict. Much of the book was focused on background – primarily from the British point of view obviously – and to give you an idea of just how much background we’re talking about here the first shots exchanged between British and German forces happened around page 380. Although, inevitably, some of the reasons behind the outbreak of the war were discussed that wasn’t the focus of the book. This was about how the British responded to the emergency and exactly why they behaved as they did. It was more than a little shocking to realise that the Cabinet only began discussing options AFTER the German army crossed the Belgian border! There was even debate over whether Britain should intervene AT ALL despite its undertaking to guarantee Belgium integrity. The reluctance to get involved and the political smokescreen deployed to cover this confused everyone. The French, for example, were convinced that Britain would be at their side every step of the way – regardless of the Belgian issue – and planned accordingly. The Germans, however, convinced themselves that Britain was staying out... and planned accordingly. 

One of the things I really liked about the author, who isn’t a professional historian but clearly knows his ‘stuff’ being an ex-cavalry brigadier, was his reluctance to speculate about what the main players were thinking (or not) beyond the evidence available. Equally I enjoyed a whole chapter of speculation of ‘what might have been’ if the British had thought things through more carefully. An earlier report on Belgian fighting capabilities fully expected that they would either put up a token face-saving fight and quickly capitulate with honour intact or be swept away by German might. What was completely unexpected was both how well and how aggressively the Belgians DID fight which, incidentally, completely threw off the German timetable. IF the British had been more aware of this fact before they deployed to France, they could have had an agreement with the Belgian king to quickly come to their aid in case of invasion (the Belgians were adamant that NO army would be crossing their border without permission). They could have been based at nearby railheads and, once the Germans crossed the border, been shoulder to shoulder with the Belgian forces in a matter of hours and could (possibly) have stopped the German advance DEAD in its tracks. When Russia invaded East Prussia on 7th August 1914 the Germans would’ve been faced with a nightmare scenario. It's entirely possible that they could have quickly sued for peace. So, no Great War, possibly no Russian Revolution, certainly no Second World War... Oh, the possibilities. 

As you can tell I was DEEPLY impressed by this book. I’ll definitely be looking out for more of his military history works as well as diving into his novel series in the New Year. So, MUCH more to come! Very Highly recommended to anyone interested in the start of the Great War and a definitely highlight of the year.  

[This is the first of a bunch of 20th Century history books I've been meaning to schedule for a while now. It'll run from 1914-1983. So, stay tuned!]

Just Finished Reading: Traffic by John Ruskin (FP: 1862/1866) [56pp] 

This is going to be somewhat difficult to review because it made so little impact on me. Firstly, although I had heard of the author, I didn’t have very much idea of what this short booklet was going to be about. The VERY short blurb on the back gave little away merely saying that it was a defence of dignity and creativity in a world obsessed by money. 

The booklet itself was in two parts. Firstly, we had ‘Traffic’ itself which was a lecture given during the opening of an Exchange Hall in Bradford and later published in 1866. I’m guessing that his audience were either surprised or disappointed by his talk. They (rightly?) suspected that a highly respected art critic such as the author would talk mainly about the Exchange itself. Not so. He actually talked mostly about how money and the pursuit of money was ruining architecture, art and just about everything else it touched. I think the thing that jumped out at me most was the fact that these views were being put forward almost 160 years ago. Truely nothing is new under the sun! He also had nothing good to say about ‘Political Science’ - what we call today, Economics! Rightly he said that it fails to understand the real world because it fails to account for the human factor. 

The second piece was ‘The Roots of Honour’ (1862) extracted from the larger work Until This Last and Other Writings. Here the author critiques ‘political economy’ more closely looking into the ideas that supposedly explain how the economy ‘works’ that only hold together IF significant elements of humanity are removed from the supposed ‘self-seeking’ agents that make up the population. 

Although moderately interesting overall, I can’t say that I either enjoyed this or learnt much from it. As I noted earlier, the primary thing that really struck me was how very modern the economic critique felt although I suppose Economics at that time was both far more blatant and brutal than today. The other thing that really struck (and rather annoyed) me, was the overabundance of comma use in Victorian text. I think that's one thing that makes reading it rather more difficult that modern text. All those commas REALLY break up the flow of things! Reasonable in its historical context. 

Whatever happened to the 'War on Christmas'? Or did it go the same way as 'eating cats & dogs' or 'school litter boxes'? Up in a puff of rhetoric when it no longer served its purpose.........? 

Happy Birthday: Nicholas Wulstan Park CBE RDI (born 6 December 1958) is an English filmmaker and animator who created Wallace & Gromit, Creature Comforts, Chicken Run, Shaun the Sheep, and Early Man. Park has been nominated for an Academy Award seven times and won four with Creature Comforts (1989), The Wrong Trousers (1993), A Close Shave (1995) and Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).

He has also received seven BAFTA Awards, including the BAFTA for Best Short Animation for A Matter of Loaf and Death, which was believed to be the most-watched television programme in the United Kingdom in 2008. His 2000 film Chicken Run is the highest-grossing stop motion animated film.

In 1985 Park joined Aardman Animations, based in Bristol, and for his work in animation he was among the British cultural icons selected by artist Peter Blake to appear in a 2012 version of Blake's most famous artwork - the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover - to celebrate the British cultural figures of his life.

Park was appointed a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II in the 1997 Birthday Honours for "services to the animated film industry".

Or.... You could live in or move to a country (AKA any other country than the USA) that has a Healthcare system NOT designed to bankrupt you if you have a medical issue.... Just saying.... Plus... WHY would you *want* to work 12 hours a day?