Books read in 2026

Goodbye To All That, by Robert Graves ¹. I, Claudius might have kicked off a Robert Graves reading marathon for me. Pretty unbelievable that RG could write as well and still full of humour after all the atrocities that he encountered during World War I. It is by no means a depressing book, although with the backdrop it is rightful to assume so at first. This books is his autobiography, at least until his early thirties. He was in the Welsh Battallion and among many other battles fought in the battle of Sommes. When the war was over, after some successfull and some failed other ventures, he moved to Mallorca. This book very much rightfully deserves the claim to be the World War 1 novel. I finished it in a very beautiful spot. Sounds very cheesy, but makes you all the more thankful to be able to live more or less without worries and finish a book a nice as this under the bright sun!

Now on to his book on Lawrence of Arabia!

Lawrence and the Arabs, by Robert Graves². OK I read it and it’s good. Much more accessible than then Seven Pillars by Lawrence himself IMO. They were personal friends, which is something to keep in mind, although I think this book serves to tone down the heavily romanticized part that Lawrence played in the Arab Revolt. Certainly a controversial character, I feel he is often misrepresented to fit whatever argument it currently serves. This book perhaps sheds some light into how TEL felt, partly suicidal, and ultimately dropping dropping his name (in place of “Shaw”) to avoid the fame which he felt he did not deserve. It is still a perspective, but helps clear some of the misapprehensions about him. I am not foolish enough to pass any judgement about the views and actions of doubtlessly a brave man. These events happened more than 100 years ago, and contextualizing all the complexities would be thoughtless at the very least. On that note, I think Robert Graves authorship is thus all the more important. Through his books, most importantly Goodbye To All That, we can certainly asses his views of him. And being able to obtain a glimpse of how he viewed Lawrence’s story is a million times more insightful than anything else.

Gotta say, cool cover.

Claudius The God, by Robert Graves³. Continuation of I, Claudius. Picks up right were I, Claudius left off, namely the crowning (if you can call it that) of Claudius as Emperor. Like I said below, Claudius was reluctant and never really wanted the emperorship at all. After Caligula’s assassination he was found hiding behind a curtain in the palace, terrified, and the Praetorian Guard essentially dragged him out and declared him emperor. This second part covers his live from that point on until his death. His wife Agrippinilla (Nero’s mother) famously poisons him with mushrooms. And Claudius essentially knows it’s coming and lets it happen because of his (at that point) nihilistic acceptance. He knows knows that Nero will be a monster, and almost deliberately lets it unfold as a way of making Rome so sick of autocracy that it will finally restore the Republic. After his death, in a “Return of the Jedi” fashion, his ghost watches the senate declare him a god. A perfect end, making this one just as good as I, Claudius.

I, Claudius, by Robert Graves⁴. I don’t want to keep gushing but this one really blew me away, like all-time favourites level blew me away. It’s the story of (not yet) Emperor Claudius, and how he grew up during Augustus, then Tiberius and finally Caligulas reign ending in Caligulas death and the resulting crowning of Claudius as emperor. Whilst reading it it’s easy to fail to notice that Robert Graves wrote it almost 100 years ago. It’s best classified as historical fiction, since he wrote it as Claudius’ autobiography. Such a joy to read, with so much history and storytelling tied in about all the intrigues and scheming going on. So many enjoyable characters and colourful descriptions. Claudius came into power almost by accident, since he never actually wanted to be emperor. He was discouraged (to say the least) by his surroundings, mostly due to his physical disability and his speech impediment. Thus, he was mostly drawn to his books and studied to become a historian himself. 10/10, one of those books where you reeeeaally slow down once you are past the middlepoint, since you just don’t want it to end.

Edit: Forgot to mention this, but while I read this, I often listened to the TES Oblivion soundtrack by Jeremy Soule. Especially “Through the Valleys”. Never had a more fitting book & soundtrack combination, it fits very well together.

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald⁵. I feel like I’ve been circling around this book for a long time. Fitzgerald said himself that he had to read “Ode on a Grecian Urn” over a hundred times to really, really get it, and there are many parts that I do not understand yet. “Deceptively simple, or deceptively complex”. I really, really like it and look forward to re-reading this over and over again. The writing is unbelievably good, but in such a refined (or cohesive?) way that it seems so fluid and to an extent, even easy. Like when you are watching a Tennis match on TV and the motions flow so effortlessly you’d almost think you could do it yourself (you’d be wrong, of course). Truly a masterpiece. I like this quote about it from the newstatesman:

“If Robert Browning described Heaven as the desire to reach beyond our grasp, Fitzgerald went further, implying that aspiration can remake us, that our capability can be surpassed – and that the measure of art is how far it transcends the limits of its creator.”

The Luzhin Defense, by Vladimir Nabokov⁶. My first book by Nabokov. Superb writing, not that much about actual Chess, but that’s OK. I was hoping for something uplifting after re-reading some Bourdain, but unfortunately he kills himself at the end too.

Rarotonga, by Christian Williams⁷. Another one by Christian Williams, and a novel at that. Was a very enjoyable read and very comfortig. I should have saved this one for a vacation read though. I also own this as an Audiobook and I’ve read some reviews saying that the narrating is bad. While objectively there is an argument to be made about that, in the sense that his narrating is very distinctive, I think most people reading this came from his many other books and his sailing documentaries. And in that case, his narrating just adds to the enjoyment because of the originality of it.

First Person Singular, by Haruki Murakami⁸. I’d just be repeating myself at this point with all the remakrs about Murakamis writing. I especially liked the part about Baseball.

The Anthony Bourdain Reader, by Anthony Bourdain / Kimberly Witherspoon⁹. This was a difficult one to read. Apparently it came out end of last year which I completely missed, and just now stumbled upon it. It’s a mixture of his previous writing, excerpts from novels like Kitchen Confidential or A Cooks Tour among others, but also some previously unreleased essays. I don’t think I have to comment on Bourdains writing, superb as always. Some of the other books released after his death(that were not written by him!) felt a bit (I don’t want to say sell-outish) unpassionate? This one instead does feel like original Bourdain and the editing is great. It was a little difficult because it was really the first book of him I read after his passing. I read most of his other books almost a decade ago in a flurry for which I don’t even remember what started it. Now obviously, he was a distant, famous person and it goes without saying that this is not on the same level of affections as others, and I don’t want to express that it is. The feeling is difficult to put into words, but it’s a similar feeling to grievance. Maybe partly because he was so relatable, and partly because Anthony belonged to a more optimistic time which very much reflects in his writing. RIP

Sidenote: His (and Nabokovs, and Murakamis, and …) essays have gotten me to (finally) get a New Yorker subscription as well

Novelist As A Vocation, by Haruki Murakami¹⁰. In this book, Murakami draws a line between the craftsman-like and the artistic components of being a novelist. Murakami is a very honest writer, and, and I repeat myself here, reading his non-fiction makes me want to re-read his fiction even more so. His books are ones that always make me want to read them again because I could always discover something new about it and change (or add to) my understanding and interpretation of it. Him providing a picture of how he came to writing, how his routines and every-day life look like, and how he thinks about certain aspects of being a novelist, just makes these discoveries that much more frequent.

The Wall, by Marlen Haushofer¹¹. This year has started of very strong, and not least because of this book. I was astonished that I have never heard of this before. I found it through RSbookclub, a great forum for literature discussion. Marlen was Austrian so it was also nice to discover a book in German. The story is about a middle aged woman who stays at a hunting lodge with some relatives. She woke up one morning to find that her relatives hadn’t returned after going out the night prior. In a large perimeter around the alm an invisible, see-through wall had appeared, leaving every living thing outside sort stuck in place. The story goes very deep into her emotional state and the trauma that this experience carries with it. These aspects of the character are written so well you could almost call it Dostoyevsky-ish. Some parts gave me such an eery feeling that I had to put the book down and do something else for a while. The dystopian theme is carried out in a very original way, and at least in my perception this book does not fit the category “dystopian novel” in the way people expect. If I were to place it on an imaginary plane I would put it orthogonal to McCarthys writing, perhaps that’s the best way to explain it. It feels less sensational, more European, more immersed, in such a way that the setting almost drops into the background. My favourite book of this kind. Although as a sidenote I do have to say the “green meadows and snow-capped mountain” setting setting does sound very nice.

An On That Bombshell, by Richard Porter¹². Richard Porter was the script editor of Top Gear for all 22 series. Before that he was a sales clerk, and one day applied to be a writer for the BBC. Provides a lot of background for the show, and some personal anecdotes about Richard, James and Jeremy. But it’s also worth reading just for Richard (Porter)’s writing, humor and storytelling. Come to think of it, that does make a lot of sense.

What I talk about when I talk about running, by Haruki Murakami¹³. My first time reading non-fiction by Murakami, and I have to say (and that is very high praise) it comes very close to his fiction writing, although in a different style of course. It’s about how his long-distance running and marathon preparations intertwine with him being a novelist. You could almost call it a memoire, although it contains a lot of philosophy in a typical, Murakami-like playful manner. I really loved it, instantly wanted to re-read it and it’s a contender for one of my all-time favourites, since it’s content is a distillation of what I like most about his other novels. The beautiful and routinely descriptions of not simple, but every-day occurences and internal routines that he does so well and draws such a graceful picture of.

Super-Frog Saves Tokyo, by Haruki Murakami¹⁴. … and illustrated by Seb Agresti and Suzanne Dean. One of Murakami’s best known short stories, put together in a beautifully illustrated art edition. Touches aspects of Japan’s 1995 Kobe earthquake. It reads a lot like the conversations between the Tortoise and Achilles in Gödel, Escher, Bach and in general has a Lewis Carroll feeling to it. Also I now have two books about frogs!

The Man Who Solved the Market, by Gregory Zuckermann¹⁵. That one was a bit meh for me. It’s the story of Renaissance Technologies, more specifically about Jim Simmons, the mathematician that founded it. While they of course cannot go into too much detail on the technical side, the lack of any sort of detail at all and especially the lack of the maths of quant trading during that time kind of disappointed me. Still an interesting read, and certainly an inspiring story. I got completely blindsided by the last part though, where he endlessly goes on about Robert Mercer, a former co-CEO of the company that was involved in getting Trump elected. The book was written for a (broader) American audience, which you never fail to notice while it describes anything but quant trading. I don’t want to get too much into politics, and yes, it is important to “shine the light” on such things, but I don’t think I speak only for myself when I say that the we (as in the other 95,8% of the worlds population) have had enough for a while of this endless psychosis of US politics.

Our Man in Havana, by Graham Greene¹⁶. Set in Cuba during the 1950s, where a british vacuum cleaner retailer gets recruited into the MI6, and feeds them made-up information. It contains a lot of dark humour which I like, and mocks the willingness of the intelligent services to believe reports from their local informants. What makes it even better is that Graham Greene was an actual MI6 agent for 2 years, so his experience is woven into the novel, at least in some capacity.

Re-reads

Zwischen Ruhm und Ehre liegt die Nacht, by Andrea Petkovic¹. My favourite book by my favourite German speaking author (and blogger Finite Jest). I burned through all of her books way too fast and now wish there were more.

Open, by Andre Agassi¹⁷. Another very good Tennis book! Think this is my third read, sort of a comfort book. A lot of cool personalities throughout that still play key roles in current Tennis, like Jannk Sinners current coach Darren Cahill.

Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami¹⁷. The first time I read this is now almost ten years ago. It’s always difficult to give a brief of any one of Murakamis books, and in my personal ranking I am not sure where to place this, the coming of age theme really plays a significant part. It’s beautiful and very unique, almost impossible to describe. I like the very distinct characters and love the typical Murakami descriptions of seemingly mundane things. Murakami wrote this in Greece and Italy, and especially the Italian influence really shines through in some parts which is nice. No fantasy on this one, but a lot of symbolism, caricature and humor (to steal Jay Rubins words) which make you feel right at home still. The cover by John Gall is (as always) als really pretty. Norwegian Wood leaves you wanting more and leaves me wanting to prepare “nothing fancy, just some simple meal”.

The Long Voyage Home, by Christian Williams¹⁸. This book came out in December 2025 and I’m already on my second (third) re-read. I’ve discovered Christian through his sailing videos on YouTube. He produces long-distance, singlehanded sailing documentaries which are very interesting, but also some boat maintenance and beginners sailing videos that have been very instructive to me. I have read all his other books, which are mainly about (sailing) philosophy and his travels, and put this book on my pre-order list the moment I saw it came out. He worked as a journalist and television writer, was nominated for the Pulitzer Price and an Emmy. I highly recommend his work, it’s really good stuff!

Books read in 2025 →

Sources