Looking back on a year of reading 2021 edition

Coming to the end of another year, and I’ve recently finished the last book I’ll finish this year, my 105th of 2021. I do have other books I’ll continue reading, but I won’t finish any more before New Year. So time for my annual recap of reading!

This year I finished 105 titles, accounting for just over 25,000 pages reading in total. For the full list see my Goodreads 2021 Reading Challenge page, which the following image shows part of:

I am astonished and delighted that I managed to read so much. This year was if anything even harder for me neurologically than last year when I also read in adversity. I have had 3 Covid vaccines already this year, with a 4th to come just before the New Year (I needed an extra 3rd primary one in September because I am severely immunosuppressed, so had a very poor vaccine response to vaccines 1&2). Each Covid vaccine pushed my auto immune neurological disease to flare badly, with dramatically increased neurological symptoms, taking up to 3 months to recover from each time.

But I kept reading, primarily with my Kindle and an utterly gigantic Ladybird book style font. Rereads were a major element for me this year, with 23 books, including ones by JRR Tolkien, Douglas Adams, Lewis Carroll and Agatha Christie. I think I was often wanting to turn to books that I knew I’d enjoy, that were a guaranteed good read for me.

The main category of fiction I read, yet again, was fantasy, but I also read hefty amounts of sci-fi, children’s books and crime. Non fiction was a major component of my reading as well though, with 33 titles, including many ranging over travel and medical issues. Inspired by recent events I also read books by black authors, either fiction or non fiction about black lives matter issues.

There were a number of highlights for me in this year’s reading. and I’d like to single out a few. Firstly, after a very protracted read, I finished the Alan Garner tribute book First Light. This was utterly delightful, a wide ranging engagement by numerous writers musing on topics related to his life and works. Alan Garner is one of my favourite authors.

Another highlight, and one that I wrote a blog post here about, was reading the fictional account Rose Nicolson of the young life of my direct ancestor William Fowler, 16th/17th century Scottish poet, spy and secretary to the Queen. Yes it was very much fiction, but it brought his story to light in a marvellous way. Thank you again Andrew Greig.

Another joy has been discovering William Corlett’s Magician’s House series of children’s books. I am part way through reading these. They were released when I was at university, and though I saw the TV series then I didn’t read the books. Children’s fiction in a classic fantasy vein. I still have a couple more of the books to enjoy reading.

For a slower pace of life I’d like to recommend Michael Williams’s pair of On The Slow Train books (the original and its sequel), which are a marvellous mix of railway history, travelogue and social observation. For someone like me who has been almost entirely trapped at home this year this has been a marvellous glimpse outside my four walls.

And for my last recommendation of this year I’d like to mention Neil Thomas’s Retro Tea Breaks collection of interviews with computing and gaming pioneers. This was a lovely thing to work through, and I recommend it hugely to anyone else interested in computing and gaming history, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. I wrote a full review of it.

I’m not sure if I will manage to read so many books next year! But I look forward to another year of reading ahead, whatever.

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Review of “Retro Tea Breaks: in conversation with computer and video game pioneers”

I recently read this book collection of interviews with early pioneers in the computing and video game industries. It’s derived from a series of YouTube interviews conducted by Neil Thomas of the RMC channel, but the book repackages the material, and adds additional details and content. It also includes some bonus interviews not available on YouTube.

The book is most likely to appeal to people interested in the home computing and video game industries of the 1980s and 1990s. There’s a high nostalgia element here, so anyone who grew up in the British home computing context then could find the book of interest. But it’s also a really interesting read from a more abstract historical viewpoint, charting changes during an era of innovation and creativity, especially in Britain, where a thriving 8-bit and late 16-bit home computer and games scene was powered largely by individual “bedroom coders”.

Most of those interviewed in the book are British, but there are also a good number of American interviewees. Many game developers and coders are interviewed, alongside artists, sound designers, and even a voice artist. Here is the full list:

• The Oliver Twins (British 8-bit pioneers)

• Al Lowe (Sierra, Video Game Developer)

• George ‘The Fat Man’ Sanger (Composer, Freelance/Lucas Arts)

• Bill Volk (Developer, Activision/Avalon Hill)

• Francois Lionet (Developer, STOS/AMOS)

• Stoo Cambridge (Artist, Sensible Software)

• Rob Hubbard (Composer, C64 Maestro/Electronic Arts)

• Mike Dailly (DMA, Grand Theft Auto/Lemmings)

• David Fox  (Developer, Lucas Arts)

• Jon St. John (Voice Over Artist, Duke Nukem 3D)

• Ken Silverman (Build engine)

• Chris Sawyer (Transport Tycoon, RollerCoaster Tycoon)

• Mark Ferrari (Artist, Lucasfilm Games, Zak McKracken)

• Richard ‘Lord British’ Garriott (Game Designer, Ultima series)

I jumped straight to the Rob Hubbard interview, as a huge fan of his Commodore 64 SID game music back in the 1980s, and then read the Mike Dailly interview about DMA Design and Lemmings (a Dundee story of course). But then I went back and read everything else in turn. All the interviews were interesting, including those about games and systems I was unfamiliar with. Good questions teased out interesting stories and memories, with additional text blocks and notes providing more details as appropriate. As a whole the book gives a rich insight into the computer games industry in the 1980s and 1990s in particular, and how it evolved.

I backed this book on Kickstarter, but it’s now available to buy directly from the RMC Store. The eBook version is a particular bargain at £4.99, including reflowable text eBooks for Kindle and ePub, as well as a PDF as printed file. Alternatively the hardback print copy is still available to buy from the RMC Store, and is a really nice comfortable sized book to hold and read (see the photo above showing the book beside a mug for scale), with high quality production values.

A thoroughly excellent read about a fascinating period of computer game history. Its subtitle is “Selected Interviews Vol. 1”. Hopefully more volumes will be forthcoming! In the meantime check out the associated YouTube channel.

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