Alright, here's my book* thread for 2021 – starting early this time, so I hopefully won't abandon it due to ETOOMANYBOOKS like last year's. Be warned that January is traditionally filled with fanfics and re-reads.

All tagged with #rixxReads for your muting convenience.

* books, papers, fanfics, etc etc

1/ The Arithmancer (Arithmancer, #1) by White Squirrel. Decent Harry Potter fanfic whith Hermione as math genius. Rat adjacent but nowhere near the mess that is HPMOR. Imagine having actual characters *and* science, at the same time.
https://books.rixx.de/white-squirrel/the-arithmancer/ #rixxReads

2/ Lady Archimedes by White Squirrel. Second part of the fanfic series. Better plot, worse writing, and gets an honourable mention for having a bibliography that includes Heinlein, Sagan, Niven and Tolkien.
https://books.rixx.de/white-squirrel/lady-archimedes/ #rixxReads

3/ Annals of Arithmancy by White Squirrel. Conclusion to the fanfic trilogy. Contained the quote "The extinction of the human race will come from its inability to emotionally comprehend the exponential function." – hitting a bit hard right now.
https://books.rixx.de/white-squirrel/annals-of-arithmancy/ #rixxReads

4/ Weaving Fate by Aidan Wachter. Several useful introspection techniques, both meditation and journaling. My favourite was the one where you write a journal as your future self. Very useful stuff if you can ignore the, uhm, magic.
https://books.rixx.de/aidan-wachter/weaving-fate/ #rixxReads

5/ Schadenfreude by Tiffany Watt Smith. Lots of examples of Schadenfreude (and related things), lots of hedging, not much else.
https://books.rixx.de/tiffany-watt-smith/schadenfreude/ #rixxReads

6/ Just a Random Tuesday… by Twisted Biscuit. Delightfully snarky, but fewer fluctuations in writing quality would've been nice.
https://books.rixx.de/twisted-biscuit/just-a-random-tuesday/ #rixxReads

7/ Madita by Astrid Lindgren. My yearly Lindgren re-read, just to confirm that she's still one of my favourite authors. Yep, still is.
https://books.rixx.de/astrid-lindgren/madita/ #rixxReads

8/ A Wild Ride Through the Night by Walter Moers. Walter Moers connects 21 illustrations by Gustave Doré in a delightfully weird story
https://books.rixx.de/walter-moers/a-wild-ride-through-the-night/ #rixxReads

9/ Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn. Village boy into clan lord and assassin in Fantasy faux-Japan. Good fun, if bloody.
https://books.rixx.de/lian-hearn/across-the-nightingale-floor/ #rixxReads

10/ Die Panne by Friedrich Dürrenmatt. Delightfully brutal novella (as Dürrenmatt tends to be). The protagonist feels great the whole time, while the reader is trapped in uneasiness.
https://books.rixx.de/friedrich-durrenmatt/die-panne/ #rixxReads

11/ The incorrectly threaded and mis-counted Naudsonce: https://chaos.social/@rixx/105522331955053514 #rixxReads

12/ Grass for his Pillow by Lian Hearn. Enjoyable second part of the series. Generally better than the first part, except for the sheer stupidity of the ending (which serves to set up a lot of equally stupid drama.)
https://books.rixx.de/lian-hearn/grass-for-his-pillow/ #rixxReads

13/ Im Land des Windes by Licia Troisi. Well-done if slightly generic Fantasy story. The last living half-elf, a young girl, grows up into a dragon rider and has to grow past her hate and stubbornness blah blah blah.
https://books.rixx.de/licia-troisi/im-land-des-windes/ #rixxReads

14/ Mimus by Lilli Thal. A young prince has to become the court jester for the enemy king. Excellent YA (re-read).
https://books.rixx.de/lilli-thal/mimus/ #rixxReads

15/ Probably Still the Chosen One by Kelly Barnhill. A young hero in a standard Narnia-like portal fantasy, and what happens after she grows up. Short story, available online.
https://books.rixx.de/kelly-barnhill/probably-still-the-chosen-one/ #rixxReads

16/ Sansûkh by determamfidd. A Lord of the Rings fanfic with such a quality of writing and depth of research that I have to revisit it occasionally. Plus, it has art. And a soundtrack.
https://books.rixx.de/determamfidd/sansukh/ #rixxReads

17/ Comes Around Again by scarletjedi. Sansukh spin-off, "what if you could go back in time to fix things" variation. Not as good as the original, but still enjoyable.
https://books.rixx.de/scarletjedi/comes-around-again/ #rixxReads

18/ Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss. Short but sweet book on negotiations by a lead FBI hostage negotiator. Solid principles, good examples, very readable. Focuses on "tactical empathy" and open-ended questions instead of sleazy or boring rules.
https://books.rixx.de/chris-voss/never-split-the-difference/ #rixxReads

19/ This Census-Taker by China Miéville. Strange novella. Unchacteristically little in ways of magic and colourful strangeness, for Miéville – instead, the strangeness comes as this strange kafkaesque mix of mundane and creepy. Not my cup of tea.
https://books.rixx.de/china-mieville/this-census-taker/ #rixxReads

20/ Another broken thread. I swear I will figure it out by the end of the year. https://chaos.social/web/statuses/105630640382418276

21/ Sailing to Sarantium by Guy Gavriel Kay. Historical fantasy during Constantine's Byzantine Empire. You'll never have cared about mosaics as much as during this book. Enjoyable despite the terrible female characters.
https://books.rixx.de/guy-gavriel-kay/sailing-to-sarantium/ #rixxReads

22/ The Misplaced Legion by Harry Turtledove. Roman legion falls through portal into a world with a magical Byzantian empire. Not compelling enough to finish, plus all the 80s gender bullshit. (CW rape)
https://books.rixx.de/harry-turtledove/the-misplaced-legion/ #rixxReads

23/ On Venus, Have We Got a Rabbi! by William Tenn. Extremely tongue-in-cheek short story, published in 1974. Available online, including a reading by the author. Hilarious.
https://books.rixx.de/william-tenn/on-venus-have-we-got-a-rabbi/ #rixxReads

24/ How You Stand, How You Move, How You Live by Missy Vineyard. Good dive into influencing your body with your thoughts and vice versa. Enjoyable read, adjacent to The Inner Game of Tennis (but more detail-oriented and less annoying).
https://books.rixx.de/missy-vineyard/how-you-stand-how-you-move-how-you-live/ #rixxReads

25/ The Empress of Salt and Fortune by Nghi Vo. In a Chinese-inspired Fantasy world, a young monk (an enby, as monks are in this world) chronicles the dead Empress's life story by searching her old castle. Neat novella.
https://books.rixx.de/nghi-vo/the-empress-of-salt-and-fortune/ #rixxReads

26/ Flight to Arras by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. Memoir about being a reconnaissance pilot during WWII. I should stop reading English translations.
https://books.rixx.de/antoine-de-saint-exupery/flight-to-arras/ #rixxReads

27/ Turn the Ship Around! by L. David Marquet. An unlikely advocate for decentralised, anarchic structures. Much better as a memoir than as the management book it wants to be.
https://books.rixx.de/l-david-marquet/turn-the-ship-around/ #rixxReads