Cervus

1. Thomas Brezina - Sisis Nacht inkognito
2. Phoebe Wagner - Sunvault: Stories of Solarpunk and Eco-Speculation
3. Brandon Sanderson - Tress of the Emerald Sea
4. Serg Koren - The Singular Case of the Three Witches
5. TJ Klune - The Bones Beneath My Skin
6. Melvin Burgess - Loki
7. Dave Burgess - Teach Like a PIRATE: Increase Student Engagement, Boost Your Creativity, and Transform Your Life as an Educator
8. Chip Pons - You & I, Rewritten
9. Chuck Wendig - Star Wars: Aftermath: Life Debt
10. Freya Marske - A Restless Truth (Last Binding 2)
11. Margaret Atwood - The Testaments
12. Mark Manson - The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck
13. Patrick Rhone - For You
14. Brandon Sanderson - Warbreaker
15. A.J. Truman - The Falcon and the Foe
16. Hannah Kaner - Sunbringer
17. Brandon Sanderson - The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England
18. Vera Winters - Starlight and Shadows
19. Nicholas Bate - Love, Life & Legacy
20. Redfern Jones Barrett - The Giddy Death of the Gays & the Strange Demise of Straights
21. Satoshi Yagisawa - Days at the Morisaki Bookshop
22. Everina Maxwell - Winter‘s Orbit
23. Ryder Carroll - The Bullet Journal Method
24. Genzaburō Yoshino - How Do You Live?
25. Tim Hickson - A Catalogue for the End of Humanity
26. Toshikazu Kawaguchi - Before We Say Goodbye
27. Neil Gaiman - The Ocean at the End of the Lane
28. Genki Kawamura - If Cats Disappeared from the World
29. T. Kingfisher - Nettle and Bone
30. Amanda Montell - The Age of Magical Overthinking
31. Richard Dawkins - The Selfish Gene
32. Maggie O‘Farrell - Hamnet
33. Edgar Allen Poe - The Fall of the House of Usher
34. T. Kingfisher - What Moves the Dead
35. Justinian Huang - The Emperor and the Endless Palace
36. Timothy Hickson - On Writing and Worldbuilding: Volume III
37. Becky Chambers - A Psalm for the Wild-Built
38. Becky Chambers - A Prayer for the Crown-Shy
39. Sarah Penner - The Lost Apothecary
40. Matt Ruff - Lovecraft Country
41. TJ Klune - Somewhere Beyond the Sea
42. Emilia Hart - Weyward
43. Brandon Sanderson - The Sunlit Man
44. Bora Chung - Cursed Bunny
45. Michael Matera - EXPlore Like a Pirate
46. Stephen Fry - Troy
47. Brandon Sanderson - Mistborn
48. Gabe Zichermann & Christopher Cunningham - Gamification by Design
49. Brandon Sanderson - Yumi and the Nightmare Painter
50. Sangjyun Kim, Kibong Song, Barbara Lockee, John Burton - Gamification in Learning and Education. Enjoy Learning Like Gaming
51. Brandon Sanderson - The Well of Ascension
52. Sydney J. Shields - The Honey Witch
53. Swen Körner, Benjamin Bonn, Mario S. Staller - Gamification in der Hochschullehre
54. Terry Pratchett - A Stroke of the Pen. The Lost Stories

Three years into logging and reviewing the books I have read, I’m thrilled to announce that I finally achieved my goal of reading 52 books in a year, even adding two extra novels to the tally.

If I were to name this year’s literary journey (this might be a fun idea for the future) I would call it The Year of Sanderson as I became utterly captivated by his writing. Starting with Tress of the Emerald Sea I consumed all of the available Secret Projects throughout the year, thoroughly enjoyed Warbreaker, and am currently immersed in the Mistborn series. Each of Brandon Sanderson’s novels provides the reader with a creative and innovative magic system and highly realistic characters.

However, I was also touched by other works of fiction that left a lasting impression on me. Two of TJ Klune’s books, The Bones Beneath My Skin and Somewhere Beyond the Sea, as always, gave me warm and comforting gay feelings, something Klune is a master of. T. Kingfisher/Ursula Vernon was another author I discovered in 2024 and I immediately fell in love with her writing style and worldbuilding in Nettle and Bone. Despite the controversies surrounding Neil Gaiman, I finally came around to read The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which had me in tears at its conclusion. Additionally, I found solace in a set of feel-good novellas that had me yearning for the eco-conscious society and world they introduced. Of course I am talking about Becky Chamber’s A Psalm for the Wild-Built as well as A Prayer for the Crown-Shy - where can I apply to become a tea monk?

Another trend that I anticipate to continue in 2025 is a focus on specialized literature dealing with gamification and game-based learning in educational contexts which aligns with my primary research area as a lecturer and researcher at a university of education.

With this being said, I am looking forward to another year of my literary journey.