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