Reading Still Matters

Posts

Poland: A History by Adam Zamoyski

I recently completed Poland: A History by Adam Zamoyski which had been sitting on my bookshelf for a while now. The title should give you a pretty good hint at what this one is about, basically it’s an overview of the history of the Polish people and Polish state from around the tenth century up to the end of the Lech Walesa period following the Soviet collapse. And for those of you who have been reading Polish history for a while now, this might be a book you have come across before in a different guise. Zamoysky originally published this back in 1987 as The Polish Way , although this is a revised and updated edition which re-evaluates Poland’s past with a "fresh eye." Basically, we have a general extension of the time covered as the book now includes more about post-Soviet developments. So, if you have already read The Polish Way , then be forewarned. I haven’t read The Polish Way, so I am not sure how different it actually is. Right out of the gate, I want to say...

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China

Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China by Evan Osnos is a 2014 non-fiction book exploring China's rapid transformation into an economic superpower, focusing on the tension between individual aspirations and authoritarian control. Based on eight years of reporting for The New Yorker, Osnos highlights how the chase for money, truth, and faith shapes modern Chinese life. I took me a little while to get into this one, but that’s pretty typical for me when starting a new read. The thing that is different about this one is that it’s written and presented anecdotally through the stories of a number of different individuals acquainted with Osnos. And I am not really used to a book on contemporary issues that is presented in that kind of style. Regardless, each of the individual’s stories represents something of the paradigm shift in China as the country moved beyond the period of Maoist totalitarianism towards an authoritarian, but mostly fre...

Book Review: Hiking through History

There is a group of people out there who really do feel the history of a place while traveling. I am not sure how big that group of people is, but I do know that I consider myself among that tribe. You may be a member if you sit down on old stones to soak in the feel of an ancient place, hear the voices of old as you walk beneath decaying fortifications, or pause as you realize that you just walked down a path that Roman emperor may have strolled on his way to the Coliseum. Hiking through History: Hannibal, Highlanders & Joan of Arc is a book written by Kirk Ward Robinson which will appeal to anyone in this tribe of history oriented travellers. Hiking through History was originally written in the early 2000s and released in 2011. More recently, the Highland Home publishing house has released an updated anniversary edition, and this updated 2026 release is the edition that I was fortunate enough to read. Robinson is an Amer...

Book review: A History of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins

A History of Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins is a fantastic look into Roman history by author Gareth Harney. This is the kind of book that any history lover can get into, regardless of whether they are interested in ancient or Roman history or not. Why? Because it brings together two awesome subjects – Rome and ancient coins. History nerds unite! Like the title suggests, Harney takes twelve different coins and then creates a separate chapter for each coin and goes into the historical subject of the chapter, how the coin relates to the subject of the chapter, and in many cases the way the coin is used as modern evidence of the thing being discussed. We basically cover the 1,200-year history of Rome, from its legendary founding to the fall of the Western Empire. I loved the entire concept of building a book about Rome and coins because, as Harney, argues in the book, coins were one of the primary tools used in ancient times...

Book Review: The Savage Storm, The Battle for Italy 1943

The Savage Storm: The Battle for Italy 1943 by James Holland is a gripping account of the Allied invasion of mainland Italy from the beach landings near Messina and Salerno. The campaign in Italy was meant to be short and low risk, but it turned out to be anything but. Between September and December 1943, the Allied powers and the Germans engaged in brutal combat that essentially stalled at the Gustav Line south of Rome. Savage Storm is the first book by James Holland that I have read and so I was pretty excited to read it and get a sense of what Holland is all about. I chose Savage Storm because Canada did play a pretty significant role in the fighting and so I wanted to read up on that aspect of the history as well. I am Canadian after all. And I really enjoyed Savage Storm . Unlike any military history books I have read, Holland used the journals of combatants from both sides to personalize the conflict in a pretty unique wa...

My Reading Rules for 2026 and Beyond!

Ryan Holiday recently posted a video on YouTube about 26 Reading Rules for 2026. This looked to be a fun post playing on Ryan's approach to reading and recommending books, but with a nod to the new year. Basically, a content creator creating book creator content and promoting his own business. And in my view, that's all great. However, the video ended up generating a number of reaction and response videos on YouTube and possibly other platforms where people discussed how they felt about those rules, whether they applied to their reading lives and whether it was appropriate to have rules at all. From my perspective, I say let there be rules and let there be no rules - it's all up to you. I am not going to do a reaction or a response to Holiday's specific rules 1 through 26. That is too much work. But I do have four main rules that I use to guide my reading or at least prevent my reading from becoming somebody else's project. I don't want to have ...