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2025
Year in Books
16,404
pages read
Lain
49
books read
Lain
The Human Chair by Edogawa Rampo
Shortest Book
20
pages
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Longest Book
1,013
pages
Average book length in 2025
334
pages
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Most Shelved
3,431,088
people also shelved
The Romans in Spain, 217 B.C.-A.D. 117 by C. H. V Sutherland
Least Shelved
0
people also shelved
Lain’s average rating for 2025
3.4
3.4
Designing the T-34 by Peter Samsonov
Highest Rated on Goodreads
4.67 average
Ancient Persia by Josef Wiesehöfer

Lain’s first review of the year

it was ok
A short historical work on the Persian Empire, split into four parts that cover the Achaemenid, Seleucid, Parthian and Sassanian eras. The book mainly concerns itself with discussing primary sources, mostly inscriptions, friezes and coins, with some excerpts from greek and latin authors.

I found the book to be quite disorganized, like a jumbled ball of yarn. Lots of different threads are presented and then discarded, and sometimes picked back up ...more
LAIN’S 2025 BOOKS
Ancient Persia by Josef Wiesehöfer
A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC by Marc Van de Mieroop
The Human Chair by Edogawa Rampo
A History of Ancient Egypt, Volume 2 by John Romer
Japan to 1600 by William Wayne Farris
The Ballad of Peckham Rye by Muriel Spark
A Country Doctor's Notebook by Mikhail Bulgakov
it was amazing
Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima
Japan Before Tokugawa by John W. Hall
The Making of Modern Japan by Marius B. Jansen
Invitation to a Beheading by Vladimir Nabokov
Vildanden by Henrik Ibsen
really liked it
A School for Fools by Sasha Sokolov
Bygmester Solness by Henrik Ibsen
The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa
After the Quake by Haruki Murakami
Sweet Bean Paste by Durian Sukegawa
The Generalissimo by Jay Taylor
Japanese Tales of Mystery & Imagination by Edogawa Rampo
The Imjin War by Samuel Hawley
it was amazing
Sengoku Jidai. Nobunaga, Hideyoshi, and Ieyasu by Danny Chaplin
All the Lovers in the Night by Mieko Kawakami
Blindsight by Peter Watts
The Colour of Magic by Terry Pratchett
In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts by Gabor Maté
Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates
Faust by Ivan Turgenev
Egypteren Sinuhe by Mika Waltari
it was amazing
Ramesses by Joyce A. Tyldesley
River Out of Eden by Richard Dawkins
The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchett
Temples, Tombs & Hieroglyphs by Barbara Mertz
Great Expectations by Charles Dickens
Bli hvis du kan. Reis hvis du må. by Helga Flatland
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon
The History of Rome, Books 1-5 by Livy
Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson
it was amazing
The Romans in Spain, 217 B.C.-A.D. 117 by C. H. V Sutherland
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
SeinLanguage by Jerry Seinfeld
Early Rome and the Etruscans by Robert Maxwell Ogilvie
Interview with the Vampire by Anne Rice
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Verda er ein skandale by Agnes Ravatn
Destiny Disrupted by Tamim Ansary
Seveneves by Neal Stephenson
Mort by Terry Pratchett
really liked it
Frankenstein by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
Designing the T-34 by Peter Samsonov
Early Rome and the Etruscans by Robert Maxwell Ogilvie

Lain’s last review of the year

it was ok
Ogilvie attempts to identify Etruscan cultural and political influence on the early development of Rome. Very little is said about the Etruscans themselves, and there's really no narrative here at all, but rather a dry picking-through of specific events mentioned in textual and archaeological sources.

It follows closely the events and stories described in the first books of Livy, up to the sack of Rome, and tries to deconstruct fact from fiction, ...more
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