My Reading Journey: Mar-Apr 2025

Overview Hello everyone! Welcome to the second entry in my reading journey series. This time I have managed to read only 5 books. While I’m a little bit behind on my Goodreads goal of reading 52 books in the year, the last couple of months have been very busy with the end of the academic winter term. Now that I’m done with classes, I’m sure that I can have more time for reading and hopefully catch up to my goal. Let’s go into the reviews for this entry! Fiction Reviews Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland I briefly mentioned in the last entry that I was starting to read a collection of Celtic fairy tales and lore that my dad gifted me for Christmas. The first book in this collection is Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland by Lady Wilde. It contains a varied recollection of folklore and fairy tales. Overall, I liked the format of having small stories and legends that make up for an interesting and entertaining recompilation of tales. It did inspire several ideas for games or game mechanics which I made sure to note down in Post-its that are now scattered across the book. Only the future will tell if I ever use them. I think that people who like fairy tales, want to learn more about Ireland, or like to learn about legends and superstitions in different countries would find this an interesting read. Eragon The Inheritance Cyle is a book series that I remember fondly from my teen years. A couple of years ago, a new entry in the series was published and I decided to read again the whole series to remember and be better prepared for the new books that Chrisopher Paolini has planned. For anyone who is unfamiliar with this series, Eragon is the first entry about a young boy who discovers a dragon egg and suddenly has to decide if he'll help fight against the evil king of this fantasy universe. I really enjoyed reading again this book, and I also couldn’t stop thinking about a review I saw on Goodreads where the plot of the book was compared to Star Wars (A New Hope). The inspiration can be clearly noticed, but as someone who really likes Star Wars, I don’t see that as a necessarily bad thing. I believe that anyone who likes fantasy and books about magic and dragons will have a great time reading it. Nonfiction Reviews To-Do List Formula The book To-Do List Formula: A Stress-Free Guide To Creating To-Do Lists That Work! by Damon Zahariades goes over different methods to create a to-do list. It highlights the pros and cons of each method and at the end gives an overall framework that allows you to create to-do lists in the best way that works for you. I discovered this book from my amazon recommendations, and I think it can be really useful for everyone. Reading it helped me realize how I was setting myself up for potential disappointment by not creating realistic and specific to-do lists. I believe that now I have at least a slightly better method for creating them and feeling accomplished at the end of every day. Here are my 3 favorite quotes: “Your task list isn’t a tool for getting everything done. Rather, it’s a tool that will ensure you get the right things done." “If you only have four hours at your disposal, make sure the items on your to-do list can be completed within that time frame. Otherwise, you’ll set yourself up for failure.” “Your emotional state plays a significant role in how successfully you work from your lists." Thinking, Fast and Slow The book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman describes the concept of the 2 systems that govern our decision-making process. System 1 is the part of our brain that acts without too much thinking and system 2 is the part of our brain that analyzes things before taking action. The book goes over a lot of detail about how this affects different decisions we make. This book was a recommendation from the professor of my masterclass in HCI course, and I’m really glad I read it because it helped me better understand when the best moment is to use each of these systems. I’m also more aware now about them and hopefully I won’t fall under all the assumptions that are made by system 1. I believe that anyone interested in knowing how we make decisions will have a good read. These are my 3 favorite quotes: “We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness." “When people believe a conclusion is true, they are also very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, even when these arguments are unsound.” “People attach values to gains and losses rather than to wealth, and the decision weights that they assign to outcomes are different from probabilities” Deja de Planear Y Comienza a Acabar In Deja de planear y comienza a acabar.: Historia de un agilista, Sergio Enrique Zamora Rubio describes his experience through learning about the agile framework. The book goes from the narra

May 1, 2025 - 01:25

Overview

Hello everyone! Welcome to the second entry in my reading journey series. This time I have managed to read only 5 books. While I’m a little bit behind on my Goodreads goal of reading 52 books in the year, the last couple of months have been very busy with the end of the academic winter term. Now that I’m done with classes, I’m sure that I can have more time for reading and hopefully catch up to my goal. Let’s go into the reviews for this entry!

Fiction Reviews

Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland

I briefly mentioned in the last entry that I was starting to read a collection of Celtic fairy tales and lore that my dad gifted me for Christmas. The first book in this collection is Ancient Legends, Mystic Charms, and Superstitions of Ireland by Lady Wilde. It contains a varied recollection of folklore and fairy tales.

Overall, I liked the format of having small stories and legends that make up for an interesting and entertaining recompilation of tales. It did inspire several ideas for games or game mechanics which I made sure to note down in Post-its that are now scattered across the book. Only the future will tell if I ever use them. I think that people who like fairy tales, want to learn more about Ireland, or like to learn about legends and superstitions in different countries would find this an interesting read.

Eragon

The Inheritance Cyle is a book series that I remember fondly from my teen years. A couple of years ago, a new entry in the series was published and I decided to read again the whole series to remember and be better prepared for the new books that Chrisopher Paolini has planned.

For anyone who is unfamiliar with this series, Eragon is the first entry about a young boy who discovers a dragon egg and suddenly has to decide if he'll help fight against the evil king of this fantasy universe. I really enjoyed reading again this book, and I also couldn’t stop thinking about a review I saw on Goodreads where the plot of the book was compared to Star Wars (A New Hope). The inspiration can be clearly noticed, but as someone who really likes Star Wars, I don’t see that as a necessarily bad thing. I believe that anyone who likes fantasy and books about magic and dragons will have a great time reading it.

Nonfiction Reviews

To-Do List Formula

The book To-Do List Formula: A Stress-Free Guide To Creating To-Do Lists That Work! by Damon Zahariades goes over different methods to create a to-do list. It highlights the pros and cons of each method and at the end gives an overall framework that allows you to create to-do lists in the best way that works for you.

I discovered this book from my amazon recommendations, and I think it can be really useful for everyone. Reading it helped me realize how I was setting myself up for potential disappointment by not creating realistic and specific to-do lists. I believe that now I have at least a slightly better method for creating them and feeling accomplished at the end of every day.

Here are my 3 favorite quotes:

“Your task list isn’t a tool for getting everything done. Rather, it’s a tool that will ensure you get the right things done."
“If you only have four hours at your disposal, make sure the items on your to-do list can be completed within that time frame. Otherwise, you’ll set yourself up for failure.”
“Your emotional state plays a significant role in how successfully you work from your lists."

Thinking, Fast and Slow

The book Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman describes the concept of the 2 systems that govern our decision-making process. System 1 is the part of our brain that acts without too much thinking and system 2 is the part of our brain that analyzes things before taking action. The book goes over a lot of detail about how this affects different decisions we make.

This book was a recommendation from the professor of my masterclass in HCI course, and I’m really glad I read it because it helped me better understand when the best moment is to use each of these systems. I’m also more aware now about them and hopefully I won’t fall under all the assumptions that are made by system 1. I believe that anyone interested in knowing how we make decisions will have a good read.

These are my 3 favorite quotes:

“We can be blind to the obvious, and we are also blind to our blindness."
“When people believe a conclusion is true, they are also very likely to believe arguments that appear to support it, even when these arguments are unsound.”
“People attach values to gains and losses rather than to wealth, and the decision weights that they assign to outcomes are different from probabilities”

Deja de Planear Y Comienza a Acabar

In Deja de planear y comienza a acabar.: Historia de un agilista, Sergio Enrique Zamora Rubio describes his experience through learning about the agile framework. The book goes from the narration of a work trip were Agile was taught to the descriptions of the author trying to apply this framework in the company where he worked. It gives very useful advice for people who are just starting out with the agile methodology.

This was a gift from my girlfriend, and I believe that any software engineer or anyone interested in agile will find it entertaining. I was already familiar with this framework, and it made me remember my time during university where I had to apply this knowledge (Semestre i). I still found that it had very good advice and tips to remember the importance and applications of agile.

Here are my favorite quotes:

“Algo está mal en un entorno laboral donde el pedir ayuda es tomado como incompetencia."
“La creatividad no se incrementa con más tiempo trabajando, se requieren espacios para pensar, para divergir"

Looking Forward

For the next couple of months, I plan on finishing the Celtic fairy tale collection. I’m also currently reading Eldest, which is the second entry in the Inheritance cycle, and a book called Threats: What Every Engineer Should Learn From Star Wars.

I have a lot of other books waiting to be read so hopefully I make more progress with them soon. I also decided to buy a yearly subscription to the PC Gamer magazine (and got digital access to all the previous releases) as well as the Nintendo Force magazine. While I can’t track them in Goodreads, I will still review them in following entries.

Having said that, I’m interested to know if you have read any of the books I’ve reviewed so far or if you have any recommendations! Let me know in the comments below.