Still plodding through some hefty textbooks - just in case I ever want to study the subjects later on.
Am now about halfway through
Earth Science by Tarbuck et al, but I'm finding the section on mountains dragging a little. Another heavy-goer is
Archaeological Theory by Johnson. Have tried to mix things up by picking up
Environmental Science by Chiras in the hope that it's light reading by comparison - will see how long that hope lasts.
In the meantime, have just finished
Prehistoric Britain by Darvill, which got bogged down in site reports rather than a narrative connecting them to people and the social changes they were going through;
UnRoman Britain proved a disappointment, as it's mostly a mix of ranting and stating the blinding obvious, with the exception that the chapters on continuing tribal identities from post to pre-Roman occupation was an interesting insight, but otherwise became a tiring read.
Still reading Homer's
The Iliad on an evening - I think I enjoyed it more on the first read many years ago, though I'm making note of some more interesting aspects of the mythology described. Otherwise it's proving a bit of a plodder.
Have tried to mix things up a little by starting a couple of novels:
God's Hammer by Eric Schumacher, which is basically
The Last Kingdom but in reverse (entitled Viking hostage to the Saxons), and
Son of Ishtar by Gordon Docherty about the Hittites - both of which are decent enough reads and rich in historical details, but neither story is gripping me as yet - though I'm still in the first chapters.
I abandoned Robert Fisk's
The Great War for Civilization: The Conquest of the Middle East as so far it became nothing more than a shopping list of Iraqi politicians who got tortured by Saddam Hussein's regime, but if I skip that chapter it might improve.
I also picked up and started
Leviathan's Wake by James S.A. Corey, but having recently watched all three seasons of the
The Expanse I've realized the TV series really did hold close to the book to the point that the story is missing any sense of discovery, making it hard to keep to it.
Still not finished
Obedient Unto Death by Werner Kindle as it's gone from biography to general overview of each operation he experienced at the Eastern Front (they reach a town, tanks go in, he follows, gets another close combat day award) which has made it drag.
Also started
Astrobiology by David C Catling, but it so-closely follows the content of the online course I'm doing at Coursera with Charles Cockell at Edinburgh University that I've put it on hold to use as a refresher later on.
Also started subscriptions to the magazines
Current Archaeology,
Ancient History, and
Ancient Warfare, but with everything above am struggling to keep up with them. Perhaps not a surprise.
I think I need to sit down and refresh with a David Gemmell novel.
