Personal Website of Kevin Mears

Read in 2025

Eight biographies, Seven picture books of various lengths, an almost even split of fiction and non-fiction, a few abandonments, and less Sci-Fi than I'd planned.

Looking back, I also collected a lot more work reference books when rethinking career options during the year. Continued my random trawling of charity shops - no way the algorithm would put together this list of books, and I like that. For the fiction I tended to pick from those lists that recommend great books, and unsurprisingly they are usually worth the effort.

Top three this year

  1. Everything I Know about Life I learned From Powerpoint by Russell Davies
  2. Humankind by Rutger Bregman
  3. Flash Boys by Michael Lewis

In Chronological order

  1. The Corner David Simon, Ed Burns
    Abandoned - Even though it started well and was well written, not sure if I could take 600 pages of drug tragedy.
  2. Fancy Bear Goes Phishing Scott J. Shapiro
    An unexpected xmas gift. Having been ‘IT adjacent’ for many years I enjoyed this. Found the construction of ‘downcode’ and ‘upcode’ as a bit ponderous, Just felt odd to read. Probably could have done with out the last more speculative chapter.
  3. You Must get Them All Steve Pringle
    Read some, but all a bit too fan obsessive for my taste.
  4. After Dark Harakiri Murakami
    I liked the short sentences, made it super easy to get into. Not quite so sure about the atmospheric mood creating that seems to be occurring. I just feel ill equipped (or too lazy) to divine any deeper meanings. The best bits were the conversations between characters, where you get back stories, and a little bit of a plot that ends up unresolved.
  5. Rogue Trooper Gerry Finley-Day, Dave Gibbons, Cam Kennedy
    Enjoyed the trip down memory lane
  6. The End of Everything Katie Mack
    Enjoyable, and made the science as plain as possible - so I felt like I was understanding enough.
  7. Mr Wilder & Me Johnathan Coe
    Nice and breezy.
  8. Flatland Edwin A. Abbott
    Curious little, apparently influential, early sci-fi. Fun
  9. Chernobyl Matyáš Namai
    Lovely scratchy 3 colour style of drawings
  10. Batman, the killing joke Allan Moore, Brian Bolland
    Great artwork, good story.
  11. Stitches : a memoir David Small
    Not so keen on the drawings, but the story is pretty wild.
  12. Sweat Bill Hayes
    An interesting quite personal journey into the history of exercise but ended up being more of a travelogue and vehicle for Bill Hayes the reflections on his relationship with exercise and what it’s meant for during his life.
  13. Blankets Craig Thompson
    Really lovely figure drawing throughout.
  14. P.G.Wodehouse Barry Day, Tony Ring
    Curious book, a sort of half biography padded with morsels from sundry places, nothing with this much Wodehouse can be bad, but not great.
  15. Underworld Don DeLillo
    Biggest novel I’ve read for ages, at a whooping 800+ pages. Most of the time it was enjoyable to read, I did describe it to someone as ‘muscular’ writing when I was half way through. I had had a few glasses of wine by then, but I think it’s a valid description.
  16. Tony Visconti Tony Visconti
    Interesting window into his work as a producer. Obviously very skilled and talented musician but can't quite let go of not being recognised enough for all the obvious skills he brings. Funny when he said 'all water under the bridge' when it clearly isn't
  17. The Moon and Sixpence W Somerset Maugham
    Picked up on a little break away - randomness again. Nicely written.
  18. A Brief History of Time Stephen Hawking
    Well written, though as usual I let lots of the science wash over me. I’d struggle to explain much of it, but it was an enjoyable jog in difficult terrain
  19. The Bird of Night Susan Hill
    Taughtly written story about a relationship between Two men. one is a poet and his friend describes his periodic descent into madness.. It seems to be is a platonic love which makes it more interesting.I enjoyed the writing that created a suitably tense feeling of suspense.
  20. Flash Boys Michael Lewis
    I expected that this would be great and it was. He has the knack of finding interesting, slightly nerdy topics and then goes further by hanging the story of even more interesting people that he finds. In this one, exposing how new tech enables age old dodgy practice by financial sharks, with the twist being that some of the people on Wall Street might actually do the right thing.
  21. Moonraker Ian Fleming
    Obviously very keen on on cars, and breasts.Some interesting descriptions - ‘the pointed hillocks of her breasts’ and ‘the impudent pride of the jutting breasts’. Alongside long interludes about manners, clothes and food. Eventually there’s some action, and it was all jolly good fun.
  22. The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner Alan Sillitoe
    The headline story was the a strong opening, and straight away into a distinctive voice. It was a great inner monologue that gradually revealed more of the protagonist’s story, and then finished abruptly, but satisfyingly. The rest were variously bleak, sad, sometimes caustic, and occasionally funny. Sometimes all at once. I couldn’t face a 30 page poem to finish it all off.
  23. Good Services Lou Downe
    Great book. One of the reasons I took such an inordinate time to read it was the amount of time i needed to stop and mull. Almost every page there is something to ponder on and relate to what you’re trying to do.
  24. Fingers Crossed Miki Berenyi
    Nicely written. Very direct. Honest opinions about herself and family, with a very unusual childhood the foundation for a career in music at a eventful time in British music. Especially liked her take on the britpop era - pretty scathing, and rightly so.
  25. The Elements of Content Strategy Erin Kissane
    Useful for when I was getting up to speed on Content Strategy - plenty of good stuff.
  26. Queen’s Full Ellery Queen
    Pleasant enough collection of detective puzzles. bit flowery writing in parts.
  27. This is your Brain on Music Daniel Levitin
    Abandoned - Got quite boring quite quickly.
  28. Absolute Beginners Colin MacInnes
    Straight away was interesting because of the Nadsat like lingo, which perhaps influenced Anthony Burgess. Breathless and urgent throughout, and depressingly prescient with all it’s talk of immigration driven by Daily Mail chancers and racists.
  29. John Peel John Peel, Sheila Ravenscroft
    Enjoyed the bits he wrote more, and the book obviously changed a lot with the change of narrator. The childhood and formative years revealing a certain public school repression and perhaps the joyous search for new music was an antidote to that.
  30. Robot Adam Wiśniewski-Snerg
    I kept going to the end hoping for a satisfying resolution of all the questions and mysteries raised in the early part of the book. There was a complicated and wordy philosophical discussion that was meantto deliver, but even then I found it hard going. Not without some merit. Had moments of entertainment, but took a long time to get to the dense, physics heavy explanations, and in the end had me wondering if it was all worth it.
  31. Berserker Adrian Edmondson
    Enjoyed it more when he was talking about how he felt rather than things he’d done. Unfortunately there was more of latter as it went on.
  32. The German Genius Peter Watson
    Abandoned trying to read it all at once - will dip back in at some point.
  33. Content Design Sarah Winters, Rachel Edwards
    Really useful - good to have around and refer to.
  34. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
    Strangely uplifting tale of survival in a the political camps of soviet Russia. Human scale story against inhuman context.
  35. Humankind Rutger Bregman
    Throughly enjoyed - one of these with lots of examples in support of a pretty nice idea. Does kind of follow he format of debunking things, that seems very common these days, and slightly dread a further debunking of the debunking, but It suits my optimistic outlook.
  36. The Master and Margarita Mikhail Bulgakov
    Pretty funny, Satire? not sure of what sometimes. One of those that appear on 'best of' lists.
  37. Everything I Know about Life I learned From Powerpoint Russell Davies
    Great. Have been recommending to as many people as I can.
  38. Skunk Works Ben R Rich, Leo Janos
    Skunk works came up in conversation, then popped up in charity shop so felt I had to obey the universe and buy it.Best bit was at the start. talking specifics on the development of the stealth fighter. Then wandered back and forth through different periods on the technical problems they solved along the way, building incredible aircraft.
  39. Pride and Prejudice Jane Austin
    Once you can get used to the construction of the language, it was a very enjoyable crafting of characters.
  40. Snail, Where are you? and Moon Man Tomi Ungerer
    Two kids books I bought for myself - remembered how he came up a lot during art college. Nice Illustrations
  41. Will Will Self
    A literary retrospective account of his drug years, with glimpses into his background and path to who he is or was. Lots of reaching for the dictionary for obscure words - which I liked. Found it hard to follow at times, but the respect the effort to tell a tale of extremes in a way that matches.

By year