Mr Zip Likes'em Big

 

Some guys like their drinks small. Some guys like their drinks medium. And some guys like their drinks big. Mr Zip ain't no Goldilocks.

Mr Zip says Big is Beautiful. What a truly deep and complex guy he is, right?

No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy (Memoir) 1.5Stars

 

This review is written with a GPL 4.0 license and the rights contained therein shall supersede all TOS by any and all websites in regards to copying and sharing without proper authorization and permissions. Crossposted at WordPress & Blogspot by Bookstooge’s Exalted Permission

Title: No One Round Here Reads Tolstoy
Series: Memoir
Author: Mark Hodkinson
Rating: 1.5 of 5 Stars
Genre: Memoir
Pages: 307
Words: 107K
Publish: 2022

First book of 2026 and I end up with this stinker. My goodness, it’s like it is November and December of 2025 all over again! Ahhhhhhhhh….

I went into this “Memoir” (oh, how I am coming to hate this particular kind of non-fiction) expecting it to, you know, be about BOOKS that had shaped the author’s life as he’d grown up in an environment where reading wasn’t prevalent and in some cases, was actually discouraged. Instead, he wrote more about the music that influenced him as a pre-teen and teen and then 20something.

The whole attitude of this book was “I deserved better than I got and it was always everyone else’s fault”. His parents provided him a roof, food, schooling and they never stopped him from reading the books he wanted or listening to the music he wanted. But his disdain for his parents is almost palpable and his snooty attitude about the working class is like a slap in the face on every page. The entire sub-story about his grandpa getting hit in the head as a young man and his decline into dementia and eventually death from wandering out in the elements, while supposed to be loving, felt more like the author was airing his family’s dirty laundry to generate sympathy so he could say “Look at how bad I had it, pity me”. It also had nothing to do with books.

The last chapter in the book details his times visiting a psychologist and a life coach. When talking to the shrink he has this to write at one point:
“I was hoping she would pick up on this last bit so I could waterfall my life story, how I felt I was a weird cuckoo kid placed with the wrong parents and had been failed by the education system and how I’d missed out. Basically, all my self-pitying stuff, laid on good and thick.”

And that is the summation of this book. It is a gigantic whinefest by the author about how hard doneby he was and how he deserved our pity and wasn’t he so great for turning out so “normal” coming from such a horrid background. It filled me with disgust instead.

I asked for some help for the final sentence of this review, because the author is from the UK and I figured some American insult would just roll off his shoulders should he ever read this (very unlikely, but stranger things have happened with me and authors, sadly), so I asked what a really good insult would be. I came up with “ Mark Hodkinson is a wankering twat!” and that really shows how low esteem I hold for him and this book.

★✬☆☆☆

From the Publisher:

Mark Hodkinson grew up among dark satanic mills in a house with just one book: Folklore, Myths and Legends of Britain. His dad kept it on top of a wardrobe with other items of great worth - wedding photographs and Mark's National Cycling Proficiency certificate. If Mark wanted to read it, he was warned not to crease the pages or slam shut the covers.
Fast forward to today, and Mark still lives in Rochdale snugly ensconced (or is that buried?) in a 'book cave' surrounded by 3,500 titles - at the last count. He is an author, journalist and publisher.
So this is his story of growing up a working-class lad during the 1970s and 1980s. It's about schools (bad), music (good) and the people (some mad, a few sane), and pre-eminently and profoundly the books and authors (some bad, mostly good) that led the way, shaped a life. If only coincidentally, it relates how writing and reading has changed, as the Manor House novel gave way to the kitchen sink drama and working-class writers found the spotlight (if only briefly).
Mark also writes movingly about his troubled grandad who, much the same as books, taught him to wander, and wonder.

Keldon Warlord - MTG 4E

 

That dude is just ripped! He's the kind of guy who should go up against a Predator, a REAL Predator mind you, not some modern touchy-feeling boo-hoo Predator *gag. That sword alone looks big enough to reflect laser beams or even deflect shoulder missiles!

The artist definitely got that "Warlord" vibe down perfectly. 5stars for ol' Kev Brockschmidt.
Hip hip hurray!
Hip hip hurray!
Hip hip hurray!

All The Feelings!

 

This is a panel from Dieselsweeties.com.

I know just how that poor robot feels. I bet it would feel better if it went and murdered Murderbot. That's a win-win scenario in my world.

January Plans

 

These last few months it has become obvious to me that I need to take a blogging break. Not to go offline mind you, but to just stop writing posts for a bit. So January is going to be my break time.

I plan on blogging every day next week and then not post again until February 1st. I do plan on still visiting every one and hopefully comment, but even those might have to go on the back burner for a bit. I'm still going to read and I plan on doing a mini-review post for when I come back. One post with one paragraph for every book I read. That way if I am ever feeling extra wordy with no good outlet, I can always put those books into their own posts and call it a day.

We need "Words", lots and lots of "Words"

However, I in no way plan to disappear permanently or for good. This is not one of those "I'm taking a break" that turns into a "hiatus" that turns into stopping blogging. I've seen that happen enough times that I've come to fear those "I'm taking a break" posts because I know what it usually presages. I will buck that trend and I will return.

So prepare for an onslaught starting on Sunday and then I'll do a See You in February post to remind you all (or the people who didn't see this post) of this on the following Saturday. Then it will be radio silence until February.

Cheers!

Bookstooge Reviews 2025

 

THE STATS:

Annual Blog Stats

Posts - 333 ( ↓ 12 )

Words written - 193K ( ↑ 9K )

Views - 39.0K ( ↓ 0.3K )

Visitors - 12.3K ( ↑ 0.9K )

Followers - 576 ( ↑ 50 )

Comments - 10.7K ( ↑ 0.4K )

Book Stats

Books read - 191 ( ↑ 7 )

• Novels/Novellas - 165 ( ↑ 5 )
• short stories - 7 ( ↑ 5 )
• manga/graphic novels - 7 ( ↓ 4 )
• comics - 12 ( ↑ 1 )

Pages read - 42,856 ( ↑ 2.3K )
Words read - 14,603K ( ↑ 886K )
Average Rating - 3.11 ( ↓ 0.20 )

GENERAL THOUGHTS:

General Life Thoughts

Mrs B didn't break her arm this holiday season. Hallelujah! If you think I am kidding, well, the last two years before this she HAS fallen at work and broken either her arm or wrist. I think we're done with that nonsense. Thankful? Yes!

We bought a new to us car, which is the newest car we've ever owned, a 2016 Subaru Impreza. We paid for it in full in cash, so we own it outright and no monthly payments. Thankful? Yes!

I now have a coworker who is my size and thinks like I do, procedurally. I'll turn to him and tell him how I want something done and he's already doing it that way, because that makes sense to him. He's also toned down the talking a LOT, so he's also self-aware. Short-Round seems to be working out. Thankful? Yes!

Insurance and Endocrinologist. My endo quit her job at the end of last year and so far the hospital hasn't hired a new one OR transferred me to one of the other ones on staff. They have tried to shuffle most of "dr who quit's" patients back to their primary. Since I have an insulin pump, my primary said "no way!" and told the endo department to make things work. I'm still caught in limbo. Also, insurance is changing how they cover insulin and without an endo to help guide me, I'm left to call the endo office and complain until they get sick of me and do something. Thankful? NO!

In May Mrs B and I began attending the SDA church every Sabbath (Saturday). It is about an hour away and pretty much takes up the whole day. I also stopped going to our sunday church then because I couldn't handle a crowd of people each day on the weekend. Mrs continued going to the sunday church because of all the friendships she had. I began re-attending the sunday church in October as I needed expository preaching (preaching on and about the Bible itself) and the SDA church was much more topical and Bible adjacent. A concrete example is as follows. This fall the pastor at the sunday church started going through the Book of Daniel. He would preach on and explain a chapter or part of a chapter each sunday and the goal is to go through the entire Book of Daniel. The Adventist church has a pastor that we share with another church and so he is only there twice a month. The rest of the time various elders and other lay people (lay refers to them not being ordained) would have talks on subjects that were important to them. Those times would incorporate Bible verses and Biblical principles, but they weren't explicitly teaching the Bible itself. I need expository preaching, as only the Word of God can convict people of sin, righteousness and judgement. Good stories will never get anyone into Heaven. I also needed the manly friendships I had forged at the sunday church. It is only 10minutes away from our place as well. So now I am back to attending both full time and I'm exhausted. I suspect 2026 will see me attending the SDA church once a month and the sunday church every week. Mrs B loves attending both, all the time. More power to her I say! Thankful? It's Complicated ;-)

I had double vision for two solid months and was off work. Then from Thanksgiving to New Years both Mrs B and I had the flu several times. It wasn't the old fashioned "achy breaky heart" kind flu, but the whole can't keep food or water down and feel like a monster truck has stomped all over us. Not thankful it happened, but thankful it's over, for now.

General Bookish & Bloggish Thoughts

My reading was almost the same, overall, as last year. The numbers are all within acceptable parameters, except for my average rating. Which I blame squarely on all the bad dnf books I somehow got tricked into reading. If I have a book guardian angel, he was totally asleep at the wheel in the last part of the year. I had EIGHT dnf's this year. To put that in comparison, I had two in 2024 and four in 2023. Shame on you, Book Guardian Angel, shaaaaaame!

"I'm so ashamed! I totally let Saint Bookstooge down. Woe is me!"
~Bookstooge's Total Slacker of a Book Guardian Angel

Posting was pretty good, especially considering I took Saturdays off for most of the year. I was relatively happy with how the blog went this year. I was spared the chinese bot invasion, so I can actually trust the numbers that WP gave me. I know that was not the case for some of the people I hang out with here. Comments and Likes stayed steady throughout the year. I have to admit I was hoping for a bump in stats, but the fact that I stayed steady with several long time bloggers fading away (for various reasons) makes me realize that I need to be grateful for what I have.

I went from dotblog at the end of 2024 back to the free dotwordpressdotcom site and I must say, I felt it. I had built up a decent google presence and that dropped like a stone when I switched back. I also began working on fixing all those dotblog links in my posts but partway through the year I just ran out of steam and stopped caring. I still pick at it but very desultory and not in a determined and organized way. That "running out of steam" leads into the next section.

Wordpress.com continues its death spiral. Don't get me wrong, I don't think WP is going to go out of business in the next couple of years, but when it comes to the free bloggers, we have been shoved down into the manure and spat upon. Every problem in the support forums is met with "Upgrade to the Business Plan" and then the business plan people get the shaft as well with no 24hr / 7 days a week support. I have seen more business plan people begging for help in the free support forums. That is shameful on WP's part and it shows that their goal is short term profit over long term sustainability as a company. I have actually stopped visiting the support forums because it just depresses me to see so many pleas for help being ignored or how many things are being broken in the background as WP messes around with stuff that nobody wants or asked for.

I'm staying on WP ONLY because of the notification system. Given how much I comment, I can't manually keep track of them all and so the notification system on WP is a real blessing.

After I accidentally nuked my blogger site, I have just continued to use it as a current back up option. I currently copy/paste all my posts over there, but I have not started the monumental job of copying all my old posts (2000-2022) back. At this point, I doubt I will.

Calibre is the reason I have no desire to do all that hard work at Blogspot. I have all my book reviews in this free program and they are backed up on an external harddrive and a thumbdrive and on dropbox. While my non-review posts aren't here, I don't particularly care. I am a book blogger first and foremost and my book reviews are the basis of my blogging.

THE BOOKS:

Best Book of the Year

The Finality Problem, the last book in the Warlock Holmes fantasy parody. It ended with the apparent death of Warlock Holmes and to be honest, if that was the final book in the series, I'm ok with that. I loved the series overall and I think this book was a great wrap up.

Worst Book of the Year

Rise of the Warrior Cop by Radley Balko. The less I say, the better.

PLANS FOR 2026

Blog:

Same old, same old. I do need to change something up, because by the end of 2025 I was just about burned out in the writing department. My energy has tanked and so has any creativity. I've got no plans for any "series" of non-review posts because I just can't think of any.

Personal

Survive. Take things a week or a month at a time and just roll with whatever comes my way.

TOP 5:

Book Review Posts

A Close Fight, the 11th volume of the Demon Slayer manga was my top viewed book review this year. One of the reasons I'll never understand other people is because something like this gets the top spot. It wasn't bad, but it was only a 3star read.

Casino Royale, the first James Bond novel. I enjoyed it but it wasn't earth shattering.

Acia by Turgenev. This is why I am reading these Russian classics. I am being exposed to a mindset that I could never imagine on my own, not in a million years.

A Rainbow to Heaven. This was my most shameful book review of the year. I was hosting a Barbara Cartland readalong and ended up dnf'ing the book after the third chapter. I was so embarrassed! Still am in fact. But I am using this as a learning experience. Read the bleeding book BEFORE choosing it as a group read, sigh.

After Dark, a Silver John novel. The covers for the Silver John books were just fantastic. I read this series based on my memories of the covers as a teenager.

Non-Review Posts

Bookstooge's Criteria (for choosing who I follow)

Update. The start of two months of double vision due to an eye nerve palsy.

Sunshine Blogger Award 2025 Edition

12 Years and Counting. Been on Wordpress for 12 years now.

PSA: Blogging and Personality. Who we are affects our style of blogging.

Bonus+

Plagiarism, a guest post by Mrs Bookstooge.

Commentors + Runner Up

1. Fraggle - Yer Majesty!

2) Alex "Triple AAA" Good

3) Riders of Skaith - Is the Correct Answer!

4) Nancy McKeand - Pen & Paper is her new jam

5) Brian - Gurglings of a Putrid Stream, but he's really an ok guy, honest!

Bonus+

6) Bruce the Brucie Bonus!

Movies

The Fifth Element was the only actual movie I reviewed this year. I did watch and review a bunch of anime, but really, that is different. Plus, it was a whole bunch of one series, so who wants to see 4 covers of the same series right in a row?

Art

Hill Giant, a magic the gathering card.

Ironclaw Orcs. Yep, you guessed it, a magic card!

[Art] The Dark Side of Love

[Art] Maiden of the Fall

Grizzly Bear. Yet another magic card.

Hall of Shame (5 least viewed posts)

Gloom. A magic the gathering card post. These posts are always under-performers in terms of views but considering how many memories of my teen years are tied up into them, I'm doing these just for me.

Star's End, the final book in Starfisher trilogy by Glen Cook. I was not impressed with this series and I'm glad this wasn't my first exposure to Cook. Or it would have been my last.

B is for Burglar. One of those horrible Kinsey Milhone books by Sue Grafton. I truly regret dipping my toes into this series.

Ghost Ship. Another magic the gathering card.

Demon Slayer #13 manga. This is where my interest in this manga began to really wane. I only lasted two more volumes before giving up.

• Previous Year in Review Posts

December '25 Roundup & Ramblings

 

Raw Data:

Novels - 15 ↑

Short Stories - 1 ↑

Manga/Graphic Novels - 0 -

Comics - 1 -

Average Rating - 3.11 ↑

Pages - 3453 ↑

Words - 1229 ↓

The Bad:

A Rainbow to Heaven - 1.5star DNF

Ethan of Athos - 1star DNF

The Good:

Witches Abroad - 4stars

Dune - 5stars

Miscellaneous Posts:

• Jandor's Saddlebags - MTG 4E
• When a Daddy Eggnog Loves a….
• Jayemdae Tome - MTG 4E
• Jump - MTG 4E
• [Art] Maiden of Christmas Solstice 2025
• Junún Efreet - MTG 4E
• Merry Christmas!!! (2025 Edition)
• Karma - MTG 4E

Personal:

December was quite the month. I was still fighting off the sickness from November and while I felt better in many regards, I could tell I was still on the edge. It didn't help that we had our first snow storm right at the beginning and got around 6-7inches, which is enough to stick around for the entire season. Getting into the routine of working in the snow is always a week long chore. And then Mrs B and I came down with the flu typeA this past weekend. We're out of work for the whole week and we're doing our best to stay hydrated and taking tylenol to reduce the fever. Mrs B started Friday night and I started Sunday night, so she is just rounding the corner on recovery while I'm still in the throes of it all. Life is just grand at the moment.

Things were just busy too. With work Christmas parties and extra stuff going on at our churches, even if WE wanted to slow down, there was so much going on that we were swept along. Since most of the things were people oriented, it just wore me out even faster. There was one Friday where I attended a Land Surveyors Association annual meeting and there were over 250 people there. Just sitting in a room with 60+ people for 2hour stretches wore me out.

Short Round (thanks Spalanz!), the new guy at work, has settled in very well. He still talks, but it's not non-stop, all the time, go-go-go. Now it's just whenever. His plan is to eventually get licensed. I sure hope it works out for him. I have my doubts however.

In regards to books, I reviewed a bunch more than in November but I think most of that was me trying to get stuff all caught up before New Years hit. Even though I like to schedule stuff out 3-4 weeks, I don't like saying I read a book in January if I actually read it in December. The DNF's hit again(!!!!) and man, I must say, that really screwed with my ratings and my feelings. Especially since one of them was supposed to be the Barbara Cartland buddyread that I had plans for all month long. It was cut down in one post, sigh. And besides dnf'ing the book, I had to deal with letting down the people who had agreed to do the read-a-long for the month. I hate being disappointed by other people and I really hate disappointing others and letting them down. At least it happened in the first week so I had a chance to get over it ;-) On the plus side, ending the month and the year with reading Dune was fantastic. That book has so many facets that every time I read it, I see something completely different.

Cover Love:

I read the Dune: Deluxe Edition and man, that cover is fantastic. It is clickable if you want to view it full size.

Plans for Next Month:

I have my annual Year in Review post coming up on Thursday the 1st and then on Friday the 2nd I have a post dedicated to my plans in January.

See you January 1st!

Karma - MTG 4E

 

This is what is called a "hate card" in Magic, because it is hating on a specific color. White was pretty good at that back in the day. It kind of had to though, because they didn't have a lot of powerful creatures or spells. Plus, since I didn't play black back then, I was especially self-righteous about punishing those who did. Ahhh, youth ;-)