rabbitprincess masters the art of juggling school and fun in 2024

In 2024 I am beginning a master's degree. I won't have a lot of time for pleasure reading, but I'll continue to participate in the ROOT challenge by adding articles and books read for my degree to my definition of a ROOT.

I define a ROOT as "any book I own". Whether I bought it last week or last decade, whether I've read it once or 50 times, if I read it this year, it's a 2024 ROOT.
I've lowered my goal to 40; although I will have a lot of articles and short books to squeeze in the cracks, I'm not sure what the year ahead will bring!



As in previous years I'm running what I call the "2-for-1 TBR". I keep a list of all books I buy and for every book I buy, I have to read two books I already own to "pay it off". Rereads don't count *for* me, but gifts (including books bought with gift cards), duplicate copies of books I own (e.g., buying the audio version of a book I already have in print), books I have borrowed and read but am now buying my own copy of, and freebies don't count *against* me.

In 2023 I started with 143 books to "pay off". I'm starting 2024 with 160. A Humble Bundle of Doctor Who books in October and buying all those course books in December likely contributed to this.

2024 reading list
Italics = books off the shelf. Bold = Favourite book of the month. (Parenthetical notes) = audio, rereads, and other relevant information.

January
1. A Man and His Cat, Vol. 8, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel)
2. Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq, by Scott A. Snook
3. Les Poisons de la couronne, by Maurice Druon
4. Navigating Safety: Necessary Compromises and Trade-Offs - Theory and Practice, by René Amalberti
5. Howl’s Moving Castle, by Diana Wynne Jones
6. Reflecting on Jens Rasmussen’s legacy: A strong program for a hard problem, by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
7. Understanding the "blues of safety professionals", by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
8. The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo
9. Bad apples or corrupting barrels? Preventing traders’ misconduct, by Wieke Scholten and Naomi Ellemers (article)
10. ‘Bad apples’: time to redefine as a type of systems problem?, by Kaveh G Shojania and Mary Dixon-Woods (article)
11. Police corruption: apples, barrels and orchards, by Maurice Punch and Stan Gilmour (article)
12. Mystery Man, by Colin Bateman
13. Easy to Kill, by Agatha Christie

February
14. Days at the Morisaki Bookshop, by Satoshi Yagisawa (translated by Eric Ozawa)
15. Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora, by Philip Hinchcliffe
16. The Defector, by Chris Hadfield
17. Winter’s Gifts, by Ben Aaronovitch
18. The Human Contribution Unsafe Acts, Accidents and Heroic Recoveries, by James Reason (extract)
19. From theory to practice: itinerary of Reasons’ Swiss Cheese Model, by Justin Larouzee and Franck Guarnieri (article)
20. Elevator Pitch, by Linwood Barclay
21. Coping with complexity, by Jens Rasmussen and Morten Lind
22. Skills, rules and knowledge: signals, signs and symbols and other distinctions in human performance models, by Jens Rasmussen (article)
23. Human error and the problem of causality in analysis of accidents, by Jens Rasmussen (article)

March
24. Blood: The Science, Medicine and Mythology of Menstruation, by Dr. Jen Gunter
25. Exit Lines, by Reginald Hill
26. Complexity: learning to muddle through, by John M. Flach (article)
27. Coping with complexity: past, present and future, by Erik Hollnagel (article)
28. Reconstructing human contributions to accidents: the new view on error and performance, by Sidney Dekker (article)
29. Patterns in how people think and work: The importance of pattern discovery for understanding complex adaptive systems, by David D. Woods et al. (article)
30. A Man and His Cat, Vol. 9, by Umi Sakurai (translated by Taylor Engel) — 4 stars
31. MABA-MABA or Abracadabra? Progress on Human-Automation Coordination, by Sidney Dekker and David D. Woods (Article)
32. Human factors and folk models, by Sidney Dekker and Erik Hollnagel (article)
33. Situation awareness, mental workload, and trust in automation: viable, empirically supported cognitive engineering constructs, by Raja Parasuraman, Thomas B. Sheridan, and Christopher D. Wickens (article)
34. Doctor Who: Apollo 23, by Justin Richards
35. So Fetch: The Making of Mean Girls (and Why We’re Still So Obsessed with It), by Jennifer Keishin Armstrong

April
36. The Satan Bug, by Alistair MacLean
37. Trouble Follows Me, by Ross Macdonald
38. Flight Safety Foundation White Paper: Learning From All Operations: Expanding the Field of Vision to Improve Aviation Safety (article)
39. Voice Lessons: How a Couple of Ninja Turtles, Pinky, and an Animaniac Saved My Life, by Rob Paulsen (audio, read by Rob Paulsen)
40. The Soo Line’s Famous Trains to Canada, by Terry Gainer
41. What Television Remembers: Artifacts and Footprints of TV in Toronto, by Jennifer VanderBurgh
42. The Freelancer, by C.J. Fournier
43. Barry Turner: The Under-Acknowledged Safety Pioneer, by K. Bills, L. Costello and M. Cattani (article)
44. Dalek Empire 3.1: The Exterminators, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

Happy ROOTing this year, and good luck with your goal!

Dropping my star. Best of luck with the Masters! I hope you have some time for fun reads as well as work :)

>3 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer!

>4 Jackie_K: Thanks, Jackie! I'll definitely carve out some time for fun reads. All work and no play, etc. :)

Hi RP. Good Luck with your Masters. Happy New year with lots of books and don't forget to join the ROOTers!

>6 connie53: Thanks, Connie! I've checked to make sure I joined :)

>7 mstrust: Thanks, Jennifer! Happy new year to you as well. This guy reminds me of Mr. Hutchinson from the Fawlty Towers episode "The Hotel Inspectors".

Welcome back!

Hi RP, best of luck this year with your ROOTs and your schooling.

Happy to see you here again! Looking forward to seeing what you find on your shelves

Happy New Year! Good luck with (and enjoy!) your coursework.

Happy New Year! I also send my best wishes for your studies and work on the master's degree. I hope it all goes well for you this year. And do try to get some fun reads in, though I know you will be busy.

>9 cyderry: >10 Familyhistorian: >11 Caramellunacy: >12 detailmuse: Thanks, Chèli, Meg, MJ and Irene! I have some guaranteed fun-reading time during my commute and breaks from work, so that will help a bit.

Good luck with your master's, and with finding a good balance of work and pleasure reading. I've changed my own ROOTing rules to be closer to yours and it feels good (still undecided on rereads)!

Happy new year, RP! Good luck with ROOTing amidst your studies :)

Happy New Year, rp, and lots of luck with finding time for leisure reading!

>15 Rebeki: >16 curioussquared: >17 MissWatson: Thanks Rebeki, Natalie and Birgit! I predict a lot of short ROOTs will find their way to the top of the pile.

Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq, by Scott A. Snook
ROOT 1 of 40
Source: University of Chicago Press
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/209592530

This wasn't a fast read at a chapter a day, but it was interesting. And it helps me get my ROOT reading off to a good start.

Good to see you again, RP

>20 Robertgreaves: Thanks, Robert! Good to see you too :)

Les Poisons de la couronne, by Maurice Druon
ROOT 2 of 40
Source: Les Librairies
Rating: 3.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/255301336

I've been working on this series for a number of years; this installment I'd intended to read back in 2021. It will likely take another 3 years to get to the next book.

Navigating Safety: Necessary Compromises and Trade-Offs - Theory and Practice, by René Amalberti
ROOT 3 of 40
Source: AbeBooks
Rating: 3.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/255301336

Another chapter-a-day read, although one with a very long chapter in the middle. I'm still compiling my notes from this book.

ROOT 4 of 40 is an article for school that isn't in my LT catalogue.

Ah, Les Rois Maudits! I need to get back to this series.

>23 MissWatson: I've put book 4 on the read-soon shelf, although "soon" is relative :)

****

ROOT 5 of 40 is another article for school.

Good luck with the master's! How exciting.

I love the 2-for-1 TBR idea. If I also don't count freebies against me, I might actually be able to pull that off as the majority of new books I bring in are ARCs.

>25 madhatter22: Thanks! It's exciting and terrifying all at the same time. The 2-for-1 idea came to me from bragan via Book Riot, I think, and it's definitely helped me be more aware of my spending sprees. Hoping the Master's will prove distracting enough to prevent me from getting out too much ;)

The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo
ROOT 6 of 40
Source: Tor.com ebook of the month club
Rating: 2.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/227011183

I have a small stockpile of Tor.com ebooks to get through, so it was good to get this one read. It felt somewhat incomplete, but at the same time I don't know if I'm sufficiently interested to continue the series.

ROOTS 7, 8, and 9 of 40 are more articles for school. I'm counting articles as ROOTs if I read the whole thing. DNFs are allowed only for books :)

Mystery Man, by Colin Bateman
ROOT 10 of 40
Source: Sleuth of Baker Street, Toronto (via a friend)
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/219217405

This is the first in a series featuring the unnamed owner of No Alibis, a crime fiction bookshop in Belfast. He is a walking bundle of neuroses and the humour is quite sardonic. The cover has a similar vibe to Chris Brookmyre; I think Bateman is more acerbic but it's a fair comparison.

Easy to Kill, by Agatha Christie
ROOT 11 of 40
Source: pilfered from grandparents
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/work/115985/reviews/70475698

I re-read this Christie after watching the Marple-fied adaptation with my parents (they've been going through all the Poirots and Marples in order). The book is quite good and it doesn't hurt to imagine Benedict Cumberbatch as the lead :)

>28 rabbitprincess: I didn't realize there was an adaptation - much less one featuring Benedict Cumberbatch. I will have to see if I can track that down!

>29 Caramellunacy: It was one of the Julia McKenzie Marples, if that helps! Anna Chancellor and Shirley Henderson are in it as well.

January recap: 11 ROOTS pulled (YTD: 11)

Friendly Fire: The Accidental Shootdown of U.S. Black Hawks over Northern Iraq, by Scott A. Snook
Les Poisons de la couronne, by Maurice Druon
Navigating Safety: Necessary Compromises and Trade-Offs - Theory and Practice, by René Amalberti
Reflecting on Jens Rasmussen’s legacy: A strong program for a hard problem, by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
Understanding the "blues of safety professionals", by Jean-Christophe Le Coze (article)
The Empress of Salt and Fortune, by Nghi Vo
Bad apples or corrupting barrels? Preventing traders’ misconduct, by Wieke Scholten and Naomi Ellemers (article)
‘Bad apples’: time to redefine as a type of systems problem?, by Kaveh G Shojania and Mary Dixon-Woods (article)
Police corruption: apples, barrels and orchards, by Maurice Punch and Stan Gilmour (article)
Mystery Man, by Colin Bateman
Easy to Kill, by Agatha Christie (reread)

Favourite ROOT of the month: Friendly Fire

I expect February will have a few more papers like January did. I would also not be surprised to see a lot of crime novels.

>31 rabbitprincess: The bad-apples articles sound interesting. The reach is huge now with social media's influencer culture.

>32 detailmuse: That would definitely be an interesting angle to look at the problem from. Not only how influencers influence an audience, but how the system influences them (incentivizing them to do certain things to meet certain goals, etc.).

I'm finally returning your visit to my thread. Good luck with your Masters. I was trying to work out what you're studying from your reading list - bad apples, maybe? ;0)

The Colin Bateman reads look interesting, RP. You're doing well with your ROOTing numbers.

>34 humouress: Thanks for the visit! Our course has moved on from bad apples but it's dealing with books I've already read, so nothing new for the moment ;)

>35 Familyhistorian: It was quite fun! I'm not doing as great with the ROOTs this month; hoping to pick it up in the second half of the month, especially because we have the extra day this year.

****

Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora, by Philip Hinchcliffe
ROOT 12 of 40
Source: apparently a book sale at work
Rating: 2.5/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/135781105

I have no idea how a Doctor Who book ended up at a book sale at work many years ago, but it was a good opportunity! The book wasn't that great though; I've read more fun novelizations.

Hi RP, I just joined this group, but I may be a lurker. It's nice to see you here - you are doing great juggling everything!

It feels too late for me to start here, although I hope that the great majority of books I read this year are ROOTs.

>37 LisaMorr: Just feel free to start your own thread, Lisa. Always welcome to join and start counting from January first.

>38 connie53: Thanks Connie, why not!

>37 LisaMorr: Heck yes join the party!!

I read an extract from James Reason's The Human Contribution for an assignment, so that will count under my rules as ROOT 13 of 40.
And another article becomes ROOT 14 of 40.

Reading new stuff declined a bit as I wrote my first couple of assignments based on previously read material, but I'm reading a bit more widely now, so hopefully some more activity here soon :)

Elevator Pitch, by Linwood Barclay
ROOT 15 of 40
Source: Chaptigo
Rating: 4/5
Review: https://www.librarything.com/review/173514687

An exciting thriller for the bus. I'm several Barclays behind so it was good to catch up a bit.

A much more complicatedly written article for my course makes ROOT 16 of 40.
A less complicated article makes ROOT 17 of 40.
And another article down for ROOT 18 of 40.

February recap: 7 ROOTS pulled (YTD: 18)

Doctor Who and the Masque of Mandragora, by Philip Hinchcliffe
The Human Contribution Unsafe Acts, Accidents and Heroic Recoveries, by James Reason (extract, not rated)
From theory to practice: itinerary of Reasons’ Swiss Cheese Model, by Justin Larouzee and Franck Guarnieri (article)
Elevator Pitch, by Linwood Barclay
Coping with complexity, by Jens Rasmussen and Morten Lind (article)
Skills, rules and knowledge: signals, signs and symbols and other distinctions in human performance models, by Jens Rasmussen (article)
Human error and the problem of causality in analysis of accidents, by Jens Rasmussen (article)

Favourite ROOT of the month: Elevator Pitch

My ROOT pile is very small for March because I have a lot of library books out. I do also have some audiobooks that are building up.

March recap: 9 ROOTS pulled (YTD: 27)

Exit Lines, by Reginald Hill
Complexity: learning to muddle through, by John M. Flach (article)
Coping with complexity: past, present and future, by Erik Hollnagel (article)
Reconstructing human contributions to accidents: the new view on error and performance, by Sidney Dekker (article)
Patterns in how people think and work: The importance of pattern discovery for understanding complex adaptive systems, by David D. Woods et al. (article)
MABA-MABA or Abracadabra? Progress on Human-Automation Coordination, by Sidney Dekker and David D. Woods (Article)
Human factors and folk models, by Sidney Dekker and Erik Hollnagel (article)
Situation awareness, mental workload, and trust in automation: viable, empirically supported cognitive engineering constructs, by Raja Parasuraman, Thomas B. Sheridan, and Christopher D. Wickens (article)
Doctor Who: Apollo 23, by Justin Richards

Favourite ROOT of the month: Given that only 2 of my ROOTs this month were books, I will give the crown to Apollo 23 because I am actually keeping the book.

April will see me finishing up my first course for my master's AND moving house, so not sure how much reading of any kind will get done.

Good job with your ROOTs! And good luck with everything you have on the plate in April!

Sounds like you have a lot going on in April! Good luck getting it all done and sneaking in some reading ☺️

>45 LisaMorr: It was a good idea on my part to include papers for my course as ROOTs because I downloaded copies to my computer ;)

>46 curioussquared: Fortunately we're keeping our current place until the end of May, so that gives us time for a more gradual move (and room to sneak in some reading) :)

>43 rabbitprincess: I may have that Doctor Who book!

Hi RP, I hope you have a good move. A new place is always nice and terrifying at the same time. And get some reading done.

>48 Owltherian: Nice! I am a big collector of Doctor Who books. They are the perfect light reading. And I love that new Target novels have been written for the later Doctors :)

>49 connie53: Thanks, Connie! I've already started packing up some of the books and they are filling a LOT of boxes, haha.

>50 rabbitprincess: Thats very true, and i just so happen to be rewatching the whole show!

>51 Owltherian: Awesome! I'd love to do a rewatch someday. For now I am glad to be caught up with the latest specials and ready for Ncuti Gatwa's first full season.

>52 rabbitprincess: Yeah, and honestly its a good show.

>53 Owltherian: It really is!

Quick report on the ROOTS I've read so far this month.

The Satan Bug, by Alistair MacLean (ROOT 28 of 40): 2 stars. Started out OK but the ending became convoluted, especially as the narrator untangled all the threads of the conspiracy (and re-tangled them again a bit for me, to be honest).
Trouble Follows Me, by Ross MacDonald (ROOT 29 of 40): 1 star. I noped out after about 15 pages when the characters launched into an extremely racist conversation.
An article for school was ROOT 30 of 40.
Voice Lessons, by Rob Paulsen (ROOT 31 of 40): 4 stars. I've been reading this off and on for quite some time and it's great. The print book is probably great too, but if you like audio, do the audio.

>54 rabbitprincess: I have rewatched it way more than a normal person would have (due to my dad watching it all the time)

>56 Owltherian: And there's so much of it to rewatch!

Another article for school makes ROOT 32 of 40.

I've reshelved a lot of my books after moving house, and now I want to do nothing but read all the books I've unearthed. "Oh, I forgot I had that one! And this one! Ooh and this one!" I was so efficient at shelving all my books that I managed to cram about five bookcases' worth of books into three and a half. Going to need to buy another bookcase :)

>58 rabbitprincess: Oh, that sounds like a happy time discovering all those long-lost books.

>57 rabbitprincess: Yeah, and sometimes you forget about characters, and then watching the episode reminds you.

>58 rabbitprincess: Oh poor you! ;)

One last ROOT under the wire for April.

Dalek Empire 3.1: The Exterminators, by Nicholas Briggs (ROOT 33 of 40): 3 stars. I had this cued up back in January but am only getting to it now. The Dalek Empire stories are nice and short so a pleasant way to spend an hour.

Edit: actually, one more than that! Just finished another article, which is ROOT 34 of 40.

April recap: 7 ROOTS pulled (YTD: 34)

The Satan Bug, by Alistair Maclean
Trouble Follows Me, by Ross Macdonald
Flight Safety Foundation White Paper: Learning From All Operations: Expanding the Field of Vision to Improve Aviation Safety (article)
Voice Lessons: How a Couple of Ninja Turtles, Pinky, and an Animaniac Saved My Life, by Rob Paulsen (audio, read by Rob Paulsen)
Barry Turner: The Under-Acknowledged Safety Pioneer, by K. Bills, L. Costello and M. Cattani (article)
Dalek Empire 3.1: The Exterminators, by Nicholas Briggs (Big Finish audio drama)
Safety barriers: Definition, classification, and performance, by Snorre Sklet (article)

Favourite ROOT of the month: Voice Lessons, no question.

In May, my second master's course ramps up, so not sure what I'll squeeze in ROOT-wise (although it was a good move on my part to include articles in my total).

ROOT 35 of 40 is another article for school.

ROOT 36 of 40 is Gideon's Risk, by J.J. Marric. A fairly good installment. The main case, involving a rich guy whom Gideon thinks has gotten away with murder, held my interest.

>64 rabbitprincess: I swear school makes it so that we suffer through boring books and articles. Yes i know they are 'interesting' topics if you like what they are talking about but jeez.

>65 Owltherian: Some are definitely harder to get through than others! For me it's the volume. I'm doing this degree part time on top of a full-time job and it's fun for sure, but definitely A Lot at times.

>66 rabbitprincess: yeah it kinda sucks a lottt