15. Solidarity Federation, Fighting for Ourselves: Anarcho-Syndicalism and the Class Struggle. This is me trying to fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge of labour history and related topics; I got into it as a teen through a Marxist history teacher, which meant I ended up with a decent grasp of the history of communism and social democracy in Germany, but virtually no knowledge of anarchism. This seemed like a really good overview.

16. BKS Iyengar, Light on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Text, translation and commentary on a key primary text for yoga philosophy. The translation of each sutra is preceded by a dictionary-style listing of the meanings of each word, which sometimes gave an interesting insight into other possible translations or additional connotations, but there were several occasions when I simply couldn't see how Iyengar had got from the supposed word meanings to his translation of the whole, at all. I don't know enough Sanskrit to say whether the word meanings are incomplete or whether the translation is in places wishful thinking to make the text fit his pet theories. His correspondence tables matching what Patanjali says about different states of consciousness with what he says about the different stages of yoga definitely struck me as trying too hard. Overall, there were parts of the text and commentary that resonated with my experience of yoga, parts that illustrated some of the things I don't like about yoga philosophy (particularly what seems to me to be an excessive emphasis on renunciation and disengagement), and parts that just plain didn't connect with my experience at all. Perhaps they would if I practised with the single-mindedness Patanjali seems to call for, but I don't really feel like I'm losing out.

17. Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics. yoyoangel lent me this after I posted asking for graphic novels recs. It was a really useful thing for me to read, and I liked the style. Amongst the things I learned were that I prefer the graphics to be a long way short of photo-realism and to use the masking effect a lot, and I like aspect-to-aspect transitions. Yay new analytical vocabulary!

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