In anticipation of the 25th anniversary of my bookblogging, which will come in late 2028, I’m reposting my monthly summaries since November 2003 when I started. (I already did this in 2019-2023, but this gives me a chance to consolidate all the posts and links to this WordPress site rather than my old Livejournal.) Everything will be linked under the bookblog nostalgia tag.
We spent most of August in Loughbrickland as usual, catching the partial solar eclipse on our way over and the total lunar eclipse two weeks later.
F and I visited the Doctor Who exhibition in Earl’s Court on the way over, I looked in on DWCon in Birmingham on the way back, and I finished the month at the Bled Forum in Slovenia.
In world news, this was the month of the South Ossetia war, bringing back sad memories of my visit to Tskhinvali in 2005.
Non-fiction 9 (YTD 45)
The Right Honorable Arthur MacMurrough Kavanagh: A Biography, by Sarah L. Steele
The Incredible Mr Kavanagh: A Triumph of the Human Spirit, by Donald McCormick
Born without Limbs: A biography of achievement, by Kenneth Kavanagh
Kavanagh MP: An Inspirational Story, by David Cohen
Doctor Who: the Unfolding Text, by John Tulloch and Manuel Alvarado
Teach Yourself to Learn a Language, by P.J.T. Glendening
A History of the Black Death in Ireland, by Maria Kelly
Liberal Democracy and Globalisation, compiled and edited by Graham Watson MEP and Katharine Durrant
1690: Battle of the Boyne, by Pádraig Lenihan
Non-Genre 1 (YTD 17)
Finding Time Again, by Marcel Proust
Scripts 3 (YTD 4)
The Office: The Scripts: Series 1, by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant
The Office: The Scripts: Series 2, by Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant
The First Part of King Henry the Sixth, by William Shakespeare
SF (non-who) 9 YTD 30)
Teranesia, by Greg Egan
The Pilgrim’s Regress, by C.S. Lewis
The Possibility of an Island, by Michel Houllebecq
The Seeds of Time, by John Wyndham
The Child Garden, by Geoff Ryman
The Faded Sun Trilogy, by C.J. Cherryh
The Execution Channel, by Ken MacLeod
Islands in the Net, by Bruce Sterling
The Carhullan Army, by Sarah Hall
Doctor Who 12 (YTD 156)
The Second Doctor Who Monster Book, by Terrance Dicks
The Adventures of K9 and Other Mechanical Creatures, by Terrance Dicks
Terry Nation’s Dalek Special, compiled and edited by Terrance Dicks
Doctor Who – Time and the Rani, by Pip and Jane Baker
Doctor Who – Paradise Towers, by Stephen Wyatt
Doctor Who – Delta and the Bannermen, by Malcolm Kohll
Doctor Who – Dragonfire, by Ian Briggs
Doctor Who – Battlefield, by Marc Platt
Doctor Who – Ghost Light, by Marc Platt
Doctor Who – The Curse of Fenric, by Ian Briggs
Doctor Who – Survival, by Rona Munro
Escape Velocity, by Colin Brake
9200 pages (YTD 63,000)
7/34 (YTD 29/274) by women
None (YTD 6/274) by PoC
NB that P.J. T. Glendening appears to be Peter Glendening, born in 1926 and possibly still alive. I have found a photograph of him as a child and he does not appear to be a writer of colour.
Best and worst: the second series of The Office seemed to me somehow more coherent than the first and very nicely done; you can get the scripts here. Proust finishes on a high note; you can get the last volume here. On the other hand, the Bakers’ novelisation of Time and the Rani is awful; if you want, you can get it here.