This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days I've been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I've found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

As noted, we started August at my sister's in Burgundy, and then had two weeks in Northern Ireland, where F was kind enough to help with the catering arrangements for one of our younger visitors.

The most memorable thing about the holiday was that I got the time of the return sailing wrong and we had a long overnight drive through Wales at the other end. The following few days were spent at the Discworld Convention in Birmingham, where I had an absolutely excellent time but I took no photographs and have not found myself in anyone else's. It was of course moving to see Terry Pratchett in what we all knew would be one of his last appearances; I was also very happy to help my friend J in her successful election bid as Low King of the Dwarves.

I read 37 books in August 2010:

Non-fiction 11 (YTD 52)
The Bloody Sunday report, Vol IX
The Bloody Sunday report, Vol X
A Viceroy's Vindication? Sir Henry Sidney's Memoir of Service in Ireland, 1556-78
Faith in Europe?, by Jean Vanier, Mary McAleese, Timothy Radcliffe, Bob Geldof, Chris Patten and Cormac Murphy-O'Connor
The Moldovans: Romania, Russia and the Politics of Culture, by Charles King
Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, by Thomas Merton
Comrade J: The Untold Secrets of Russia's Master Spy in America After the End of the Cold War, by Pete Earley
Back To The Vortex, by J Shaun Lyon
The Bookseller of Kabul, by Åsne Seierstad
Mistress Blanche: Queen Elizabeth I's Confidante, by Ruth Elizabeth Richardson
Aké: the Years of Childhood, by Wole Soyinka

Non-genre fiction 5 (YTD 33)
Soul Mountain / 灵山, by Gao Xingjian
A Town Like Alice, by Nevil Shute
Dubliners, by James Joyce
The Rosary, by Florence Barclay
A Farewell To Arms, by Ernest Hemingway

SF (not Who) 9 (YTD 55)
Black Blade Blues, by J.A. Pitts
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley
Sinai Tapestry, by Edward Whittemore
Tolkien: The Illustrated Encyclopedia, by David Day
A Fire Upon The Deep, by Vernor Vinge
The Wizard Knight, by Gene Wolfe
Diaspora, by Greg Egan
The Amazing Maurice And His Educated Rodents, by Terry Pratchett
Northern Lights, by Philip Pullman

Doctor Who 9 (YTD 46, 50 counting comics and non-fiction)
Longest Day, by Mike Collier
Doctor Who Annual 2011
Legacy of the Daleks, by John Peel
Wishing Well, by Trevor Baxendale
The King's Dragon, by Una McCormack
The Ring of Steel, by Stephen Cole
The Pit, by Neil Penswick
The Slitheen Excursion, by Simon Guerrier
Fallen Gods, by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman

Comics 3 (YTD 12)
With the Light… / 光とともに…, vol 2, by Keiko Tobe
Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life, by Bryan Lee O'Malley
Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, by Bryan Lee O'Malley

~11,000 pages (YTD 63,100)
8/37 (YTD 42/202) by women (McAleese, Seierstad, Richardson, Barclay, Shelley, McCormack, Orman, Tobe)
5/37 (YTD 16/202) by PoC (Soyinka, Gao, Tobe, O'Malley x 2)

Some very good books here. The book of the year for me was the Bloody Sunday Report, which you can download here. But I also really enjoyed Hemingway's A Farewell to Arms, which you can get here, Joyce's Dubliners, which you can get here, and Shute's A Town Like Alice, which you can get here. At the other end, I found that once I put Wolfe's The Wizard Knight down it was impossible to pick it up again (you can get it here) and The Pit is one of the least impressive Who books out there (you can get it here).