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.
We spent the first half of the month in Loughbrickland as usual, and saw the Red Arrows fly over Tyrella Beach:
We met the Tandragee Man.
My cousin L asked me to be godfather to her baby E, and I accepted.
Taking a winding way back to Belgium, we encountered dead King John, live Chris Priest and Nina Allan, and Stone’enge.
I read 26 books that month.
Non-fiction: 2 (YTD 31)
Drama and Delight: The Life of Verity Lambert, by Richard Marson
Ghastly Beyond Belief, eds. Neil Gaiman and Kim Newman
Fiction (non-sf): 1 (YTD 20)
The Beggar Maid, by Alice Munro
Play scripts: 7
Dido, Queen of Carthage, by Christopher Marlowe and Thomas Nashe
The First Part of Tamburlaine the Great, by Christopher Marlowe
The Second Part of Tamburlaine the Great, by Christopher Marlowe
The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus, by Christopher Marlowe
The Jew of Malta, by Christopher Marlowe
Edward the Second, by Christopher Marlowe
The Massacre At Paris, by Christopher Marlowe
sf (non-Who): 11 (YTD 67)
The Host, by Peter Emshwiller
Merchanter’s Luck, by C.J. Cherryh
The Last Theorem, by Arthur C. Clarke and Frederik Pohl
Oracle, by Ian Watson
A Voyage to Arcturus, by David Lindsay
Robot Dreams, by Isaac Asimov
The Sea and Summer, by George Turner
Planet of Judgement, by Joe Haldeman
The Collected Stories of Roger Zelazny, Vol 3: This Mortal Mountain
Cuckoo Song, by Frances Hardinge
Watership Down, by Richard Adams
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 29)
Short Trips: Seven Deadly Sins, ed. David Bailey
Atom Bomb Blues, by Andrew Cartmel
Tears of the Oracle, by Justin Richards
Comics: 2 (YTD 19)
Alice in Sunderland: An Entertainment, by Bryan Talbot
Les Lumières de l’Amalou, by Christophe Gibelin and Claire Wendling
6,600 pages (YTD 46,900 pages)
4/26 (YTD 51/165) by women (Munro, Cherryh, Hardinge, Wendling)
0/26 (YTD 10/165) by PoC
I hugely enjoyed returning to Watership Down, which you can get here, and discovering Edward II and The Jew of Malta, which are included here, and Alice in Sunderland, which you can get here. On the other hand, as usual for that author, I bounced off Merchanter’s Luck by C.J. Cherryh; you can get it here.