This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 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.
August 2019 for me personally was dominated by my usual family trip to Northern Ireland, which itself was punctuated by the Dublin Worldcon and the Hugo Awards, which I wrote up here and here.
Back in Belgium, I visited the enigmatic Vlooibergtoren with the family.
I read 20 books that month.
Non-fiction: 6 (YTD 35)
Kate Bush: Under the Ivy, by Graeme Thompson
John De Courcy, Prince of Ulster, by Steve Flanders
Adventures in Kate Bush and Theory, by Deborah M. Withers
Second Generations, by Mary Tamm
The Early Life of Samuel M. Wickersham, based on his writings 1819-1862, edited by Edward Wickersham Hoffman
Bloody Sunday: Truth, Lies and the Saville Inquiry, by Douglas Murray
Fiction (non-sf): 2 (YTD 21)
Ben-Hur, by Lee Wallace
Alina, by Jason Johnson
sf (non-Who): 5 (YTD 61)
Grimm Tales for Young and Old, by Philip Pullman
The Time Ships, by Stephen Baxter
The Dispossessed, by Ursula Le Guin
Smallworld, by Dominic Green
Cat Country, by Lao She
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 20)
Doctor Who: Scratchman, by Tom Baker with James Goss
True Stories, ed. Xanna Eve Chown
The Grandfather Infestation, by John Peel
Comics 4 (YTD 19)
Berlin: City of Stones, by Jason Lutes
Berlin: City of Smoke, by Jason Lutes
Berlin: City of Light, by Jason Lutes
Oyasumi, by Renee Rienties, Coco Ouwerkerk and Kimberley Legito Geelen
5,600 pages (YTD 44,000)
5/20 (YTD 65/157) by non-male writers (Withers, Tamm, Le Guin, Chown, Rienties/Ouwerwek/Geelen)
1/20 (YTD 23/157) by PoC (Lao She)
It was great to return to The Dispossessed, which you can get here, and the first Berlin volume, which you can get here. The third and final Berlin volume did not disappoint; you can get it here. On the other hand, Alina, by Jason Johnson, was simply an unpleasant book. You can get it here if you want.