February 2018 books

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.

I started the month with a trip to Istanbul to give a lecture on Brexit, and also had work trips to London and Sofia.

Istanbul
In Sofia

I read 21 books that month.

Non-fiction: 5 (YTD 8)
Europe Reset, by Richard Youngs
Who Is The Doctor, by Graeme Burk and Robert Smith?
A Preface to Paradise Lost, by C.S. Lewis
Mythology: Timeless Tales of Gods and Heroes, by Edith Hamilton (first 100 pages)
Seventeen Equations that Changed the World, by Ian Stewart

Fiction (non-sf): 2 (YTD 8)
Gone With The Wind, by Margaret Mitchell
Rebecca

sf (non-Who): 9 (YTD 19)
A Tangle Of Fates, by Leslie Ann Moore
The Universe Between, by Alan E Nourse
He, She and It, by Marge Piercy
The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Claire North
The Uninvited, by Dorothy Macardle
Toast
Grand Canyon, by Vita Sackville-West
Dreams Before the Start of Time, by Anne Charnock
The Rift, by Nina Allan

Doctor Who, etc: 2 (YTD 6)
Parallel Lives, by Rebecca Levene, Stewart Sheargold, Dave Stone and Simon Guerrier
From Wildthyme with Love, by Paul Magrs

Comics: 3 (YTD 5)
Hoger dan de bergen en dieper dan de zee: kroniek van een migrant, by Laïla Koubaa and Laura Janssens
Four Doctors, by Paul Cornell and Neil Edwards
Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament, by Arthur Ranson, Donald Rooum, Dave Gibbons, Alan Moore, Hunt Emerson, Neil Gaiman, Mike Matthews, Julie Hollings, Carol Bennett, Peter Rigg and Dave McKean

~6,200 pages (YTD ~13,500)
13/21 (YTD 20/47) by women (Hamilton, Mitchell, du Maurier, Moore, Piercy, North, Macardle, Sackville-West, Charnock, Allan, Levene, Koubaa/Janssens, Hollings/Bennett)
2/21 (YTD 3/47) by PoC (Moore, Koubaa)

I’m going to be nice and just mention the three that I liked most here:

  • Claire North’s The Sudden Appearance of Hope is typically inventive and fascinating; you can get it here.
  • Richard Youngs’ Europe Reset: New Directions for the EU has some great analysis and ideas; you can get it here.
  • Nina Allan’s The Rift takes family dynamics and parallel worlds and adds innovative narrative style and good story-telling; you can get it here.