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.

The month started with a nostalgic and emotional trip to Bosnia and Croatia, accompanied by F, seeing old friends after many years.

Anne and I went to Rome for Valentine’s Day – actually I had been invited to give a lecture on Brexit, but we made a long weekend of it. It was great.

I read only 14 books that month, Hugo nominations eating into my reading time.

Non-fiction: 5 (YTD 7)
An Informal History of the Hugos, by Jo Walton
Astounding: John W. Campbell, Isaac Asimov, Robert A. Heinlein, L. Ron Hubbard, and the Golden Age of Science Fiction, by Alec Nevala-Lee
Script Doctor: the Inside Story of Doctor Who 1986-1989, by Andrew Cartmel
Tweaking The Tail, by John Leeson
The Life of Sir Denis Henry, by A.D. McDonnell

Fiction (non-sf): 4 (YTD 7)
Fanny Hill, by John Cleland
Candide, by Voltaire
Expo 58, by Jonathan Coe
The Capital, by Robert Menasse

sf (non-Who): 4 (YTD 12)
The Fire Sermon (sample), by Francesca Haig
Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman
Bitter Angels, by C. L. Anderson
The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse

Doctor Who, etc: 1 (YTD 3)
Molten Heart, by Una McCormack

4,400 pages (YTD 9,500)
5/14 (YTD 11/31) by non-male writers (Walton, Haig, Hartman, Anderson, McCormack)
1/14 (YTD 2/31) by PoC (Nevala-Lee)

Several really good books this month; I’m going to single out Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman, which you can get here, and Astounding, by Alec Nevala-Lee, which you can get here, both of them on the Hugo ballot. I’ll draw a veil over the less worthy.