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 (though this one is very soon after the previous one, which was late) 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.

Much the most important thing that happened to us in January 2011 was that little U, who had just turned seven, said her first words. God bless you, A.A. Milne, wherever you are. (And Walt Disney too, I guess.)

The month had started with a solar eclipse. In my office, my Estonian intern L departed to the EU's information service, where she spent a couple of years answering citizens' questions before getting a serious government advisory position back home, where she still is. Her replacement, J, was from an even smaller EU country, Luxembourg, and (spoilers) also now works for her home government as an adviser, though I recruited her from a volunteer position in Kosovo.

My only work trip that month was to Chișinău again, where I spoke at a conference and was given a tour of the famous Cricova wine cellars, including President Putin’s private stash.

It had snowed in Moldova too.

I had a couple of other cultural excursions, one to an exhibition of relics in Leuven:

And to the Hergé Museum in Louvain-La-Neuve, well worth a visit.

I posted two pieces on the abolition of the Irish Seanad, for all the good that did, and continued to hate my HTC Desire phone.

I read 16 books in January 2011.

Non-fiction: 5
The Hiſtory of That moſt Eminent Stateſman, Sir John Perrott
Sisters of Sinai, by Janet Soskice
For Noble Purposes, by Richard Porter
Tyrone's Rebellion, by Hiram Morgan
The Secret Life of Trees, by Colin Tudge

Non-genre fiction: 1
The Undiscovered Chekhov, by Anton Chekhov

SF (non-Who): 3
Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake
Gormenghast, by Mervyn Peake
Titus Alone, by Mervyn Peake

Doctor Who: 6
Heart of TARDIS, by Dave Stone
Doctor Who Annual 1979
AHistory: An Unauthorized History of the Doctor Who Universe, by Lance Parkin
Shadowmind, by Christopher Bulis
The Scarlet Empress, by Paul Magrs
Doctor Who Annual 1980

Comics: 1
Ōoku: The Inner Chambers vol.2, by Fumi Yoshinaga

Page count: 4400
2/16 books by women (Soskice, Yoshinaga).
1/16 by PoC (Yoshinaga).

The best:

• Sisters of Sinai, about two Victorian women who made a massive contribution to biblical studies; you can get it here.
• Tyrone's Rebellion, superb account of the Nine Years' War; you can get it here.
• AHistory, an exhaustive chronology of the Whoniverse; you can get it here.

The worst:

• Titus Groan, which I finished rereading last month as it happens. Skip it, and just read the first two volumes. If you want, you can get it here.
• The Secret Life of Trees, an interesting subject ill-served. You can get it here.