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.
Only one trip outside Belgium at the start of this year, to London where unexpectedly I saw Noises Off. Within Belgium, F and I had a great excursion to the Cubes of Herne:
I blogged about my cousins the Seavers, the Oberkassel puppy, and science fiction’s predictions for 2023.
I managed a colossal 45 books that month:
Non-fiction 9
God is No Thing: Coherent Christianity, by Rupert Shortt
Diary of a Witchcraft Shop 2, by Trevor Jones and Liz Williams
Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol
Horror of Fang Rock, by Matthew Guerrieri
Battlefield, by Philip Purser-Hallard
The Karmic Curve, by Mary I. Williams
Juggle and Hide, by Sharon van Ivan
Representing Europeans, by Richard Rose
Complexity: A Very Short Introduction, by John H. Holland
Non-genre 2
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin (did not finish)
Plays 1
Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, by Frank McGuinness
Poetry 2
Metamorphoses, by Ovid tr. Stephanie McCarter
Tales from Ovid, by Ted Hughes
SF 22
The Circus Infinite, by Khan Wong
Fugue for a Darkening Island, by Christopher Priest
All the Names They Used for God, by Anjali Sachdeva
“The Mountains of Mourning” by Lois McMaster Bujold
Full Immersion, by Gemma Amor
The Stars Undying, by Emery Robin (did not finish)
The Chosen Twelve, by James Breakwell
Our Share of Night, by Mariana Enriquez (did not finish)
Mercury Rising, by R.W.W. Greene (did not finish)
The Chosen and the Beautiful, by Nghi Vo
At The Edge Of The World, by Lord Dunsany
The Immortality Thief, by Taran Hunt
Wormhole, by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown
Death Draws Five, by John J. Miller
Appliance, by J.O. Morgan
The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi
The Transfer Problem, by Adam Saint (did not finish)
Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, by Dubravka Ugrešić
Upgrade, by Blake Crouch
The Perfect Assassin, by K.A. Doore
Stray Pilot, by Douglas Thompson (did not finish)
The World Set Free: A Fantasia of the Future, by H.G. Wells
Doctor Who 5
Doctor Who: Galaxy Four, by William Emms
Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii, by James Moran
Rise of the Dominator, by Robert Mammone
Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock, by Terrance Dicks
Doctor Who: Battlefield, by Marc Platt
Comics 4
Alternating Current, by Jody Houser et al.
Sin Eaters, by Cavan Scott, Adriana Melo, Cris Bolson and Marco Lesko
Neptune – Épisode 1 by Leo
Neptune – Épisode 2 by Leo
9,900 pages
17/45 by non-male writers (Williams, Cheney/Lofgren/Murphy/Luria, “Williams”, van Ivan, Zevin, McCarter, Sachdeva, Bujold, Amor, Robin, Enriquez, Vo, Hunt, Ugrešić, Doore, Houser et al, Melo)
5/45 by a non-white writer (Thompson/Aguilar/Murphy, Zevin, Wong, Sachdeva, Vo)
With 45 books this month, there were some very good ones to mention and I will skip over the less good. From this month’s Clarke submissions, I really liked Appliance, which you can get here, and The Immortality Thief, which you can get here. Otherwise, I was blown away by Anjali Sachdeva’s short stories, which you can get here, and by Nghi Vo’s retelling of Gatsby, which you can get here; I hugely enjoyed Ovid, who you can get here and here; and I was duly appalled by the report of the 6 January Commission, which you can get here. And Matthew Guerreri’s analysis of Horror of Fang Rock is an excellent entry in a good series; you can get it here.