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.
I started the month with a historic walk around Leuven, including a visit to the replica Kangxi-Verbiest celestial sphere.

The following weekend I was in Bratislava, and went to see the ballet with H and her friend A.

More travel the following weekend, in Rome with Anne, where a diplomat friend took us to the back garden of the Vatican.
The day after we got back was B’s 22nd birthday.

In the last weekend of the month we visited my cousins in Luxembourg again – left to right, L, my son F, little N, big N (me), S and my first cousin J. Our spouses were also present!

With so much European travel, I managed to read 35 books that month. Some of them were short.
Non-fiction: 1 (YTD 19)
Robert Holmes: a Life in Words, by Richard Molesworth
Fiction (non-sf): 3 (YTD 16)
Five Women Who Loved Love, by Ihara Saikaku
The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters
In Another Light, by Andrew Greig
sf (non-Who): 16 (YTD 51)
Gods, Monsters and the Lucky Peach, by Kelly Robson
Sovereign by R.M. Meluch
The Belles, by Dhonielle Clayton
Binti: The Night Masquerade, by Nnedi Okorafor
Perelandra, by C.S. Lewis
Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells
Beneath the Sugar Sky, by Seanan McGuire
The Weapon Makers, by A.E. van Vogt
Earth’s Last Citadel, by C.L. Moore and Henry Kuttner
The Black God’s Drums, by P. Djèlí Clark
The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard
Bedknobs and Broomsticks, by Mary Norton
The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, by H.P. Lovecraft
“Goat Song”, by Poul Anderson
The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 13)
The Secret Lives of Monsters, by Justin Richards
Filthy Lucre, by James Parsons and Andrew Sterling-Brown
Moon Blink, by Sadie Miller
Comics 6 (YTD 12)
Will Supervillains Be On The Final?, by Naomi Novik, art by Yishan Li
Monstress, Volume 3: Haven, written by Marjorie Liu, art by Sana Takeda
Black Panther: Long Live the King, written by Nnedi Okorafor and Aaron Covington, art by André Lima Araújo, Mario Del Pennino and Tana Ford
Abbott, written by Saladin Ahmed, art by Sami Kivelä, colours by Jason Wordie, letters by Jim Campbell
Paper Girls, Volume 4, written by Brian K. Vaughan, art by Cliff Chiang, colours by Matt Wilson, letters by Jared K. Fletcher
Amazing, Fantastic, Incredible, by Stan Lee, Peter David and Colleen Doran
6,300 pages (YTD 31,500)
15/29 (YTD 51/112) by non-male writers (Waters, Robson, Meluch, Clayton, Okorafor x2, Wells, McGuire, Moore, de Bodard, Norton, Miller, Novik/Li, Liu/Takeda, Doran)
10/29 (YTD 18/112) by PoC (Saikaku, Clayton, Okorafor x2, Clark, de Bodard, Novik/Li, Liu/Takeda, Ahmed, Chiang)
A lot of good books this month; along with several welcome re-reads, the two best new ones were The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard, which you can get here, and The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters, which you can get here. I know that (different) people love them, but I bounced hard off both Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells, which you can get here, and The Weapon Makers, by A.E. van Vogt, which you can get here.