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 couple of days of enforced silence after my throat oepration, but have made a full recovery. (Well, almost – I don’t think I’ll ever hit the high notes again.) I had three work trips, one to Berlin, where I visited the site of Rosa Luxemburg’s murder:

and London where I relived one of my favourite urban walks, from Tottenham Court Road to Westminster.

I ended the month in Sofia where I met (among others) Finnish politician Astrid Thors.

And I discovered that my great-great-grandmother’s biological father was not her mother’s husband, but a distant cousin of President Grover Cleveland (also of Shirley Temple and Fritz Leiber).

I read 28 books that month.

Non-fiction 9 (YTD 54)
Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, eds. Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre
The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, by Amia Srinivasan
True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, by Abraham Riesman
Directed by Douglas Camfield, by Michael Seely
Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson
The Eleventh Hour, by Jon Arnold
Face the Raven, by Sarah Groenewegen
No-Nonsense Guide to Global Media, by Peter Steven
The King of Almayne: a 13th century Englishman in Europe, by T.W.E. Roche

Non-genre 2 (YTD 11)
Intimacy, by Jean Paul Sartre
Q&A, by Vikas Swarup

SF 7 (YTD 50)
Half Life, by Shelley Jackson
The Happier Dead, by Ivo Stourton
Queen of the States, by Josephine Saxton
End of the World Blues, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood
The Monk, by Matthew Lewis
Nova Swing, by M. John Harrison
Killdozer!, by Theodore Sturgeon

Doctor Who 1 (YTD 16)
The HAVOC Files, Volume 4, ed. Shaun Russell

Comics 9 (YTD 12)
Monstress, Volume 6: The Vow, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
Far Sector, by N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell
Lore Olympus, by Rachael Smythe
Die, vol.3: The Great Game, by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles 
Die, vol 4: Bleed, by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles 
Once & Future, vol. 3: The Parliament of Magpies, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bonvillain
Once & Future, vol. 4: Monarchies in the UK, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bon-villain
Junker: een Pruisische blues, by Simon Spruyt
Strange Adventures, by Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Evan “Doc” Shane

7,100 pages (YTD 38,600)
12/28 (YTD 58/147) by non-male writers (Srinavasan, Sjunneson, Groenewegen, Jackson, Saxton, Liu/Takeda, Jemisin, Smythe, 2x Hans, 2x Bonvillain)
4/28 (YTD 20/147) by non-white writers (Srinavasan, Swarup, Liu/Takeda, Jemisin)

Three outstanding books this month:

• Half Life, by Shelley Jackson – I can’t believe that nobody recommended this to me before; you can get it here.
• The King of Almayne: a 13th century Englishman in Europe, by T.W.E. Roche – ho many of you knew about the thirteenth-century English prince who captured Jerusalem and got elected Holy Roman Emperor? You can get it here.
• The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, by Amia Srinivasan – difficult but important reading; you can get it here.

On the other hand, as usual for this author, I bounced off Nova Swing by M. John Harrison. You can get it here.