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, 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.

There were a number of trips that month, starting with a weekend jaunt to the twin towns of Baarle-Nassau and Baarle-Hertog, which are notable for the fact that they straddle a set of complex intersections of the Dutch / Belgian border.

I also made short trips to Paris and Berlin for work, and a longer trip to Belfast to cover the local council and European Parliament elections for the BBC. Mark Cheah, an old schoolfriend who became a BBC cameraman, caught this rather brilliant shot of the elections team in action. (Not sure what was up with Mark D!)

We ended the month at my sister's in Burgundy, for a much-needed break.

I read 29 books that month.

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 22)
The Rise and Fall of Languages, by R.M.W. Dixon
The Road To Middle-Earth, by Tom Shippey
The Eleventh Hour, ed. Andrew O'Day

Fiction (non-sf) 4 (YTD 16)
Mr Norris Changes Trains, by Christopher Isherwood
Goodbye to Berlin, by Christopher Isherwood
Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert
The Secret Agent, by Joseph Conrad

SF (non-Who) 15 (YTD 42)
Neptune's Brood, by Charles Stross
10 Billion Days & 100 Billion Nights, by Ryu Mitsuse
The Finches of Mars, by Brian Aldiss
Warbound, by Larry Correia
The Empress of Mars, by Kage Baker
Parasite, by Mira Grant
Out Of The Silent Planet, by C.S. Lewis
Carson of Venus, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Cyberabad Days, by Ian McDonald
The Sword In The Stone, by T.H. White
The Legion of Time, by Jack Williamson
The Butcher of Khardov, by Dan Wells
Flora Segunda, by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Six-Gun Snow White, by Cat Valente
Stars in My Pocket Like Grains of Sand, by Samuel R. Delany

Doctor Who 3 (YTD 29)
Island of Death, by Barry Letts
The Death of Art by Simon Bucher-Jones
Anachrophobia, by Jonathan Morris

Comics 2 (YTD 5)
The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who, by Paul Cornell
Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, by Mary and Bryan Talbot

~7,000 pages (YTD ~33,300)
5/27 (YTD 29/114) by women (Baker, "Grant", Wilce, Valente, Talbot)
2/27 (YTD 4/114) by PoC (Mitsuse, Delany)

My favourite book(s) of the month: the compilation of Isherwood's Berlin novels, which you can get here. Also greatly enjoyed the two comics, The Girl Who Loved Doctor Who, by Paul Cornell, which you can get here, and Dotter of Her Father's Eyes, by Mary and Bryan Talbot, which you can get here. On the other hand you can definitely skip Edgar Rice Burroughs' Carson of Venus, which you can get here, and Larry Correia's Warbound, which you can get here.