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.
I started the month in Loughbrickland but immediately travelled to London for the third leg of my 50th birthday, in The Sun Tavern.
Later in the month I went to Strasbourg…
…Andorra, with its public sculptures by Dali…
…and Berlin, where I didn’t take any photos. But back in Brussels, I paid a visit to the site of the 1927 Solvay conference, beside the European parliament.
By the end of the month I was girding my loins to go to Belfast again for yet more election commentary.
A good month for reading, aided by some long flights and other journeys, and a couple of sunny weekends of sitting in the garden.
Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 16)
Descartes’ Clock, by Gary Powell
Broederschap: Pleidooi voor verbondenheid / Fraternité: Retisser nos liens, by Frans Timmermans
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Katherine Howard: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII’s Fifth Queen, by Josephine Wilkinson
Fiction (non-sf): 4 (YTD 9)
The Parrot’s Theorem, by Denis Guedj
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
Every Step You Take, by Maureen O’Brien
A Motif of Seasons, by Edward Glover
sf (non-Who): 14 (YTD 40)
The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin
All The Birds In The Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders
A Taste of Honey, by Kai Ashante Wilson
The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson
The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle
This Census-Taker, by China Miéville
Lavondyss, by Robert Holdstock
The Jewel and her Lapidary, by Fran Wilde
The Winter Long, by Seanan McGuire
The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd (did not finish)
Argonautica by Valerius Flaccus, translated by J.R. Mozley
An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity, by J. Mulrooney
Everything Belongs to the Future, by Laurie Penny
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 13)
Short Trips: Ghosts of Christmas, ed. Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
The Dalek Factor, by Simon Clark
The Squire’s Crystal, by Jacqueline Rayner
Comics: 3 (YTD 9)
Butterscotch, by Milo Manara
Ms. Marvel Volume 5: Super Famous, by G. Willow Wilson and Takeshi Miyazawa
Saga, vol 6, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
8,500 pages (YTD 23,100)
12/28 (YTD 32/80) by women (Wilkinson, O’Brien, Jemisin, Anders, Johnson, Wilde, Maguire, Penny, Bujold, Rayner, GW Wilson, Staples)
7/28 (YTD 12/88) by PoC (Seth, Jemisin, KA Wilson, LaValle, Miyazawa, Staples)
The best of these were A Suitable Boy (you can get it here), All the Birds in the Sky (you can get it here) and The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe (you can get it here). The worst was The Stormcaller (you can get it here).