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 visit to Ireland for the Northern Irish local council elections…
…visiting my 102-year-old great-aunt…
…and more planning for the Dublin Worldcon.
To England again for our old friend K’s wedding to another K:
I voted in the European and national elections:
And then it was back to Northern Ireland for coverage of the European election count in Magherafelt. (Here with partner in crime Mark Devenport and former Justice Minister and Alliance leader David Ford, who kindly brought us both tea.)
I was very pleased with this picture of the three newly elected MEPs. I had already taken one with them all looking in different directions, but then Martina Anderson (in the middle) called out my name and Diane Dodds (left) and Naomi Long (right) both turned to look at me – funny thing really as I do not know Martina as well as I know the other two.
Anne and I finished a busy month with an Ascension Thursday trip to Utrecht. Here, Anne is a human sundial.
I read 25 books that month.
Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 18)
Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, by Ursula K. Le Guin with David Naimon
The TARDIS Handbook, by Steve Tribe
The Big Finish Companion, vol. 2, by Kenny Smith
Bland Ambition, by Steve Tally
Fiction (non-sf): 4 (YTD 13)
A Sunless Sea by Anne Perry
Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne
The Ginger Man, by J. P. Donleavy
The Bridge on the River Kwai, by Pierre Boulle
sf (non-Who): 13 (YTD 35)
The Cruel Prince, by Holly Black
Dark Lord of Derkholm, by Diana Wynne Jones
The Calculating Stars, by Mary Robinette Kowal
Infomocracy, by Malka Older
Feersum Endjinn, by Iain M Banks
The Invasion, by Peadar O Guilin
Record of a Spaceborn Few, by Becky Chambers
Rosemary and Rue, by Seanan McGuire
Space Opera, by Catherynne M. Valente
Trail of Lightning, by Rebecca Roanhorse
Nebula Awards Showcase 2011, ed. Kevin J. Anderson
Conjure Wife, by Fritz Leiber, Jr
Gather, Darkness!, by Fritz Leiber, Jr
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 10)
The Good Doctor, by Juno Dawson
The Slender-fingered Cats of Bubastis, by Xanna Eve Chown
Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2019, by Paul Lang
Comics 1 (YTD 6)
Animate Europe Plus, by David Shaw, Marta Okrasko, Juliana Penkova, Bruno Cordoba and Paul Rietzl
7,500 pages (YTD 25,200)
13/25 (YTD 36/83) by non-male writers (Le Guin, Perry, Black, Wynne Jones, Kowal, Older, Chambers, McGuire, Valente, Roanhorse, Dawson, Chown, Okrasko/Penkova)
1/25 (YTD 8/83) by PoC (Roanhorse)
I liked most Ursula K. Le Guin: Conversations on Writing, which you can get here, and Record of a Spaceborn Few, which you can get here. I was hugely disappointed with the 2019 Doctor Who annual, but you can get it here.