In anticipation of the 25th anniversary of my bookblogging, which will come in late 2028, I’m reposting my monthly summaries since November 2003 when I started. (I already did this in 2019-2023, but this gives me a chance to consolidate all the posts and links to this WordPress site rather than my old Livejournal.) Everything will be linked under the bookblog nostalgia tag.
This was the month that B finally moved out, initially to a centre up near the Dutch border for a few months. It was of course for the best that she should be with people professionally trained to look after people with her needs. But we found it a pretty difficult transition. She was generally pretty doped up for her last few weeks with us, but I did get a nice picture of her on the final day.
Despite all this, I managed two trips that month, to the frankly disappointing Octocon in Maynooth, and to London at the very end of the month. I had one really funny moment at a seminar in the European Parliament, where the chair, somehow confusing me with Sarah Ludford (who was also participating in the meeting, but not sitting beside me), addressed me as “Baroness Nicholas Whyte”. In a surprise development, Menȝies Campell resigned as Lib Dem leader after only 19 months.
I did read 19 books in October 2007.
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 69)
MMR: Science & Fiction: Exploring the Vaccine Crisis, by Richard Horton
A Time of Gifts, by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Between the Woods and the Water, by Patrick Leigh Fermor
The Uncrowned King of Ireland: Charles Stewart Parnell – His Love Story and Political Life, by Katherine O’ Shea (Mrs Charles Stewart Parnell)
Non-genre 4 (YTD 30)
The Kalahari Typing School for Men, by Alexander McCall Smith
Vineland, by Thomas Pynchon
Steppenwolf, by Herman Hesse
The Full Cupboard of Life, by Alexander McCall Smith
SF 9 (YTD 67)
The Satanic Verses, by Salman Rushdie
Lord of Emperors, by Guy Gavriel Kay
Wintersmith, by Terry Pratchett
A Load of Old BoSh: serious scientific talks by Bob Shaw
Stardust, by Neil Gaiman
L. Ron Hubbard Presents Writers of the Future volume XIX, ed. Algis Budrys
Blind Voices, by Tom Reamy
Alternate Worldcons, ed. Mike Resnick
The Shore of Women, by Pamela Sargent
Comics 2 (YTD 20)
Halo and Sprocket: Welcome to Humanity, by Kerry Callen
Pile: Petals from St. Klaed’s computer, by Brian Aldiss, illustrated by Mike Wilks (putting it in this category, though arguably could go under poetry)
5,100 pages (YTD 62,000)
3/19 by women (YTD 50/211)
1/19 by PoC (YTD 5/211)
Some really good books this month. I’m going to single out Patrick Leigh Fermor’s two classics, which you can get here and here, and Guy Gavriel Kay’s Lord of Emperors, which you can get here. On the other hand, I totally bounced off Vineland, which you can get here.
