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.

The highlight of the month was my first trip to South Africa, the farthest south that I have been in my life, for a Liberal International meeting.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Nicholas Whyte (@nwbrux)

The highlight of that was probably the tour of the Constitution Hill complex, including the Constitutional Court and the prison where both Mandela and Gandhi were imprisoned at different times.

Rigorous analysis of social media found that I was the 37th most influential of the top 40 EU twitterers.

Even more important, I got my photo taken with Jenna Coleman at FACTS in Gent.

I read 21 books that month.

Non-fiction: 6 (YTD 44)
What Made Now In Northern Ireland, ed. Maurna Crozier
1434: The Year a Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, by Gavin Menzies (not finished) (tempted to put this in the fiction category)
Memoir of the Queen of Etruria, Written by Herself / an Authentic Narrative of the Seizure and Removal of Pope Pius VII, with Genuine Memoirs of His Journey Written by One of His Attendants
An Assessment of the Economic Impact of Brexit on the EU27, by Michael Emerson, Matthias Busse, Mattia Di Salvo, Daniel Gros, and Jacques Pelkmans
Running Through Corridors 2: Rob and Toby’s Marathon Watch of Doctor Who, the 70s, by Toby Hadoke and Robert Shearman
A Crocodile in the Fernery: An A-Z of Animals in the Garden, by Twigs Way

Poetry: 1 (YTD 2)
From Bed to Bed, by Catullus, trans. James Michie

Fiction (non-sf): 5 (YTD 20)
All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque
Cimarron, by Edna Ferber
Grand Hotel, by Vicki Baum
Caprice and Rondo, by Dorothy Dunnett
Cavalcade, by Noël Coward (theatre play)

sf (non-Who): 4 (YTD 64)
The Dancers at the End of Time, by Michael Moorcock (not finished)
The Last Castle, by Jack Vance
The Past Through Tomorrow, by Robert A. Heinlein
Thorns, by Robert Silverberg

Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 45)
Short Trips: Christmas Around the World, by Xanna Eve Chown
The Big Hunt, by Lance Parkin
Plague City, by Jonathan Morris

Comics: 2 (YTD 23)
Antarès, Épisode 5, by Leo
Antarès, Épisode 6, by Leo

4,700 pages (YTD 48,700)
7/21 (YTD 55/198) by women (Crozier, Queen Maria Luisa of Etruria, Way, Ferber, Baum, Dunnett, Chown)
0/21 (YTD 16/198) by PoC

Several of these were very good, specifically:

• What Made Now In Northern Ireland, ed. Maurna Crozier (get it here)
• An Assessment of the Economic Impact of Brexit on the EU27, by Michael Emerson, Matthias Busse, Mattia Di Salvo, Daniel Gros, and Jacques Pelkmans (get it here for free)
• From Bed to Bed, by Catullus, trans. James Michie (get it here)
• Caprice and Rondo, by Dorothy Dunnett (get it here)
• Thorns, by Robert Silverberg (get it here)

On the other hand, 1434: The Year a Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, by Gavin Menzies, is absolute tosh. You can get it here but I wouldn’t bother if I were you.