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.
My travel this month was a work trip to London and a Worldcon planning trip to Dublin. At home, we had a nice excursion with the girls. It was impossible to get them both looking at the camera, but at least in this shot they are looking at each other.
My brother visited Brussels, and I persuaded F to come into the city for dinner. As far as I know, we are the only male-line descendants of our great-great-grandfather Nicholas Charles Whyte (1784-1844). He had two younger sons, our great-grandfather’s brothers. One of them never married; the other had four daughters and a son, but the son had no children. Our grandfather was one of nine brothers, but the other eight between them produced only one daughter. Our father had just the one sister. Apart from our own sister, who has kept her birth name, our closest Whyte relatives are descended from brothers of our great-great-grandfather and are therefore at least our fourth cousins.
On the last weekend of the month the local woods had a heitage day, including historical re-enactment of a local court session.
I read only 15 books that month.
Non-fiction: 3 (YTD 45)
Here’s My Card, by Bob Popyk
Seychelles: The Saga of a Small Nation Navigating the Cross-Currents of a Big World, by Sir James R. Mancham
Behind the Sofa: Celebrity Memories of Doctor Who, ed. Steve Berry
Fiction (non-sf): 2 (YTD 26)
Sodom and Gomorrah, by Marcel Proust
Gentleman’s Agreement, by Laura Z. Hobson
sf (non-Who): 6 (YTD 103)
Ringworld, by Larry Niven
The Sound of his Horn, by Sarban
Larque on the Wing, by Nancy Springer
The Cloud Roads, by Martha Wells
Words of Radiance, by Brandon Sanderson
Earth Girl, by Janet Edwards
Doctor Who, etc: 2 (YTD 31)
Doctor Who: The Women Who Lived – Tales for Future Time Lords, by Christel Dee and Simon Guerrier
The Vampire Curse, by Mags Halliday, Kelly Hale and Philip Purser-Hallard
Comics: 2 (YTD 24)
Doctor Who: The Widow’s Curse, ed. Tom Spilsbury
Retour sur Aldébaran, tome 1, by Leo
~5,000 pages (YTD ~62,300)
6/15 (YTD 96/236) by non-male writers (Hobson, Springer, Wells, Edwards, Dee, Halliday/Hale)
1/15 (YTD 24/236) by PoC (Mancham)
My favourite of these was Tiptree winning Larque on the Wing, now much better known for her Enola Homes series; you can get it here. Worst of the month, and I think probably worst of the whole year of 2018, was the vastly out-of-date Here’s My Card by Bob Popyk; you can get it here.