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.

We started the month with a wedding anniversary trip to Dordrecht in the Netherlands, reported in two blog posts:

Dordrecht part 1: public Art, the Grote Kerk and the Biesbosch

Dordrecht part 2: a Biblical robot, more Art, history and food

I also went to a conference in the mountains in Slovakia, where there were lovely views:

And linguistic education:

I seem to have had a day in London too, but I can’t remember why. At the end of the month, colleagues from work had a volunteering day assembling tents for the Halloween party at the institution where B and U live.

And I blogged about the origins of the letters of the alphabet.

In the real world, the agony of Brexit reached a temporary pause as Boris Johnson agreed the bones of a Withdrawal Agreement with the EU; I reflected on why I had not seen it coming.

I read 17 books that month.

Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 45)
Sheelagh Murnaghan, 1924-1993: Stormont’s Only Liberal MP, by Ruth Illingworth
Seven Pillars of Wisdom, by T.E. Lawrence
Is There Life Outside The Box? An Actor Despairs, by Peter Davison
Luck and the Irish, by Roy Foster

Fiction (non-sf): 6 (YTD 31)
David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens
Sybil, by Benjamin Disraeli
The Nannies, by Brian Killick
The Heralds, by Brian Killick
The Bastard of Istanbul, by Eilif Shafak
Beneath The Dome, by Brian Killick

sf (non-Who): 4 (YTD 67)
Cloud and Ashes, by Greer Gilman
The Sparrow, by Mary Doria Russell
Be My Enemy, by Ian McDonald
The Computer Connection, by Alfred Bester

Doctor Who, etc: 1 (YTD 26)
The Triple Knife, and other Doctor Who stories, by Jenny T. Colgan

Comics 2 (YTD 27)
Frédégonde, la sanguinaire, Tome 1, by Virginie Greiner and Alessia de Vincenzi
Frédégonde, la sanguinaire, Tome 2, by Virginie Greiner and Alessia de Vincenzi

5,400 pages (YTD 54,400)
7/17 (YTD 79/197) by non-male writers (Illingworth, Shafak, Gilman, Russell, Colgan, Greiner/de Vincenzi x 2))
0/17 (YTD 29/197) by PoC (I don’t think Peter Davison counts himself in this category)

Of these, I really enjoyed The Bastard of Istanbul, which you can get here, and was pleased to return to The Sparrow, which you can get here. However, as noted here recently, I rather bounced off Cloud & Ashes, which you can get here.