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.

The Lib Dems elected Nick Clegg, Belgium got a new government, and I borrowed my brother-in-law’s suit. No travel for me, but meanwhile little U got birthday cake at school, F got what he wanted for Christmas, and B settled into the snoezelruimte in her new home.

I read 13 books that month.

Non-fiction 6 (YTD 78)
About Time 5: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, 1980-1984, by Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood
Who’s Next: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, by Mark Clapham, Eddie Robson and Jim Smith
Back in Time: A Thinking Fan’s Guide to Doctor Who, by Steve Couch, Tony Watkins and Peter S. Williams
Time And Relative Dissertations In Space: Critical Perspectives on Doctor Who, edited by David Butler
Latin Palaeography: Antiquity & the Middle Ages, by Bernhard Bischoff, translated by Dáibhí Ó Cróinín & David Ganz
Slide Rule: An Autobiography, by Neville Shute

non-genre 1 (YTD 33)
Sodom and Gomorrah, by Marcel Proust

sf (non-Who) 2 (YTD 75)
At Swim-Two-Birds, by Flann O’Brien
Dhalgren, by Samuel R. Delany

Doctor Who 4 (YTD 29)
Doctor Who: The Official Annual 2008
Sting of the Zygons, by Stephen Cole
Doctor Who – Remembrance of the Daleks, by Ben Aaronovitch
Doctor Who and the Loch Ness Monster, by Terrance Dicks

4,100 pages (2007 total 69,900)
none by women (2007 total 53/235)
none by PoC (2007 total 5/235)

The best and worst of these were all about Doctor Who. I loved both the About Time volume, which you can get here, and the David Butler essay collection, which you can get here. But the Back in Time volume tried constrained its analysis of the programme to a Christian perspective, which misses the mark. You can get it here.

2007 books roundup

I did a roundup at the time, but am now reformatting to my current system (and reclassifying a few books as well).

Non-fiction: 78 (33%, almost as high as 2006 which is the highest for any year I have on record)

Best of 2007: A Time of Gifts / Between the Woods and the Water, by Patrick Leigh Fermor (here and here) and James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, by Julie Phillips (here)
The one you haven’t heard of: Presidents I’ve Known and Two Near Presidents, by Charles W. Thompson (here)
Worst of 2007: After Dinner Speaking, by Fawcett Boom (here).

SF (other than Doctor Who): 75 (32%)

Best of 2007: The splendid Sailing to Sarantium / Lord of Emperors duology by Guy Gavriel Kay (here and here), and the first two of the Sharing Knife books, Beguilement and Legacy, by Lois McMaster Bujold (here and here).
The one you haven’t heard of: The Way to Babylon, by Paul Kearney (here)
The one to avoid: First Lensman, by E.E. “Doc” Smith (here)

Non-genre: 33 (14% – a bit less than usual)

Best of 2007: Gilead, by Marilynne Robinson (here), and The Steep Approach to Garbadale, by Iain Banks (here).
The one you haven’t heard of: The Successor, by Ismail Kadarë (here)
The one to avoid: Wilt in Nowhere, by Tom Sharp (here)

Doctor Who: 27 (11% – a bit less than 2006)

Best of 2007: counting non-fiction, the About Time series (review / buy, review/buy, review/buy, review/buy and review/buy) and the Butler collection of essays (here).
Best fiction: Salvation, by Steve Lyons (here)
The one you haven’t heard of: The Masters of Luxor (here)
The one to avoid: John Lucarotti’s novelisation of The Aztecs (here)

Comics: 20 (8% – average before 2013)

Best of 2007: Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, followed by Craig Thompson’s Blankets (here)
The one you haven’t heard of: The Age of Chaos, a Sixth Doctor comic by Colin Baker (here)
The one to avoid: Pussey! by, for the third year in a row, Dan Clowes (here)

Book of the year 2007: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomedy, by Alison Bechdel, a brilliant exploration of growing up with family secrets, and your own secrets too. You can (and should) get it here.

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.

I started the month in London, and then went to Cyprus for a work trip via Istanbul on the way out and (very briefly) Malta on the way back. Later in the month there was a science fiction convention in Leuven, where I renewed acquaintance with Ken MacLeod and Al Reynolds, and got to know Christopher Priest. I finished the month with a trip to Skopje, including a day excursion to Pristina.

F got his first taste of Doctor Who live when we let him stay up to watch Time Crash. He and I also visited Technopolis in Mechelen, where he had a hair-raising experience:

U delighted us with a little dance.

I read only 11 books in November 2007, still I think decompressing from October. (Also did quite a lot of driving – in Cyprus and between Skopje and Pristina.)

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 72)
William the Silent: William of Nassau, Prince of Orange 1533-1584, by C.V. Wedgwood
Democratisation in Southeast Europe, ed. Dusan Pavlovic, Goran Petrov, Despina Syrri, David A. Stone
The Awful End of William the Silent: The First Assassination of a Head of State with a Handgun, by Lisa Jardine

Non-genre 2 (YTD 32)
The Steep Approach to Garbadale, by Iain Banks
Oscar and Lucinda, by Peter Carey

SF 6 (YTD 73)
A Storm of Swords: Steel and Snow, by George RR Martin
A Storm of Swords: Blood and Gold, by George RR Martin
The Prestige, by Christopher Priest
Eurotemps, edited by Alec Stewart, devised by Alec Stewart and Neil Gaiman
Mutiny In Space, by Avram Davidson
The Happy Prince and Other Stories, by Oscar Wilde

3,800 pages (YTD 65,800)
3/11 by women (YTD 53/222)
none by PoC (YTD 5/222)

Several of these were very good, and I’m going to single out The Prestige, by Christopher Priest, which you can get here, and The Steep Approach to Garbadale, by Iain Banks, which you can get here. Mutiny in Space, by Avram Davidson, was pretty awful but you can get it here anyway (without the famous cover).

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.

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.

We spent September 2007, nineteen years ago this month, pretty much in limbo waiting for word on B’s future accommodation once she returned home after a couple of weeks’ respite. At work my Italian intern V left (she went off to run refugee camps and is now raising her family) and was replaced by a Dane, also V (who charmed me on her arrival by revealing that as an exchange student at Michigan State University she had actually shaken hands with Gerald Ford). I had one trip to London.

I read only 13 books, what with ongoing stress.

Non-fiction 8 (YTD 65)
About Time: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, 1970-1974, by Lawrence Miles and Tat Wood
Eminent Churchillians, by Andrew Roberts
The Prophet Muhammad: A Biography, by Barnaby Rogerson
The Heirs of the Prophet Muhammad and the Roots of the Sunni-Shia Schism, by Barnaby Rogerson
Starling of the White House, by Colonel Edmund W. Starling (as told to Thomas Sugrue)
Athens-Skopje: an uneasy symbiosis, ed. Evangelos Kofos and Vlasis Vlasidis
Μακεδονία (Macedonia): a Greek term in modern usage, [Georgia Daidikou and Anna Pasali]
Belfast, c. 1600 to c. 1900: The Making of the Modern City, by Raymond Gillespie and Stephen A. Royle

Non-genre 2 (YTD 26)
The Nero Prediction, by Humphry Knipe
The Guermantes Way, by Marcel Proust

SF 1 (YTD 58)
First Lensman, by E.E. “Doc” Smith

Comics 2 (YTD 18)
Preacher [#6]: War in the Sun, by Garth Ennis
The Age of Chaos, by Colin Baker

3,800 pages (YTD 56,900)
1/13 by women (YTD 47/192)
None by PoC (YTD 4/192)

My two favourite books of the month were the longest and the shortest: Proust’s second volume, which you can get here, and the lovely wee guide to the history of Belfast, which you can get here. Wooden spoon to E.E. “Doc” Smith’s First Lensman, which you can get here.

July 2007 was a fairly dramatic month. My mother-in-law came to stay with us to help with B, whose behaviour was becoming more and more challenging. She stayed in Belgium while the rest of us went on our usual holiday, taking in the two Roald Dahl museums in Buckinghamshire and Paul Cornell’s birthday party. See also speculation on the future of Latveria, and local megaliths. Paul Cornell was not the only person to have a birthday that month.

Because of long journeys (also a work trip to Cyprus with crazy flight connections) and sleepless nights, I managed to read no less than 45 books that month, a number which I have since equalled twice and exceeded twice.

Non-fiction 12 (YTD 47)
Vicious Circles and Infinity: An Anthology of Paradoxes, by Patrick Hughes and George Brecht
The Medieval Cookbook, by Maggie Black
The Making of Doctor Who, by Malcolm Hulke and Terrance Dicks
The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks, translated and with an Introduction by Benedicta Ward
The Desert Fathers: Translations from the Latin with an Introduction by Helen Waddell
The Megalith Builders of Western Europe, by Glyn Daniel
Asteroids: A History, by Curtis Peebles
The Nobel Prizes, by Burton Feldman
The Discovery of the Germ, by John Waller
George and Sam, by Charlotte Moore
The Republic, by Plato
Presidents I’ve Known and Two Near Presidents, by Charles Willis Thompson

Non-genre 5 (YTD 23)
Once in a Blue Moon, by Magnus Mills
Three To See the King, by Magnus Mills
Faith, by Joanna Trollope
Wilt in Nowhere, by Tom Sharpe (DNF)
The Successor, by Ismail Kadarë

SF (non-Who) 17 (YTD 56)
Something Rotten, by Jasper Fforde
The Mind of Mr Soames, by Charles Eric Maine
The Stories of Hans Christian Andersen, translated and edited by Jeffrey Frank and Diana Crone Frank
Harpist in the Wind, by Patricia A. McKillip
The Sharing Knife: Legacy, by Lois McMaster Bujold
What Ifs?™ of American History, edited by Robert Cowley
Earth is Room Enough, by Isaac Asimov
City of Illusions, by Ursula Le Guin
The Afterblight Chronicles: Kill or Cure, by Rebecca Levene
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J.K. Rowling
Princess of Mars, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Deathbird Stories, by Harlan Ellison
Coyote Dreams, by C.E. Murphy
The Guardians, by John Christopher
Brave New World, by Aldous Huxley
Last and First Men, by Olaf Stapledon
The Female Man, by Joanna Russ

Doctor Who 8 (YTD 25)
Doctor Who: the Visual Dictionary, by Andrew Darling, Kerrie Dougherty, David John, Simon Beecroft, and Amy Junor
Doctor Who – the Caves of Androzani, by Terrance Dicks
Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin, by Terrance Dicks
Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders, by Terrance Dicks
Doctor Who and the Leisure Hive, by David Fisher
The Sorcerer’s Apprentice, by Christopher Bulis
City at World’s End, by Christopher Bulis
Doctor Who [The Novel of the Film], by Gary Russell

Comics 3 (YTD 15)
Pussey!, by Daniel Clowes
Doctor Who: The Iron Legion
Albion, by Alan Moore, Leah Moore and John Reppion

11,000 pages (YTD 49,000)
14/45 by women (YTD 44/166)
None by PoC (YTD 4/166)

If I have to pick two of these as particularly good, my choices are feminist sf classic The Female Man by Joanna Russ, which you can get here, and a mother’s account of living with two autistic sons, George and Sam by Charlotte Moore, which you can get here. Wooden spoon to Wilt in Nowhere which bored and repelled me in the first 100 pages, but you can get it here.

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.

June 2007 was the month in which B’s behaviour took a serious downward step, and she had to be kept at home from mid-month (just before her 10th birthday) until other arrangements were made later in the year. I had to fly back early from a trip to Greece to help with the situation.

Apart from my curtailed trip to Greece, I also visited Kosovo, reflecting that on the day Tony Blair came to office, 2 May 1997, I returned home from a business trip by way of Slovenia; and on the day he left office, 27 June 2007, I also returned home from a business trip by way of Slovenia. My intern J left (as mentioned before, she is now a British diplomat) and was replaced by Italian V.

Culturally, this was the month both of Blink , the best Doctor Who story ever, and of the revelation at the end of Utopia, one of the best Who twists ever.

And I read 15 books.

Non-fiction 4 (YTD 35)
The Elements of Style, by William Strunk Jr. and E.B. White
Science, Culture and Modern State Formation, by Patrick Carroll
Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China, by Jung Chang
Reflections on the Cyprus Problem: A Compilation of Recent Academic Contributions, published by the Cyprus Policy Center

Non-genre 2 (YTD 18)
In the Company of Cheerful Ladies, by Alexander McCall Smith
The Awakening, by Kate Chopin

SF 4 (YTD 39)
No Present Like Time, by Steph Swainston
The Mabinogion
McSweeney’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, edited by Michael Chabon
Seeker, by Jack McDevitt

Doctor Who 4 (YTD 17)
Doctor Who – The Aztecs, by John Lucarotti
Doctor Who – Galaxy Four, by William Emms
Decalog 3: Consequences, edited by Justin Richards and Andy Lane
Doctor Who: The Scripts: The Masters of Luxor, by Anthony Coburn, edited by John McElroy

Comics 1 (YTD 12)
Alias vol 3: The Underneath, by Brian Michael Bendis

4,300 pages (YTD 38,000)
3/15 by women (YTD 30/121)
1/15 by PoC (YTD 4/121)

The best of these was Jung Chang’s history of her own family, Wild Swans. You can get it here. I was disappointed with both John Lucarotti’s novelization of the story we now call The Aztecs, which you can get here, and with Kate Chopin’s 1899 feminist novel The Awakening, which you can get here.

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.

In May 2007, I had an extended work trip to Cyprus via Istanbul, then Kosovo and then (North) Macedonia. I had the incredible experience of tracking down the very same Macedonian hill from which my grandfather had led an Allied retreat in December 1915, having also taken in Skopje, Stobi and Štip. I then had another extended work trip to Berne, Switzerland, and the Portuguese mid-Atlantic island of Madeira for a conference. Meanwhile devolution was restored in Northern Ireland, with Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness in coalition, and the Republic had an election in which Fianna Fail (for the last time) crushed all other parties.

Young F was gratifying us with Doctor Who fan art again:

With all the travel (mostly in daytime), I read 26 books in May 2007.

Non-fiction 7 (YTD 31)
The Life of W.T. Stead, by Frederic Whyte
Reclaiming Democracy: Civil Society and Electoral Change in Central and Eastern Europe, edited by Joerg Forbrig and Pavol Demeš
Military Operations Macedonia: From the Outbreak of War to Spring 1917, by Captain Cyril Falls
The Age of Kali, by William Dalrymple
Islam in Azerbaijan, by Arif Yunusov
Troubled Images: Posters and Images of the Northern Ireland Conflict from the Linen Hall Library, Belfast, ed. Yvonne Murphy, Allan Leonard, Gordon Gillespie and Kris Brown
The True Knowledge of Ken MacLeod, ed. Andrew M Butler and Farah Mendlesohn

Non-genre 8 (YTD 16)
Barchester Towers, by Anthony Trollope
Kaddish for a Child Unborn, by Imre Kertész
Main Street, by Sinclair Lewis
The Druid King, by Norman Spinrad
In the Shadow of Young Girls in Flower, by Marcel Proust
Dead Air, by Iain Banks
Gilead, by Marilynn Robinson
Palace Walk, by Naguib Mahfouz

SF 9 (YTD 35)
Ralph 124C 41+: A Romance of the year 2660, by Hugo Gernsback
Backdrop of Stars, edited by Harry Harrison
Singing the Dogstar Blues, by Alison Goodman
The Epic of Gilgamesh
Sailing to Sarantium, by Guy Gavriel Kay
George’s Marvelous Medicine, by Roald Dahl
Fragile Things, by Neil Gaiman
Urban Shaman, by C.E. Murphy
Northern Storm, by Juliet E. McKenna

Comics 2 (YTD 11)
Fun Home: a family tragicomedy, by Alison Bechdel
Diary of a Teenage Girl, by Phoebe Gloeckner

9,000 pages (YTD 33,700)
8/26 by women (YTD 27/106)
1/26 by PoC (YTD 3/106)

The best book of the month for me – indeed, the best book of the year – was Alison Bechdel’s family chronicle, Fun Home, which you can get here. I also hugely enjoyed Sailing to Sarantium, which you can get here. However I thoroughly bounced off Nobel laureate Kertész’ Kaddish for a Child Unborn; you can get it here anyway.

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 month I went to the Political Studies Association conference in Bath to do a panel debate on Europe, and travelled back to London talking to the journalist Tim Sebastian, which was fun.

In family news, my brother and his wife welcomed their new daughter. Also I turned 40, but I don’t seem to have done much in the way of celebration; B’s behaviour at home was getting very difficult, and we just didn’t have the energy.

I wrote about Dodo Chaplet as well.

I read 21 books in April 2007.

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 24)
In Search of the Dark Ages, by Michael Wood
Field of Bones: An Irish Division in Gallipoli, by Philip Orr
After Dinner Speaking, by Fawcett Boom
A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson
800 Years of Women’s Letters, edited by Olga Kenyon (did not finish)

Non-genre 2 (YTD 8)
The Way By Swann’s, by Marcel Proust
The Search For Roots: a personal anthology, compiled by Primo Levi

sf 9 (YTD 26)
The Book of Imaginary Beings, compiled by Jorge Luis Borges
Temeraire, by Naomi Novik
Glasshouse, by Charles Stross
Rainbows End, by Vernor Vinge
Blindsight, by Peter Watts
Eifelheim, by Michael Flynn
Narn i Chîn Húrin: the Tale of the Children of Húrin, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Blindness, by José Saramago
The Way to Babylon, by Paul Kearney

Comics 3 (YTD 9)
The Last Temptation, by Neil Gaiman
Alias vol. 1, by Brian Michael Bendis
Alias vol 2: Come Home, by Brian Michael Bendis

Doctor Who 2 (YTD 13)
Made of Steel, by Terrance Dicks
Doctor Who and the Carnival of Monsters, by Terrance Dicks

5,900 pages (YTD 24,700)
2/21 by women (YTD 19/80)
none by PoC (YTD 2/80)

Best of the month: Tolkien’s Children of Húrin, which you can get here, and Saramago’s Blindness, which you can get here. Worst by far: Fawcett Boom’s pointless guide to After Dinner Speaking, which you can get here.

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.

The Northern Ireland Assembly had an election in March 2007, the last one for which I did not do TV commentary, though I went over a few days later in the wake of P-Con and delivered a lecture about voting.

Apart from that, I had a day-trip to the Hague, and a longer trip to Vienna and Prishtina, all for work.

And I hired my first intern in the new job. J was an intelligent young woman who had tried various career options which didn’t work out, and was prepared to give working in international politics a fling. I’m glad to say that she caught the bug and is now a British diplomat. It also turned out that her elder brother was friends with their neighbour Rebecca Nation, the daughter of Terry Nation who wrote a lovely book for her, and J had played with real Daleks as a child. (For certain values of “real”.) I met Rebecca and Joel Nation earlier this year, and they were amused by the connection.

I read 14 books that month.

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 19)
Independent Diplomat: Dispatches from an Unaccountable Elite, by Carne Ross
Diplomacy Lessons: Realism for an Unloved Superpower, by John Brady Kiesling
1599: A Year in the Life of William Shakespeare, by James Shapiro

SF 4 (YTD 17)
Glorifying Terrorism, ed. Farah Mendlesohn
Master of Earth and Water, by Diana L. Paxson and Adrienne Martine-Barnes
Living Next Door to the God of Love, by Justina Robson
Spin Control, by Chris Moriarty

Comics 1 (YTD 6)
Blankets, by Craig Thompson

Doctor Who 6 (YTD 11)
Doctor Who – The Massacre, by John Lucarotti
Doctor Who – The Ark, by Paul Erickson
Doctor Who – The Celestial Toymaker, by Gerry Davis and Alison Bingeman
Doctor Who – The Gunfighters, by Donald Cotton
Doctor Who – The Savages, by Ian Stuart Black
Doctor Who – The War Machines, by Ian Stuart Black

4,000 pages (YTD 18,400)
5/14 by women (YTD 17/59)
None by PoC (YTD 2/59)

The two best of these were the excellent graphic novel Blankets, which you can get here, and Shapiro’s look at Shakespeare in 1599, which you can get here. I do not particularly recommend the novelisation of problematic Doctor Who story The Celestial Toymaker, but you can get it here anyway (at a price).

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.

February 2007 was the historic month that I joined Facebook. The travel highlight was a trip to the USA, taking in New York and Washington DC as usual, and finishing in very snowy Rockport, Maine, where I spoke at the annual Camden Conference.

Also more Doctor Who fan art from young F, this time a crossover with Spongebob – what if he partly changed his house into the Tardis?

Transatlantic travel and uninterrupted commuting by train allowed me to read 24 books:

Non-fiction 9 (YTD 16)
A Soldier in Time: The Nicholas Courtney Memoirs, by Nicholas Courtney
About Time: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, 1966-1969, by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
Endgame in the Balkans: Regime Change, European Style, by Elizabeth Pond
The Three Yugoslavias, by Sabrina P. Ramet
Why Don’t Penguins’ Feet Freeze? And 114 Other Questions, edited by Mick O’Hare
James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon, by Julie Phillips
The Iraq Study Group Report, co-chairs James A. Baker III and Lee H. Hamilton, Executive Director Daniel Serwer
William Howard Taft: A Conservative’s Conception of the Presidency, by Donald F. Anderson
1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs – the Election That Changed the Country, by James Chace

Non-genre 2 (YTD 6)
The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger
Murder at the Worldcon, by J.D. Crayne

sf 6 (YTD 13)
Idolon, by Mark Budz
Mindscape, by Andrea Hairston
Carnival, by Elizabeth Bear
Spin State, by Chris Moriarty
Recursion, by Tony Ballantyne
Catalyst, by Nina Kiriki Hoffman

Doctor Who 4 (YTD 5)
Salvation, by Steve Lyons
Bunker Soldiers, by Martin Day
The Man in the Velvet Mask, by Daniel O’Mahony
Who Killed Kennedy?, by James Stevens and David Bishop

Comics 3 (YTD 5)
Preacher [#4]: Ancient History, by Garth Ennis
The Invisibles [#1]: Say You want A Revolution, by Grant Morrison
100%, by Paul Pope

7,900 pages (YTD 14,400)
8/24 (YTD 12/45) by women
1/24 (YTD 2/45) by PoC

The best of these was Julie Phillips’ biography of James Tiptree Jr / Alice B. Sheldon (get it here), though I also liked Elizabeth Bear’s Carnival (get it here) and About Time 4 (get it here) very much. I really hated The Catcher in the Rye (get it here).

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.

Momentous times as I started my new job and new office. My first visitor was former Labour MP Dick Leonard. I travelled to London in the first week of January to meet new colleagues, and to Kosovo and Cyprus later in the month for business. Despite only just starting one new job, I interviewed for another when a long-dormant application came to life; I did not get it. I also had the miserable experience of having a laptop stolen at the Gare du Nord in Brussels.

Young F delighted us with this piece of fan art.

Now that I had started commuting largely by train, my reading rate shot up and I read 21 books in January 2007:

Non-fiction 7
The Art of War, by Sun Tzu
Actors of the Century: a Play-Lover’s Gleanings From Theatrical Annals, by Frederic Whyte
About Time: The Unauthorised Guide to Doctor Who, 1963-1966, by Tat Wood and Lawrence Miles
Machiavelli in Brussels: The Art of Lobbying the EU, by Rinus van Schendelen
Who on Earth is Tom Baker?
To Engineer is Human, by Henry Petroski
From Behind a Closed Door: Secret Court Martial Records of the 1916 Easter Rising, by Brian Barton

Non-genre 4
The Sexual Life of Catherine M., by Catherine Millet
The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot
The Book of Proper Names, by Amélie Nothomb
Starter for Ten, by David Nicholls

SF 7
A Clash of Kings, by George R.R. Martin
Sourcery, by Terry Pratchett
The Secret Visitors, by James White
The Sharing Knife: Beguilement, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Variable Star, by Robert A Heinlein and Spider Robinson
The Tin Drum, by Günter Grass
Tau Zero, by Poul Anderson

Doctor Who 1
The Eight Doctors, by Terrance Dicks

Comics 2
Preacher [#3]: Proud Americans, by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon
Caricature, by Daniel Clowes

6,500 pages
4/21 by women
1/21 by a PoC

The best new reads here were the first of the Wood and Miles Doctor Who volumes, which you can get here, and the first of Bujold’s Sharing Knife series, which you can get here. The worst was Rinus van Schendelen’s incomprehensible guide to EU lobbying; you can get the revised (and possibly improved) edition here.