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.

December 2017 started with a trip to Amsterdam, where I found the apartment where Anne Frank and her family had lived before going into hiding.

I went to London twice, the second time for the office party with a James Bond theme:

I also had a day trip to Milan.

H joined us for Christmas, as so often.

I also answered the classic question, which lines of latitude and longitude pass through the most countries?

Which lines of longitude and latitude pass through the most countries?

I had spent nights away from home in 20 places in 11 countries, and tansited another four in the course of the year.

I read 22 books that month:

Non-fiction: 8 (2017 total 57)
Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons: Notes on Science Fiction and Culture in the Year of Angry Dogs, by Philip Sandifer
The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses, by Kevin Birmingham
Alexander the Corrector: The Tormented Genius Whose Cruden’s Concordance Unwrote the Bible by Julia Keay
The World of Yesterday, by Stefan Zweig
A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov, by Peter J. Bowler
Zola and his time; the history of his martial career in letters: With an account of his circle of friends, his remarkable enemies, cyclopean labors, public campaigns, trials and ultimate glorification by Matthew Josephson
Democracy and its Deficits: The path towards becoming European-style democracies in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, by Ghia Nodia with Denis Cenușă and Mikhail Minakov
The Story of English in 100 Words, by David Crystal

Fiction (non-sf): 3 (2017 total 26)
The Lies Of Fair Ladies, by Jonathan Gash
Men Against The Sea, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
Pitcairn’s Island, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
 

sf (non-Who): 3 (2017 total 68)
Everfair, by Nisi Shawl
Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories, ed. John Joseph Adams
The Power, by Naomi Alderman
  

Doctor Who, etc: 3 (2017 total 51)
Re: Collections, ed. Xanna Eve Chown
Fear Itself, by Nick Wallace
A Life in Pieces, by Dave Stone, Paul Sutton & Joseph Lidster
  

Comics 5 (2017 total 29)
Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons
Aliénor: La Légende Noire, vol 3, by Arnaud Delalande and Simona Mogavino, art by Carlos Gomez
Het genootschap van Socrates by Yves Leclercq and Stéphanie Heurteau
The Autumnlands, Vol. 1: Tooth and Claw, by Kurt Busiek and Benjamin Dewey
Aliénor: La Légende Noire, vol 4, by Arnaud Delalande and Simona Mogavino, art by Carlos Gomez
    

6,900 pages (2017 total 60,500)
7/22 (2017 total 64/238) by women (Keay, Shawl, Alderman, Mogavino x 2, Heurteau)
1/22 (2017 total 17/238) by PoC (Shawl)

Top book of the month: Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (reread). Get it here.
Top new book of the month: The World of Yesterday, by Stefan Zweig. Get it here.
Nothing too awful.

2017 books roundup

Total books: 238, 11th highest of the years that I have counted.

Total page count: ~60,500, lowest of any year since 2005.

Diversity:
64/238, 27% by women, a bit below previous and subsequent years.
17/238, 7% by PoC, exceeded every years since.

Most books by a single author: Colin Brake and Leo, both with 5 (previous winners: Christopher Marlowe in 2016, Justin Richards in 2015 and 2014, Agatha Christie in 2013, Jonathan Gash in 2012, Arthur Conan Doyle in 2011, Ian Rankin in 2010, William Shakespeare in 2009 and 2008, Terrance Dicks in 2007, Ian Marter in 2006, Charles Stross in 2005).

Non-Whovian sff (68)

Back to the levels of pre-2014. (I was a Clarke Award judge in 2014-15, and then deliberately cast my sf reading net wider in 2016 as part of the anti-Puppy campaign.)

Best non-Who sff read in 2016: All The Birds In The Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders (review with other Hugo novels) – by a long way my top choice for the Hugos, a magical contemporary Bildungsroman.

Runner-up: The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead (review with other non-Hugo novels)) – fascinating steampunk alternate history of slavery in America.

The one you might not heard of: The Deepest Sea, by Charles Barnitz (review) – much better than usual Celtic fantasy, marred however by a dodgy map.

Welcome rereads: The Illustrated Man (review), The Colour of Magic (review), Dune (review).

The one to skip: The Red Leaguers, by Shan F. Bullock (review) – Irish war of independence in 1904 goes wrong, flawed and unpleasant protagonist.

Non-fiction (57)

This was my highest non-fiction total since 2011, and my highest percentage for non-fiction since I started tallying categories separately in 2009. I think this was partly birthday presents, which were biased towards non-fiction; partly that non-fiction books have been moving to the top of my various piles; and partly a genuine shift in my own reading tastes.

Best non-fiction read in 2017: Common People: The History of an English Family, by Alison Light (review) – lovely micro-history of four lines of ancestry in the recent history of England.

Runner-up: Thinking Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman (review)- great insight into how we think the way we do, and why we are wrong in what we think about it.

The one you might not heard of, if you’re not in the Dublin or Brussels bubbles: Brexit and Ireland: The Dangers, the Opportunities, and the Inside Story of the Irish Response, by Tony Connelly (review) – essential reading on both the behind the scenes diplomacy and the stakes for the country most affected by Brexit.

Welcome reread: In Xanadu (review)

The one to skip: 1434: The Year a Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, by Gavin Menzies (review) – such a bad rewriting of history that I wondered what its purpose really was.

Doctor Who (and spinoff) fiction (51)

Picking up a bit from the dip of the last couple of years.

Best Who book read in 2016: The Pirate Planet, by Douglas Adams and James Goss (review) – Goss has ironed off the corners and made this a much smoother story, as usual a delight to read, and also includes bonus material on how Adams developed the plot.

Runner-up: Rip Tide, by Louise Cooper (review) – one of the good Telos novellas, taking the Eighth Doctor to a seaside resort to investigate mysterious goings on.

Worth flagging up for Whovians: Based On The Popular TV Serial, by Paul Smith (review) – a guide to the Target novelisations.

The ones you won’t have heard of: The three novels based on short-lived spin-off Class (review), by Guy Adams, A.K. Benedict and especially (again) James Goss.

Comics (29)

Best graphic story read in 2016: Antarès, by Leo – excellent futuristic yarn. I read it in the original French but it has been translated into English (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6)

Runner-up: The Vision vol 1: Little Worse Than A Man, by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta (review) – I (somewhat reluctantly) really liked this story of an inhuman family trying to fit in.

Welcome reread: Watchmen (review).

The one you won’t have heard of: Re-#AnimateEurope: International Comics Competition 2017, ed. Hans H.Stein, by Jordana Globerman, Stefan “Schlorian” Haller, Štepánka Jislová, Noëlle Kröger, Magdalena Kaszuba, Davide Pascutti and Paul Rietzl (review) – nicely applying the medium of the graphic novel to the problems of Europe today.

Non-sfnal fiction (26)

A historic low for non-sf fiction reading, mainly I think because I had read almost all all the well-known books of that kind on my shelves, which were (and are) still heaving with unread sf and non-fiction.

Best non-sff fiction read in 2016: A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth (review) – brilliant huge story of India just after independence.

Runner-up: Children are Civilians Too, by Heinrich Böll (review) – gripping short stories from Germany of about the same period.

The one you might not heard of: Five Go On A Strategy Away Day, by Bruno Vincent (review) – quite a funny parody of the grownup Famous Five in competition with the Secret Seven.

Welcome reread: Robinson Crusoe (review).

The one to skip: The Angel Maker, by Stefan Brijs (review) – really horrible story set on the Belgian frontier with Germany.

Plays (5)

There were only five of these. The only one I’d really really like to see on the stage, having seen the film that was based on it, is Cavalcade, by Noël Coward (review including also the Oscar-winning film).

Poetry (2)

Just two. Catullus is better than Roald Dahl.

Book of the year

Common People: The History of an English Family, by Alison Light

Other Books of the Year:

2003 (2 months): The Separation, by Christopher Priest.
2004: The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (reread).
– Best new read: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin
2005: The Island at the Centre of the World, by Russell Shorto
2006: Lost Lives: The stories of the men, women and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland troubles, by David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea
2007: Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
2008: The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank (reread)
– Best new read: Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, by William Makepeace Thackeray
2009: Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (had seen it on stage previously)
– Best new read: Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi (first volume just pipped by Samuel Pepys in 2004)
2010: The Bloody Sunday Report, by Lord Savile et al.
2011: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon (started in 2009!)
2012: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë
2013: A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf
2014: Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell
2015: collectively, the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, in particular the winner, Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel. However I did not actually blog about these, being one of the judges at the time.
– Best book I actually blogged about: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Claire Tomalin
2016: Alice in Sunderland, by Bryan Talbot
2017: See above
2018: Factfulness, by Hans Rosling
2019: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo
2020: From A Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb, by Timothy Knatchbull
2021: Carrying the Fire, by Michael Collins.

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.

That month I travelled to Washington DC, Sofia in Bulgaria, and twice to London. I don’t seem to have taken a lot of photos; the vast majority were from a pleasant afternoon at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum near Dulles airport.

The Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum

More domestically, here’s a rainbow framing Leuven station.

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I read 16 books that month.

Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 48)
Isaiah Berlin, by Michael Ignatieff
Washington, D.C.’s Vanishing Springs and Waterways, by Garnett P. Williams
Virginia Woolf, by Hermione Lee
Brexit and Ireland: The Dangers, the Opportunities, and the Inside Story of the Irish Response, by Tony Connelly

Fiction (non-sf): 4 (YTD 24)
A Man of Parts, by David Lodge
Dear Old Dead, by Jane Haddam
Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle
Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall

sf (non-Who): 5 (YTD 69)
The Deepest Sea, by Charles Barnitz
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl
The Knight of the Swords, by Michael Moorcock
The Queen of the Swords, by Michael Moorcock
The King of the Swords, by Michael Moorcock

Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 48)
Short Trips: Indefinable Magic, ed. Neil Corry
A Life Worth Living ed. Simon Guerrier
Doctor Who: The American Adventures, by Justin Richards

4,900 pages (YTD 53,600)
2/16 (YTD 57/214) by women (Lee, Haddam)
0/16 (YTD 16/214) by PoC

It was great to return to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which you can get here, and Tony Connelly’s masterful account of Brexit is going to be a set text for decades; you can get it here. Wolf in White Van was pretty bad, but you can get it here.

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.

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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.

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.

I went to Sofia once and London twice that month, the second London trip combining with a conference at Christ Church in Oxford, where I met Sir Tim Berners Lee:

and finished with a formal dinner at Blenheim Palace.

Back in London the next day, I went to the Pink Floyd exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.

Their Mortal Remains: The Pink Floyd exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum

My other cultural expedition was to Leuven for a really great historical tour.

Along the Dijle with Bo

This was also the month that I started my sequence of Oscar-winning films with Wings.

I read 15 books that month.

Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 38)
Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman
A Short Guide to Irish Science Fiction, by Jack Fennell
Peoplewatching, by Desmond Morris
Space Helmet for a Cow, vol 2, by Paul Kirkley

sf (non-Who): 4 (YTD 60)
Synners, by Pat Cadigan
Press Cuttings, by George Bernard Shaw
The Red Leaguers, by Shan F. Bullock
The Famished Road, by Ben Okri

Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 42)
How The Doctor Changed My Life, ed. Simon Guerrier
Life During Wartime, ed. Paul Cornell
Diamond Dogs, by Mike Tucker

Comics: 4 (YTD 21)
Antarès, Épisode 2, by Leo
Onthuld, by Kristof Spaey and Bart Vaessens
Antarès, Épisode 3, by Leo
Antarès, Épisode 4, by Leo

3,600 pages (YTD 44,000)
1/15 (YTD 48/178) by women (Cadigan)
1/15 (YTD 16/178) by PoC (Okri)

The best of these by a long way was Daniel Kahnemann’s Thinking, Fast and Slow; you can get it here. The worst is the near-future (of 1904) Irish independence novel The Red Leaguers, but you can get it here.

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.

We had two lovely family trips, one to south-east Belgium for the National Day, where we took in Bouillon, Sedan and the caves of Han-sur-Lesse:

Though some of the cuisine was less healthy:

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And another trip to London, for F’s 18th birthday, where I don’t seem to have taken many pictures apart from this one of the Tower.

I wrote some important pieces that month, including one on the Hugo artist categories whcih I hope will come to fruition soon, my advice for new Doctor Who viewers, a piece for Slugger on Brexit, and a piece for EurActiv which was shamelessly ripped off by the Daily Express.

I read 27 books that month, but a lot of them were rather short, and I see that I did not get around to blogging them until September.

Non-fiction: 5 (YTD 30)
1688: A Global History, by John E. Wills
New Europe, by Michael Palin
The Etymologicon, by Mark Forsyth
Austerity Britain, 1945-1951 by David Kynaston
Common People: The History of an English Family, by Alison Light

Fiction (non-sf): 4 (YTD 13)
Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe
Lives of Girls and Women, by Alice Munro
The Angel Maker, by Stefan Brijs
The Double Deckers, by Glyn Jones

sf (non-Who): 1 (YTD 51)
Sultana’s Dream, by Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain

Doctor Who, etc: 15 (YTD 33)
Short Trips: The Quality of Leadership, ed. Keith R.A. DeCandido
Professor Bernice Summerfield and the Glass Prison, by Jacqueline Rayner
Decide Your Destiny: The Spaceship Graveyard, by Colin Brake
Decide Your Destiny: Alien Arena, by Richard Dungworth
Decide Your Destiny: The Time Crocodile, by Colin Brake
Decide Your Destiny: The Corinthian Project, by Davey Moore
Decide Your Destiny: The Crystal Snare, by Richard Dungworth
Decide Your Destiny: War of the Robots, by Trevor Baxendale
Decide Your Destiny: Dark Planet, by Davey Moore
Decide Your Destiny: The Haunted Wagon Train, by Colin Brake
Decide Your Destiny: Lost Luggage, by Colin Brake
Decide Your Destiny: Second Skin, by Richard Dungworth
Decide Your Destiny: The Dragon King, by Trevor Baxendale
Decide Your Destiny: The Horror of Howling Hill, by Jonathan Green
Decide Your Destiny: The Coldest War, by Colin Brake

Comics: 2 (YTD 14)
It’s Dark In London, ed. Oscar Zarate
Re-#AnimateEurope: International Comics Competition 2017, ed. Hans H.Stein, by Jordana Globerman, Stefan “Schlorian” Haller, Štepánka Jislová, Noëlle Kröger, Magdalena Kaszuba, Davide Pascutti and Paul Rietzl

5,500 pages (YTD 35,900)
5/27 (YTD 43/142) by women (Light, Munro, Hossain, Rayner, Globerman/Jislová/Kröger/Kaszuba)
1/27 (YTD 14/142) by PoC (Hossain)

The best of these were the two on British history, Common People, which you can get here, and Austerity Britain, which you can get here. The worst was Angel Maker, which I found repulsive, but you can get it here.

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 month of the 2017 UK general election, where I provided BBC commentary again. The election of course left Theresa May dependent on the DUP for her parliamentary majority.

I also had two work trips to London, one of which had sidebars to Coventry for a client meeting and Canterbury for a conference – where I also caught up with my oldest first cousin, R.

I read 27 books that month.

Non-fiction: 9 (YTD 25)
Belgian solutions 1, by David Helbich
The Case for Impeachment, by Allan J. Lichtman
Great Again: How to Fix Our Crippled America, by Donald J. Trump
The Broken Road, by Patrick Leigh Fermor
Patrick Leigh Fermor: An Adventure, by Artemis Cooper
Europe In The Sixteenth Century by H. G. Koenigsberger and George L. Mosse
Walking the Woods and the Water, by Nick Hunt
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity, by Yuval Noah Harari
In Xanadu, by William Dalrymple

sf (non-Who): 10 (YTD 50)
The Voyage of the Argo: The Argonautica of Gaius Valerius Flaccus, translated by David R. Slavitt
Warriors ed. George R. R. Martin and Gardner Dozois
Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer
Authority, by Jeff VanderMeer
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by J. K. Rowling
Acceptance, by Jeff VenderMeer
Dune, by Frank Herbert
De piraten van de Zilveren Kattenklauw by “Geronimo Stilton” [Elisabetta Dami]
HWJN by Ibraheem Abbas
A Woman of the Iron People, by Eleanor Arnason

Doctor Who, etc: 5 (YTD 18)
Short Trips: Defining Patterns, ed. Ian Farrington
The Infernal Nexus, by Dave Stone
Joyride, by Guy Adams
The Stone House, by A.K. Benedict
What She Does Next Will Astound You, by James Goss

Comics: 3 (YTD 12)
Professor Bell 1: De Mexicaan met twee hoofden by Joann Sfar
Professor Bell 2: De Poppen van Jerusalem by Joann Sfar
Marzi: A memoir, by Marzena Sowa

7,300 pages (YTD 30,400)
6/27 (YTD 38/115) by women (Cooper, Rowling, “Stilton”, Arnason, Benedict, Sowa)
1/27 (YTD 13/115) by PoC (Abbas)

Great to reread In Xanadu, which you can get here, and to read for the first time both A Woman of the Iron People, which you can get here, and Artemis Cooper’s bio of Patrick Leigh Fermour, which you can get here. Donald Trump’s Great Again is as awful as I expected, but you can get it here.

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.

I started the month in Loughbrickland but immediately travelled to London for the third leg of my 50th birthday, in The Sun Tavern.

Later in the month I went to Strasbourg…

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…Andorra, with its public sculptures by Dali…

…and Berlin, where I didn’t take any photos. But back in Brussels, I paid a visit to the site of the 1927 Solvay conference, beside the European parliament.

By the end of the month I was girding my loins to go to Belfast again for yet more election commentary.

A good month for reading, aided by some long flights and other journeys, and a couple of sunny weekends of sitting in the garden.

Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 16)
Descartes’ Clock, by Gary Powell
Broederschap: Pleidooi voor verbondenheid / Fraternité: Retisser nos liens, by Frans Timmermans
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
Katherine Howard: The Tragic Story of Henry VIII’s Fifth Queen, by Josephine Wilkinson

Fiction (non-sf): 4 (YTD 9)
The Parrot’s Theorem, by Denis Guedj
A Suitable Boy, by Vikram Seth
Every Step You Take, by Maureen O’Brien
A Motif of Seasons, by Edward Glover

sf (non-Who): 14 (YTD 40)
The Obelisk Gate, by N.K. Jemisin
All The Birds In The Sky, by Charlie Jane Anders
A Taste of Honey, by Kai Ashante Wilson
The Dream Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson
The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle
This Census-Taker, by China Miéville
Lavondyss, by Robert Holdstock
The Jewel and her Lapidary, by Fran Wilde
The Winter Long, by Seanan McGuire
The Stormcaller by Tom Lloyd (did not finish)
Argonautica by Valerius Flaccus, translated by J.R. Mozley
An Equation of Almost Infinite Complexity, by J. Mulrooney
Everything Belongs to the Future, by Laurie Penny
Gentleman Jole and the Red Queen, by Lois McMaster Bujold

Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 13)
Short Trips: Ghosts of Christmas, ed. Cavan Scott and Mark Wright
The Dalek Factor, by Simon Clark
The Squire’s Crystal, by Jacqueline Rayner

Comics: 3 (YTD 9)
Butterscotch, by Milo Manara
Ms. Marvel Volume 5: Super Famous, by G. Willow Wilson and Takeshi Miyazawa
Saga, vol 6, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan

8,500 pages (YTD 23,100)
12/28 (YTD 32/80) by women (Wilkinson, O’Brien, Jemisin, Anders, Johnson, Wilde, Maguire, Penny, Bujold, Rayner, GW Wilson, Staples)
7/28 (YTD 12/88) by PoC (Seth, Jemisin, KA Wilson, LaValle, Miyazawa, Staples)

The best of these were A Suitable Boy (you can get it here), All the Birds in the Sky (you can get it here) and The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe (you can get it here). The worst was The Stormcaller (you can get it here).

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.

I started the month in Helsinki, filming the Hugo ballot announcement, which was a thing of beauty, sadly now lost from the internets. I was one of a crew of four who spent the whole day running around the city, finishing in the cemetery.

I also went to Eastercon, where I was caught on a panel with Dave McCarty talking about Hugo administration.

And the month finished with my 50th birthday.

I had a great party on the day itself in Brussels:

26 April party – for archive

And another in Loughbrickland on the last day of the month, jointly with my aunt, who turned 60 the same week.

Starting to get back into my groove, I read 15 books that month.

Non-fiction: 3 (YTD 12)
Traveler of Worlds: Conversations with Robert Silverberg by Robert Silverberg and Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
The View from the Cheap Seats, by Neil Gaiman
Words are My Matter, by Ursula K. Le Guin

Fiction (non-sf): 1 (YTD 5)
The Habit of Loving by Doris Lessing

sf (non-Who): 8 (YTD 26)
A Closed and Common Orbit, by Becky Chambers
Pounded In The Butt By My Second Hugo Award Nomination, by Chuck Tingle
The Arrival of Missives, by Aliya Whiteley
Daughter of Eden, by Chris Beckett
Europe in Winter, by Dave Hutchinson
Ninefox Gambit, by Yoon Ha Lee
Too Like the Lightning, by Ada Palmer
Death’s End, by Cixin Liu

Doctor Who, etc: 2 (YTD 10)
The Cabinet of Light, by Daniel O’Mahony
The Gods of the Underworld, by Stephen Cole

Comics: 2 (YTD 6)
The Vision vol 1: Little Worse Than A Man, by Tom King and Gabriel Hernandez Walta
Lars (Anders vol 1), by Kristof Spaey

4,500 pages (YTD 14,600)
5/15 (YTD 20/60) by women (Le Guin, Lessing, Chambers, Whitely, Palmer)
2/15 (YTD 5/60) by PoC (Lee, Liu)

Of these, I enjoyed Words are my Matter the most (and was delighted when it won the Hugo in Helsinki) and Too Like the Lightning least. You can get them here and here.

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.

I started March 2017 in Northern Ireland for the Assembly election, finished the month in Helsinki for Hugo preparation and went to London twice in between for work. Here’s the first part of the election show:

And before-and-after photos with my comrade Mark Devemport.

I managed very little reading in March 2017, a combination of the Northern Ireland election and the deadline for Hugo nominations in my first time round as Hugo administrator.

Non-fiction: 2 (YTD 9)
The Intimate Adventures Of A London Call Girl, by Belle de Jour; you can get it here
The Princess Diarist, by Carrie Fisher; you can get it here

sf (non-Who): 1 (YTD 18)
Alien Stripper Boned From Behind By The T-Rex, by Stix Hiscock; you can get it here

Doctor Who, etc: 1 (YTD 8)
Short Trips: Snapshots, ed. Joseph Lidster; you can get it here (for a price)

Comics: 1 (YTD 5)
Black Panther Vol. 1: A Nation Under Our Feet, by Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze; you can get it here

1,000 pages (TYD 10,100)
3/5 (YTD 15/45) by women (“Belle de Jour”, Fisher, “Stix Hiscock”)
1/5 (YTD 3/45) by PoC (Coates/Stelfreeze)

With only five books, it would be invidious to choose a best and worst of the month, so I won’t.

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.

Unusually, no trip to London this month; but I compensated with an epic trip to Albania in which I discovered the bunker museum in Tirana:

The Albanian bunker museum

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and also the fortress at Durres.

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A post shared by Nicholas Whyte (@nwbrux)

I was there for a conference on a topic where I am not really an expert.

At the end of the month I was in Belfast for the early Assembly election.

Hugo nominations were taking up a lot of my reading time, but I still read 12 books that month.

Non-fiction: 2 (YTD 7)
THEN: Science Fiction Fandom in the U.K., 1930-1980, by Rob Hansen
Based On The Popular TV Serial, by Paul Smith

Fiction (non-sf): 1 (YTD 4)
To Lie with Lions, by Dorothy Dunnett

sf (non-Who): 6 (YTD 17)
Broken Homes, by Ben Aaronovitch
The Raven and the Reindeer, by T. Kingfisher [Ursula Vernon]
The Wild Robot, by Peter Brown (did not finish)
Azanian Bridges, by Nick Wood
The Fell Walker’s Guide To Eternity by Andy Carling
Occupy Me, by Tricia Sullivan

Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 7)
Short Trips: Time Signature, ed. Simon Guerrier
The Eye of the Tyger, by Paul McAuley
Bernice Summerfield and the Doomsday Manuscript, by Justin Richards

Comics: 1 (YTD 4)
My Daily Life Comics by Renée Rienties

2,800 pages (TYD 9,100)
4/13 (YTD 12/40) by women (Dunnett, Kingfisher/Vernon, Sullivan, Rienties)
0/13 (YTD 2/40) by PoC

The best of these was The Raven and the Reindeer, which you can get here, and I also very much enjoyed To Lie With Lions, which you can get here, though I don’t think it would be a good starting point for Dunnett’s Niccolo series; the worst was The Wild Robot, which you can get here.

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 year started with my first experience of opening Hugo voting – always a white-knuckle experience, even though I’ve done it four times since. My first trip of the year was to London where I went to a lovely Moomin exhibition in the South Bank Centre, along with my newest relative and her parents.

Adventures in Moominland

Back home in Northern Ireland, the Executive collapsed and new Assembly elections were called after less than a year.

I read 27 books that month.

Non-fiction: 5
Samuel Pepys: Plague, Fire, Revolution, ed. Margarette Lincoln
The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World, by David W. Anthony
Empires of the Word: A Language History of the World, by Nicholas Ostler
The Other Islam, by Stephen Schwartz
The Geek Feminist Revolution, by Kameron Hurley

Poetry: 1
Rhyme Stew, by Roald Dahl

Fiction (non-sf): 3
See How Much I Love You, by Luis Leante
Five Go On A Strategy Away Day, by Bruno Vincent
Five on Brexit Island , by Bruno Vincent

sf (non-Who): 11
A Fall of Stardust, by Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess
“Repent, Harlequin!” Said the Ticktockman, by Harlan Ellison
The Illustrated Man, by Ray Bradbury
The Palace of Dreams, by Ismail Kadare
Every Heart A Doorway, by Seanan McGuire
Penric and the Shaman, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Penric’s Mission, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Colour Of Magic, by Terry Pratchett
The Underground Railroad, by Colson Whitehead
The Humans, by Matt Haig
The Rapture of the Nerds, by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross

Doctor Who, etc: 4
Short Trips: Farewells, ed. Jacqueline Rayner
Doctor Who: The Pirate Planet, by Douglas Adams and James Goss
Rip Tide, by Louise Cooper
The Dead Men Diaries, ed. Paul Cornell

Comics: 3
Jeremiah: Een Geweer in het Water, by Hermann
Monstress Volume 1: Awakening, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
V for Vendetta, by Alan Moore and David Lloyd

6,300 pages
8/27 by women (Lincoln, Hurley, McGuire, Bujoldx2, Rayner, Cooper, Liu/Takeda)
2/27 by PoC (Whitehead, Liu/Takeda)

The best of these was The Underground Railroad, now a TV series which I have not seen; you can get it here. The worst was my sample of long-running Flemish post-apocalyptic comic series Jeremiah.