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.
July 2004 began and ended with travels for me – beginning with an epic journey by train to Paris, then flying to Berlin, and then Belgrade, then driving from Belgrade to Pristina and Skopje before flying home again via Budapest, a total of six countries in ten days. It was particularly significant because one of my co-speakers at the conference I attended while in Kosovo was to become my next boss two and a half years later; of course neither of us knew that at the time.
I also got to London for a day, and was appointed to the Advisory Board of the South East European Research Centre in Thessaloniki (the centre is still going strong, not sure about the board).
My intern A, half Slovene, half Geordie, left the Brussels office but went on to do some work for us in the Balkans later in the year. (Her replacement arrived only in August.)
And on the last two days of the month we did our usual summer holiday drive to Northern Ireland via Kidderminster.
F celebrated his fifth birthday with schoolfriends – the first time we had had a kids’ birthday party, which was nice. I don’t seem to have any pictures of the party, but here’s B (at 7) up a tree in our back garden, and F (turning 5) and U (19 months) with me on a visit to Mini-Europe.
I read 13 books that month, counting The Complete Maus as two.
3,700 pages (YTD 26,900) 2/13 by women (YTD 19/79) none by PoC (YTD 1/79)
My two top books of the month are Spiegelman’s classic Holocaust comic Maus, which you can get here, and Tom Shippey’s brilliant book on Tolkien, which you can get here. At the other end, I am not a fan of George Mann’s writing anyway, and The Human Abstract, which you can get here, is my least favourite of his books.
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 2004 was the month I switched from my old explorers@whyte.com email address, which I’d had since 1997, to my Gmail address, which I’ve had ever since. Ronald Reagan died; the new European Parliament was elected. Those were more innocent times. I also posted my Hugo finalists review.
This was the month of my one and only trip to Russia, a hasty 48 hours in Moscow (actually a bit less, two days and a night). We also published reports on Moldova and Bosnia, and I had an op-ed on Moldova published in European Voice which seems to have vanished from their archive but is preserved by my former employers.
2,800 pages (YTD 23,200) 2/11 by women (YTD 17/66) none by PoC (YTD 1/66)
Top book of the month was Thomas de Waal’s account of Nagorno-Karabakh, updated by his The Caucasus: An Introduction. I did not know anything much about him back in 2004; we are now friends. You can get it here. Second favourite is Saki’s eternal Beasts and Super-Beasts, which you can get here. Two to avoid: Carter on Tolkien, and On Basilisk Station.
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.
1 May 2004 was the day of the EU’s big bang enlargement, with ten new countries joining to take the total membership from 15 to 25. There was a big celebration in the Cinquantenaire and we all went into Brussels for it (including visitors).
A few days later, I travelled to Zagreb for a meeting with Norwegian diplomats, and then later in the month did a grand Caucasus tour of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, meeting all three presidents and both prime ministers (Georgia did not have a PM at the time), and changing planes in Prague on the way there and back, thus adding three countries to my lifetime list and bringing my total to 43 (I had been to Georgia before). Here President Aliyev, who is still in power today, tells us what he thought of our new report. (I’m at the far end of the table, on the left.)
5,400 pages (YTD 20,400) 3/14 by women (YTD 15/55) 1/14 by PoC YTD 1/55)
Top book of the month for me is Sacrifice of Fools by Ian McDonald, the best SF book ever set in Belfast. You can get it here. I noted at the time that I very much enjoyed Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross, which you can get here, but I can remember much less about it. I’m afraid I bounced off Light, by M.John Harrison, which a lot of people love; but the worst book of the month is Robert Sawyer’s execrable Humans. You can get them here and 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.
This was the month I turned 37. I went to Strasbourg for work, and also to the Hague with Anne, F, U and Anne’s sister H (who babysat the kids during the ceremony) for the wedding of my friend Mabel to Prince Friso of the Netherlands. Their marriage was tragically brief, as it turned out.
Romance was clearly in the air that month. A couple of days after the royal wedding, I had a birthday dinner in Brussels; a colleague visiting from out of town discovered that he really liked one of our Brussels team, and things developed from there. They stayed together for several years, though are no longer an item. Still, their little girl owes her existence to my 37th birthday celebrations.
Meanwhile at work, my Croatian intern S also left (as mentioned before, she was last heard of working for an international organisation back in Croatia), and was replaced by A, half Slovene, half Geordie. We published a report reacting to the previous month’s Kosovo violence. At this passage of time, I can also reveal that I wrote most of an op-ed on Cyprus published in the New York Times under the names of my boss and the chair of the board. The referendum, of course, went the wrong way. I had no idea that I would get more involved in that issue in the years to come.
It was a busy month when I completed reading only 5 books, all the same genre.
1,300 pages (YTD 15,000) 0/5 by women (YTD 12/40) still none by PoC
To be honest, I hesitate to recommend any of them very strongly, but the Douglas Adams book is at least by Douglas Adams, and the Bosnia book is good for specialists. The Ray Bradbury was disappointing.
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.
March 2004 began with a week of travel, to Paris, Washington DC and New York. Riots broke out in Kosovo. We published a report on Serbia. I had to cancel a trip to Oslo (did not visit Norway until 2023), but I also visited Budapest, and finished the month with a work conference in Dublin and a day in Belfast, where I met (separately) with Peter Robinson and Denis Donaldson. At home, we parted company with our au pair (a grumpy Belgian). One news item which I knew was important, but had no idea just how important it would be for me, was the announcement of Christopher Eccleston as the new Doctor Who.
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 big work news of February 2004 was the tragic death in a plane crash of Boris Trajkovski, the genial President of Macedonia who was very friendly with me and many others. This was the day after we published a report on pan-Albanianism (concluding that there was not much there there). I also went to London to shadow my boss at a Chatham House meeting where the other speaker was the late great Albert Rohan.
4,400 pages (YTD 8,300) 3/21 by women (YTD 6/21) none by PoC
The best of these was probably The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, which won the Hugo the following year; you can get it here. Molvania has some good lines; you can get it here. The one to skip: The Meeting of the Waters.
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 most crucial event of January 2004 was that little U took her first steps, at 13 months.
My first work outing of the year was to the Liberals’ New Year reception in Brussels, after which I note that I had an awful lot of whisky with MEP Graham Watson. I was on a panel with the Bosnian and Croatian foreign ministers as well. (Fraser Cameron sitting between them.) This was shortly after returning from a conference on Moldova in Munich.
We also did a report for the new Independent Monitoring Commission in Northern Ireland, comparing its mission with Balkan equivalents. This was also the month that I started to seriously strategise about getting a job with the new European Commission due to take office at the end of the year. (Spoiler: I didn’t get a job there in the end.)
The Lord of the Rings is of course one of my favourite books ever, but that was a re-read (you can get it here if you still need to). My best new book this month was Claire Tomalin’s Samuel Pepys, which is superb and made me a real Pepys fanboy (and also a bit of a Claire Tomalin fan). 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.
In December 2003 we celebrated little U’s first birthday, and at work I was dealing with the fallout from the previous month’s events, rushing out a report on Georgia on the first of the month (actually most of it had been writen before the revolution on 25 November, but obviously needed updating) followed by one on the Preševo Valley in Southern Serbia. At the end of the month Serbia had an election.
Back in 2019-23, I revisited each of the months that I’ve been bookblogging since November 2003, in anticipation of the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging. I’m going to do the same now for the tweenty-fifth anniversary in November 2028, this time spacing the monthly updates at three or four day intervals. Also since my first go started on Livejournal and moved to WordPress only in March 2022 when I abandoned LJ, it means I can tidy up the internal links and have the definitive versions all in one place.
November 2003 was politically momentous – there were elections in Northern Ireland and Croatia, a major political crisis in Moldova, and an election followed by a revolution in Georgia, all of which affected my work, though we were able to publish a report on Mostar. I also attended a conference in Vienna with my American intern B, who now works in IT in Arizona. He left halfway through the month and was replaced by a Croatian journalist, S, who I last heard of back in Zagreb working as a press officer for an international organisation.
At home, we took the kids to a snoezelruimte, which the older two both enjoyed. (B was six and F was four.)
For me (aged 36) and U (eleven months) it was a bit overwhelming.
The one I wrote least about at the time, but that on reflection I think is definitely the best of them, is The Separation, Christopher Priest’s story of dual identites, overlapping histories and alternate timelines for the second world war. I’ll return to it in due course, as it won both the Clarke and BSFA Awards. You can get it here. (I always felt that American Gods was interesting but flawed; you can get it here.)
The book I would not recommend is Ersatz Nation, a poorly written and jumbled narrative.
The Sea Lady, by H.G. Wells Freshwater, by Akwaeke Emezi Bellatrix, Épisode 1, by Leo La mexicaine, by Madame Rattazzi (née Marie-Lætitia Bonaparte-Wyse) Bellatrix, Épisode 2, by Leo In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes The Peacock Cloak, by Chris Beckett Bicheville ou le Chemin du Paradis, by Madame Rattazzi (née Marie-Lætitia Bonaparte-Wyse)
December Reading
Non-fiction 5 (2024 total 86) Authors of their Lives, by David Gerber The Light We Carry: Overcoming In Uncertain Times, by Michelle Obama Hollow Places, by Christopher Hadley How To Stay Sane In An Age Of Division, by Elif Shafak The Aztecs, by Doris V. Sutherland
Non-genre 3 (2024 total35) The Nightwatch Winter, by Jenny Overton La mexicaine, by Madame Rattazzi (née Marie-Lætitia Bonaparte-Wyse) Bicheville ou le Chemin du Paradis, by Madame Rattazzi (née Marie-Lætitia Bonaparte-Wyse)
Plays 1 (2024 total3) Collected Plays and Teleplays, by Flann O’Brien
SF 8 (2024 total 89) The Word for World is Forest, by Ursula K. Le Guin Aelita, by Alexei Tolstoy The Hollow Places, by T. Kingfisher The Way Spring Arrives and Other Stories, eds Yu Chen & Regina Kanyu Wang The Sea Lady, by H.G. Wells Freshwater, by Akwaeke Emezi In Ascension, by Martin MacInnes The Peacock Cloak, by Chris Beckett
Doctor Who 4 (2024 total34) The Force of Death (audiobook), by Andrew Lane Palace of the Red Sun, by Christopher Bulis Eden Rebellion, by Abi Falaise Doctor Who: The Aztecs, by John Lucarotti
Comics 4 (2024 total36) When Worlds Collide, by Tony Lee et al Sunstone, vol 3, by Stepan Sejić Bellatrix, Épisode 1, by Leo Bellatrix, Épisode 2, by Leo
5,700 pages (2024 total 70,000) 11/25 (2024 total 121/287) by non-male writers (Obama, Shafak, Sutherland, Overton, Rattazzi x2, Le Guin, ‘Kingfisher’, Yu/Yang, Emezi, Falaise) 4/25 (2024 total 30/287) by non-white writers (Obama, Yu/Yang, Emezi, Falaise) 3/25 rereads (The Word for World is Forest, Palace of the Red Sun, Doctor Who: The Aztecs)
261 books currently tagged unread, up 2 from last month, down 51 from December 2023.
Reading now Caleb Williams, or Things as They Are, by William Godwin (group read) Echoes: The Saga Anthology of Ghost Stories, ed. Ellen Datlow The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine, by Serhii Plokhy A Kind of Spark, by Elle McNicoll The Passionate Friends, by H.G. Wells
Coming soon (perhaps) Doctor Who annual 2025 The Hypothetical Gentleman, by Andy Diggle Killing Ground, by Steve Lyons Silence in the Library / Forest of the Dead, by Dale Smith Fifty Years On, by Malachi O’Doherty The Soul of a Bishop, by H.G. Wells A Brilliant Void, by Jack Fennell Burned, by Sam McBride The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman, by H.G. Wells I Who Have Never Known Men, by Jacqueline Harpman On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, by Ocean Vuong The Crown of Dalemark, by Diana Wynne Jones Vagabonds!, by Eloghosa Osunde Sorrowland, by Rivers Solomon “The Ultimate Earth”, by Jack Williamson Once and Future, vol 5: The Wasteland, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bonvillain How I Learned to Understand the World, by Hans Rosling De bondgenoten, by Brecht Evens Of the Imitation of Christ, by Thomas a Kempis Men at Arms, by Terry Pratchett Lies Sleeping, by Ben Aaronovitch A History of the Bible: The Book and Its Faiths, by Dr John Barton (2020) The Mysterious Island, by Jules Verne The James Tiptree Award Anthology 2, ed. Karen Joy Fowler Nine Lives, by William Dalrymple Ithaca, by Claire North
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.
This is the second last post in this series. Six days from now is the last day of this month, and the end of a four-year project to re-chronicle twenty years of reading. When I started, I was dredging up memories of sixteen years before; now it’s only a couple of weeks. It’s good to have a project with a defined end.
So what did I do and read last month? I had two trips to the UK, one for a Worldcon planning meeting at Heathrow, and one combining a family party in Northern Ireland with work meetings in London.
Non-fiction 6 (YTD 64) Dawn of the New Everything: A Journey Through Virtual Reality, by Jaron Lanier The Night of the Doctor, by James Cooray Smith Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars, by Catherine Clinton The Day of the Doctor, by Alasdair Stuart Dispatches from Chengdu, by Abdel LeRoy Charmed in Chengdu, by Michael O’Neal (did not finish)
Non-genre 4 (YTD 21) Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver Keats and Chapman Wryed Again, by Steven A. Jent Letters from Klara, by Tove Jansson Death Notice, by Zhou Haohui
SF 7 (YTD 146) The Bruising of Qilwa, by Naseem Jamnia Ocean’s Echo, by Everina Maxwell The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd Foundryside, by Robert Jackson Bennett Rupetta, by N.A. Sulway Shorefall, by Robert Jackson Bennett What Not: A Prophetic Comedy, by Rose Macaulay
Doctor Who 2 (YTD 27) Extraction Point, by MG Harris Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor, by Steven Moffat
Comics 2 (YTD 23) War of the Gods, by Nick Abadzis et al A Doctor in the House?, by Jody Houser et al
5,600 pages (YTD 70,500) 11/21 (YTD 126/288) by non-male writers (Clinton, Kingsolver, Jansson, Jamnia, Maxwell, Shepherd, Sulway, Macaulay, Harris, illustrators of War of the Gods, author and illustrators of A Doctor in the House?) 3/21 (YTD 39/288) by a non-white writer (Zhou, Jamnia, Shepherd)
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.
For the first time in four years, we made our family trip to Northern Ireland, this time by the direct ferry to Rosslare from Dunkirk.
We did many things on holiday, including local megaliths, Derry and nearby attractions, a quick trip to London for me to the Clarke Award ceremony, and an early wedding anniversary celebration.
And I finally put together my photos of the stucco ceilings of Jan Christiaan Hansche.
Unwinding from an intense period, I read 45 books that month.
Non-fiction 10 (YTD 58) Representatives of the People?: Parliamentarians and Constituents in Modern Democracies, ed. Vernon Bogdanor Falling to Earth, by Al Worden Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays, by David Bratman Autism Spectrum Disorders Through the Lifespan, by Digby Tantam The Stones of Blood, by Katrin Thier Arachnids in the UK, by Sam Maleski Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, by Kyle Buchanan (did not finish) Will We Ever Speak Dolphin?, ed. Mick O’Hare Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir, by Wil Wheaton The Return of Eva Perón with the Killings in Trinidad, by V. S. Naipaul
Non-genre 4 (YTD 18) Love and Mr Lewisham, by H.G. Wells The Man Who Died Twice, by Richard Osman The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman: Including the Brother, by Flann O’Brien Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
SF 17 (YTD 139) A Wind in the Door, by Madeleine L’Engle Akata Woman, by Nnedi Okorafor The Outcast, by Louise Cooper Bloodmarked, by Tracy Deonn (did not finish) Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, by Charlie Jane Anders Collision Course, by Robert Silverberg / Nemesis from Terra, by Leigh Brackett Nettle and Bone, by “T. Kingfisher” Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods, by Catherynne M. Valente What Moves the Dead, by “T. Kingfisher” A Mirror Mended, by Alix E. Harrow A Rumor of Angels, by Dale Bailey Into the Riverlands, by Nghi Vo Even Though I Knew the End, by C.L. Polk Where the Drowned Girls Go, by Seanan McGuire “Beggars in Spain”, by Nancy Kress Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir
Doctor Who 4 (YTD 25) The Shadow Man, by Sharon Bidwell Doctor Who: The Zygon Invasion, by Peter Harness Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood, by Terrance Dicks Doctor Who – The Stones of Blood, by David Fisher
Comics 7 (YTD 21) Sins of the Father, by Nick Abadzis et al Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King, Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams, by Bartosz Sztybor, Filipe Andrade, Alessio Fioriniello, Roman Titov, and Krzysztof Ostrowski Monstress vol. 7: Devourer, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda Major Matt Mason: Moon Mission, by George S. Elrick DUNE: The Official Movie Graphic Novel, by Lilah Sturges, Drew Johnson, and Zid Daleks, ed. Marcus Hearn
10,000 pages (YTD 64,900) 21/42 (YTD 115/267) by non-male writers 6/42 (YTD 36/267) by a non-white writer
Several great books here. From the Hugo ballot, the two novellasEven Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk, which you can get here, and What Moves the Dead, by “T. Kingfisher”, which you can get here; and the graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King, Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, which you can get here. Also, newly published Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays, by David Bratman, which you can get here.
On the other hand, I found nothing to like about Hugo finalist Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams, by Bartosz Sztybor, Filipe Andrade, Alessio Fioriniello, Roman Titov, and Krzysztof Ostrowski; 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 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.
One of the rare months (apart from pandemic times) when I did not leave Belgium, or even venture far from my normal Brussels-home-Tienen axis. I wrote about Kurt Vonnegut’s muse, and the top and bottom rated Doctor Who episodes on IMDB.
I did not write it up properly at the time, but Anne and I went to the Musée Fin-de-Siècle in Brussels and were really impressed by a couple of the pieces on display:
Emigrants, by Eugène LaermansPromenade, by Theo van RysselbergheMarketplace, by James EnsorThe Dragonfly, by Isidore Verheyden
Crucially, this was the month that I stopped shaving. Ten days in, it was looking promising, though one or two of my colleagues were more advanced than me.
I read 35 books that month.
Non-fiction 9 (YTD 48) Amy Dillwyn, by David Painting After the War: How to Keep Europe Safe, by Paul Taylor The Popes and Sixty Years of European Integration How to End Russia’s War on Ukraine, by Timothy Ash et al Blackpool Remembered, by John Collier Drawing Boundaries, eds John C. Courtney, Peter MacKinnon and David E. Smith (did not finish) The Deadly Assassin, by Andrew Orton The Awakening, by David Evans-Powell One Bible, Many Voices: Different Approaches to Biblical Studies, by S.E. Gillingham
Non-genre 7 (YTD 14) The Cider House Rules, by John Irving A Burglary, or, Unconscious Influence, by Amy Dillwyn Jill, by Amy Dillwyn Jill and Jack, by Amy Dillwyn Nant Olchfa, by Amy Dillwyn The Murder on the Links, by Agatha Christie Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers
Poetry 1 (YTD 4) The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran
SF 12 (YTD 122) The Memory Librarian, ed. Janelle Monáe Atlantis Fallen, by C.E. Murphy In the Serpent’s Wake, by Rachel Hartman Ancient, Ancient, by Kiini Ibura Salaam Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep, ed. Paula Guran The Drowning Girl, by Caitlin R. Kiernan Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree Tofu Brains: Life on Zeeta 21, by Lars Koch There Will Be War Volume X, ed. Jerry Pournelle (did not finish) Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut Knights of God, by Richard Cooper The Golden Enclaves, by Naomi Novik
Doctor Who 2 (YTD 21) Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin, by Terrance Dicks Doctor Who – The Awakening, by Eric Pringle
Comics 4 (YTD 14) Arena of Fear, by Nick Abadzis et al Saga, Vol. 10, by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan Partitions irlandaises, by Vincent Baily and Kris Once & Future Vol 4: Monarchies in the UK, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamara Bonvillain
8,200 pages (YTD 54,900) 17/35 (YTD 94/225) by non-male writers (Gillingham, Dillwyn x 4, Christie, Sayers, Monáe, Murphy, Hartman, Salaam, Guran, Kiernan, Novik, illustrators of Arena of Fear, Staples, Bonvillain) 2/35 (YTD 30/225) by a non-white writer (Gibran, Salaam)
The best of these was The Cider House Rules by John Irving; 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 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.
I had three trips outside Brussels this month, the first to Zagreb for a conference commemorating the tenth anniversary of their EU membership:
I then had a business trip to Paris, and a combined business / Clarke tip to London, taking the day in between to catch up with my cousin in Dover.
We ended the month with a work outing swinging from trees in Wavre, which I had done a couple of times before. My actual swinging was not so effective but I am good at waiting for my turn on an elevated platform.
Non-fiction 8 (YTD 40) A Brief History of Stonehenge, by Aubrey Burl Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern, by Mary Beard The Shape of Irish History, by A.T.Q. Stewart The Robots of Death, by Fiona Moore City of Soldiers, by Kate Fearon The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang, by Philip Bates Franco-Irish Relations, 1500-1610: Politics, Migration and Trade, by Mary Ann Lyons Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, by Jessica Bruder
Non-genre 3 (YTD 7) Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin The Rebecca Rioter, by Amy Dillwyn Chloe Arguelle, by Amy Dillwyn
SF 10 (YTD 110) The Revolution Trade, by Charles Stross Plutoshine, by Lucy Kissick Metronome, by Tom Watson Venomous Lumpsucker, by Ned Beauman The Red Scholar’s Wake, by Aliette de Bodard The Anomaly, by Hervé le Tellier World’s Fair 1992, by Robert Silverberg “Bears Discover Fire”, by Terry Bisson Aurora: Beyond Equality, eds Vonda N. McIntyre and Susan Anderson The Hemingway Hoax, by Joe Haldeman
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 19) K9 Megabytes, by Bob Baker Doctor Who and the Robots of Death, by Terrance Dicks Corpse Marker, by Chris Boucher
Comics 1 (YTD 10) The Endless Song, by Nick Abadzis et al
7,200 pages (YTD 46,900) 12/26 (YTD 78/191) by non-male writers (Beard, Moore, Fearon, Lyons, Bruder, Zevin, Dillwyn x2, Kissick, de Bodard, McIntyre / Anderson, Endless Song illustrators) 2/26 (YTD 28/191) by a non-white writer (Zevin, de Bodard)
I really liked all five of the Clarke shortlistees that I reread this month – Plutoshine, by Lucy Kissick (get it here); Metronome, by Tom Watson (get it here); Venomous Lumpsucker, by Ned Beauman (get it here); The Red Scholar’s Wake, by Aliette de Bodard (get it here); and The Anomaly, by Hervé le Tellier (get it here).
I also really liked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin, which was a Clarke submission but not actually sf (get it here); and Nomadland, by Jessica Bruder, on which the Oscar-winning film was based (get it here).
However you can skip World’s Fair 1992, by Robert Silverberg. (Or get it here.)
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 in France, for a lovely 24-hour trip to a neglected corner across the border for my birthday. We found many things there including the grave of Wilfred Owen.
I found myself at the British Ambassador’s residence twice in a week, once for the Coronation reception and once for Eurovision.
Closer to home, our mayor commemorated the RAF men killed in a wartime crash in the next village to ours, eighty years before.
Back home in Northern Ireland, the local government elections took place and for the first time Nationalist parties got more votes than Unionist parties; I managed to get this data out before anyone else did.
I read 23 books that month, relaxing a bit after the Clarke frenzy.
Non-fiction 5 (YTD 32) Johnson at 10: the Inside Story, by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell The John Nathan-Turner Doctor Who Production Diary, 1979-90, by Richard Molesworth American Gridlock, eds. James Thurber and Antoine Yoshinaka Vengeance on Varos, by Jonathan Dennis The Rings of Akhaten, by William Shaw
Poetry 1 (YTD 3) Deep Wheel Orcadia, by Harry Josephine Giles
SF 13 (YTD 100) Creation Machine, by Andrew Bannister Love And Other Human Errors, by Bethany Clift The Hunt – For Allies, by David Geoffrey Adams (did not finish) Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett The Violence, by Delilah S. Dawson (did not finish) Where it Rains in Color, by Denise Crittendon The Race, by Nina Allan A Marvellous Light, by Freya Marske The Shape of Sex to Come, ed. Douglas Hill The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell The Animals in That Country, by Laura Jean McKay The Coral Bones, by E.J. Swift The Second ‘If’ Reader, ed. Fredrik Pohl
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 16) Home Fires Burn, by Gareth Madgwick Doctor Who – Vengeance on Varos, by Philip Martin Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor, by Philip Martin
Comics 1 (YTD 9) The Fountains of Forever, by Nick Abadzis et al
7,000 pages (YTD 39,700) 9/23 (YTD 66/165) by non-male writers (Giles, Clift, Dawson, Crittenden, Allan, Marske, Serpell, McKay, Swift, Casagrande/Florean) 3/23 (YTD 26/165) by a non-white writer (Yoshinaka, Crittenden, Serpell)
I had not previously read the three most recent Clarke Award winners, but I thought they were all fantastic: The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell, which you can get here, The Animals in That Country, by Laura Jean McKay, which you can get here, and Deep Wheel Orcadia, by Harry Josephine Giles, which you can get here. As homework for this year’s award I also reread The Coral Bones, by E.J. Swift, which you can get here.
Even completist Doctor Who fans can skip Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor, by Philip Martin, 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 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.
Only a few more of these posts to go; I’ll need to find another topic for regular non-book-blogging, but it’s been fun.
Quite a lot of travel this month, starting with a work trip to Geneva along with my colleague R:
Then Eastercon in Birmingham with Anne, Cambridge for a couple of days, and the a WorldCon planning meeting in Glasgow. I have not mentioned it previously, but on the last night of Eastercon I was struck by a bad IBS attack, I think triggered by the very creamy risotto that I had for dinner at Zizzi, and was incapacitated for the whole of the Monday. The rest of the week was fine, though, with a glimpse of the elusive planet Mercury as I cross Clare Bridge in Cambridge:
And a great picture of the Armadillo that I’m very pleased with.
In Brussels the following weekend, the normally closed Pavilion of the Human Passions was opened up for a couple of days:
And Anne and I finished the month elsewhere in France, but more on that anon.
My most significant blog post was on a 1933 aeroplane bombing, but I also read 32 books, many of them at the tail end of the Clarke submissions pile and which I therefore didn’t persevere with I felt that they were not science fiction, or just not very good.
Non-fiction 5 (YTD 27) The Cyprus Crisis and the Cold War, by Makarios Drousiotis My Family And Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell The Silurians, by Robert Smith? When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation, by Paula Fredriksen The Underwater Menace, by James Cooray Smith
SF 23 (YTD 87) Scary Monsters, by Michelle de Kretser Galactic Girl, by Fiona Richmond Stars and Bones, by Gareth L. Powell City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (did not finish) The Shadow Glass, by Josh Winning (did not finish) Redwood and Wildfire, by Andrea Hairston The Ends, by James Smythe The Coral Bones, by E.J. Swift The Mars Migration, by Wayne M. Bailey (did not finish) New Brighton, by Helen Trevorrow (did not finish) Beyond the Burn Line, by Paul McAuley The Last Storm, by Tim Lebbon The Quickening, by Talulah Riley (did not finish) Hangdog Souls, by Marc Joan (did not finish) A Fractured Infinity, by Nathan Tavares (did not finish) Equinox, by David Towsey (did not finish) Outcast, by Louise Carey (did not finish) Stringers, by Chris Panatier (did not finish) The Thousand Earths, by Stephen Baxter 36 Streets, by T.R. Napper (did not finish) HellSans, by Ever Dundas (did not finish) A Sh*tload of Crazy Powers, by Jackson Ford (did not finish) Plutoshine, by Lucy Kissick
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 13) Erasing Sherlock, by Kelly Hale Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters, by Malcolm Hulke Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace, by Nigel Robinson
Comics 1 (YTD 8) The Weeping Angels of Mons, by Robbie Morrison, Daniel Indro and Eleonora Carlini
6,500 pages (YTD 32,700) 11/32 (YTD 57/142) by non-male writers (Fredriksen, de Kretser, Richmond, Hairston, Swift, Trevorrow, Riley, Carey, Hale, Dundas, χ4) 2/32 (YTD 23/142) by a non-white writer (de Kretser, Hairston)
In among the less impressive Clarke submissions were two of the six excellent books that we ended up shortlisting, The Coral Bones by E.J. Swift, which you can get here, and Plutoshine by Lucy Kissick, which you can get here. I also particularly enjoyed Makarios Drousiotis’ book on Cyprus, which you can get here. I’ll draw a veil over the less good…
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.
I had two nights away from Belgium that month, a Clarke meeting in London and a work meeting in The Hague. I also enjoyed a massive St Patrick’s Day whammy of Irish Embassy Reception on the evening of the 16th, Northern Ireland representation breakfast on the 17th and the Irish College in Leuven, where it all started, on the evening of the 17th. A couple of days later I attended the screening of a film about Lyra McKee.
Here are two journalists, both with the same first name, at the Irish embassy reception.
With the Clarke deadline closing in, I read 37 books that month, though again I did not finish those that seemed insufficiently science fictional (or insufficiently good) to have a chance of winning.
Non-fiction 9 (YTD 22) Madam Secretary, by Madeleine Albright Management Lessons fromGame of Thrones: Organization Theory and Strategy in Westeros, by Fiona Moore Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes, by Rob Wilkins Wordsworth’s French Daughter, by George McLean Harper Kerblam!, by Naomi Jacobs and Thomas L. Rodebaugh William Wordsworth and Annette Vallon, by Émile Legouis The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords, by James Mortimer The Kosova Liberation Army, by James Pettifer The Face of Britain, by Simon Schama
Non-genre 1 (YTD 4) Ratlines, by Stuart Neville
SF 23 (YTD 64) The Key to Fury, by Kristin Cast (did not finish) Lost In Time, by A.G. Riddle (did not finish) The Visitors, by Owen W Knight (did not finish) Thrust, by Lidia Yuknavitch Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel Neom, by Lavie Tidhar The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd (did not finish) Luca, by Or Luca Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances, by Aliette de Bodard Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel Ogres, by Adrian Tchaikovsky Pod by Laline Paull The Best of Ian McDonald Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue, eds. Sheree Renée Thomas, Pan Morigan and Troy L. Wiggins The Anomaly, by Hervé le Tellier Glitterati, by Oliver K. Langmead The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan Off-Target, by Eve Smith Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky Venomous Lumpsucker, by Ned Beauman Last Exit, by Max Gladstone (did not finish) Speaking Bones, by Ken Liu (did not finish) Ricky’s Hand, by David Quantick The Moonday Letters, by Emmi Itäranta
Doctor Who 2 (YTD 10) Warring States, by Mags Halliday The HAVOC Files: The Laughing Gnome, ed ???
Comics 2 (YTD 7) Revolutions of Terror, by Nick Abadzis, Elena Casagrande and Arianna Florean The Secret to Superhuman Strength, by Alison Bechdel
10,100 pages (YTD 26,200) 17/37 (YTD 46/110) by non-male writers (Albright, Moore, Jacobs, Cast, Yuknavitch, St. John Mandel, Shepherd, Luca, de Bodard, Paull, Thomas/Morigan, Egan, Smith, Itäranta, Halliday, Casagrande/Florean, Bechdel) 7/37 (YTD 21/110) by a non-white writer (Cast, Shepherd, Luca, de Bodard, Paull, Thomas/Wiggins, Liu)
Some really good books this month. From the Clarke submissions, Venomous Lumpsucker (get it here), The Anomaly (get it here), Off Target (get it here) and Children of Memory (get it here) were all excellent. Several good biographies too: Rob Wilkins on Terry Pratchett (get it here), Madeleine Albright on herself (get it here), Alison Bechdel on herself in graphic format (get it here). See also Simon Schama on British portraits (get it here) and the Best of Ian McDonald‘s short fiction (get it here). I don’t need to cover the less good ones, I think.
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.
The highlight of February this year was my visit to Gallifrey One in Los Angeles again:
And visited by my sister and her daughter, we re-enacted the gestures of the statues in the forest.
I read 28 books that month, though a number were Clarke nominees where I read only 50 pages either because I didn’t think they were very good or because I didn’t think they were science fiction, or both.
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 13) The Number Mysteries: A Mathematical Odyssey Through Everyday Life, by Marcus Du Sautoy Timelash, by Phil Pascoe Listen, by Dewi Small Elizabeth I and Ireland, ed. Brendan Kane and Valerie McGowan-Doyle
Non-genre 1 (YTD 3) Pale Fire, by Vladimir Nabokov
SF 19 (YTD 41) To Paradise, by Hanya Yanagihara The Women Could Fly, by Megan Giddings (did not finish) How High We Go in the Dark, by Sequoia Nagamatsu Roadside Picnic, by Arkadii and Boris Strugatsky The Furrows, by Namwali Serpell The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia Wild Cards: Deuces Down, ed. John J. Miller Vagabonds!, by Eloghosa Osunde (did not finish) Fevered Star, by Rebecca Roanhorse (did not finish) Until the Last of Me, by Sylvain Neuvel(did not finish) Glory, by NoViolet Bulawayo (did not finish) The Leviathan, by Rosie Andrews (did not finish) Peculiar Lives, by Philip Purser Hallard Eyes of the Void, by Adrian Tchaikovsky Metronome, by Tom Watson Leech, by Hiron Ennes (did not finish) Harpan’s Worlds: Worlds Apart, by Terry Jackman (did not finish) Tales from Planet Earth, by Arthur C Clarke Oval, by Elvia Wilk
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 8) Doctor Who: The Eaters of Light, by Rona Munro Lucy Wilson & the Bledoe Cadets, by Tim Gambrell Doctor Who: Timelash, by Glen McCoy
Comics 1 (YTD 5) Agent Provocateur, by Gary Russell et al
The best of these were two of the Clarke submissions, Metronome, by Tom Watson (which we eventually shortlisted; get it here) and The Daughter of Doctor Moreau, by Silvia Moreno-Garcia (a Hugo finalist; get it here). I’ll draw a veil over the worst of them.
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.
Only one trip outside Belgium at the start of this year, to London where unexpectedly I saw Noises Off. Within Belgium, F and I had a great excursion to the Cubes of Herne:
Non-fiction 9 God is No Thing: Coherent Christianity, by Rupert Shortt Diary of a Witchcraft Shop 2, by Trevor Jones and Liz Williams Final Report of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol Horror of Fang Rock, by Matthew Guerrieri Battlefield, by Philip Purser-Hallard The Karmic Curve, by Mary I. Williams Juggle and Hide, by Sharon van Ivan Representing Europeans, by Richard Rose Complexity: A Very Short Introduction, by John H. Holland
Non-genre 2 The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin (did not finish)
Plays 1 Observe the Sons of Ulster Marching Towards the Somme, by Frank McGuinness
Poetry 2 Metamorphoses, by Ovid tr. Stephanie McCarter Tales from Ovid, by Ted Hughes
SF 22 The Circus Infinite, by Khan Wong Fugue for a Darkening Island, by Christopher Priest All the Names They Used for God, by Anjali Sachdeva “The Mountains of Mourning” by Lois McMaster Bujold Full Immersion, by Gemma Amor The Stars Undying, by Emery Robin (did not finish) The Chosen Twelve, by James Breakwell Our Share of Night, by Mariana Enriquez (did not finish) Mercury Rising, by R.W.W. Greene (did not finish) The Chosen and the Beautiful, by Nghi Vo At The Edge Of The World, by Lord Dunsany The Immortality Thief, by Taran Hunt Wormhole, by Keith Brooke and Eric Brown Death Draws Five, by John J. Miller Appliance, by J.O. Morgan The Kaiju Preservation Society, by John Scalzi The Transfer Problem, by Adam Saint (did not finish) Baba Yaga Laid an Egg, by Dubravka Ugrešić Upgrade, by Blake Crouch The Perfect Assassin, by K.A. Doore Stray Pilot, by Douglas Thompson (did not finish) The World Set Free: A Fantasia of the Future, by H.G. Wells
Doctor Who 5 Doctor Who: Galaxy Four, by William Emms Doctor Who: The Fires of Pompeii, by James Moran Rise of the Dominator, by Robert Mammone Doctor Who and the Horror of Fang Rock, by Terrance Dicks Doctor Who: Battlefield, by Marc Platt
Comics 4 Alternating Current, by Jody Houser et al. Sin Eaters, by Cavan Scott, Adriana Melo, Cris Bolson and Marco Lesko Neptune – Épisode 1 by Leo Neptune – Épisode 2 by Leo
9,900 pages 17/45 by non-male writers (Williams, Cheney/Lofgren/Murphy/Luria, “Williams”, van Ivan, Zevin, McCarter, Sachdeva, Bujold, Amor, Robin, Enriquez, Vo, Hunt, Ugrešić, Doore, Houser et al, Melo) 5/45 by a non-white writer (Thompson/Aguilar/Murphy, Zevin, Wong, Sachdeva, Vo)
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.
Two trips out of Belgium that month, one to London where I also took in the Science Museum’s (somewhat disappointing) exhibit about science fiction, and a spontaneous excursion to Amsterdam with F to meet up with my brother and his daughter just before Christmas. Meanwhile I got in the moo for the office Christmas party, which had a “jungle” theme:
I read 30 books that month.
December 2022 books
Non-fiction 5 (YTD 97) Warriors’ Gate, by Frank Collins Zink, by David Van Reybrouck The Romans, by Jacob Edwards The Ahtisaari Legacy, ed. Nina Suomalainen and Jyrki Karvinen What If? by Randall Munroe
Non-genre 3 (YTD 18) A Darker Shade, ed. John-Henri Holmberg A Ship is Dying, by Brian Callison On Black Sisters’ Street, by Chika Unigwe
SF 17 (YTD 122) The Spare Man, by Mary Robinette Kowal Titan Blue, by M.B. Fox Filter House, by Nisi Shawl The Splendid City, by Karen Heuler Looking Further Backward, by Arthur Dudley Vinton Ion Curtain, by Anya Ow Barsk: The Elephant’s Graveyard, by Lawrence M. Schoen Bluebird, by Ciel Pierlot “Schrödinger’s Kitten”, by George Alec Effinger The Turing Option, by Harry Harrison with Marvin Minsky The Knife of Never Letting Go, by Patrick Ness “The Last of the Winnebagos”, by Connie Willis Shadows of Amber, by John Betancourt The Red Scholar’s Wake, by Aliette de Bodard Killing Time, by Caleb Carr The Free Lunch, by Spider Robinson Sewer, Gas and Electric, by Matt Ruff
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 34) Doctor Who: Origin Stories (ed. ?Dave Rudden?) Doctor Who and Warriors’ Gate, by John Lydecker Doctor Who: The Romans, by Donald Cotton
Comics 2 (YTD 20) Official Secrets, by Cavan Scott, Adriana Melo, Cris Bolson and Marco Lesko The Carnival of Immortals, by Enki Bilal
7,100 pages (YTD 66,500) 9/30 (YTD 109/298) by non-male writers (Suomalainen, Unigwe, Kowal, Shawl, Heuler, Ow, Pierlot, Willis, de Bodard, Melo) 4/30 (YTD 39/298) by a non-white writer (Unigwe, Shawl, Ow, de Bodard)
The best of these were the essay collection The Ahtisaari Legacy, which is out of print, and The Red Scholar’s Wake, which you can get here; the worst was Titan Blue, which you can get here.
2022 books roundup
I read 298 books in 2022, two more than in 2021, the fourth highest of the nineteen years that I have been keeping track, and the highest since 2011.
Page count for the year: 76,500, ninth highest of the nineteen years I have recorded, almost in the middle; there are some very short books in there.
Books by non-male writers in 2022: 109 (37%), second highest tally and fourth highest percentage of the years I have been counting.
Books by PoC in 2021: 39 (13%), second highest tally and third highest percentage since I started counting.
Most-read author: a tie between two previous winners, Terrance Dicks and Kieron Gillen, with five each. The Dicks novelisations were all re-reads.
1) Science Fiction and Fantasy (excluding Doctor Who)
When I first wrote up my books of the year I didn’t name any of the Clarke submissions. I will now say that the three I enjoyed most which I read in 2022 were:
95 books (32%) – highest ever number, third highest percentage. I think this has been driven upwards by the excellent Black Archive series of short books about Doctor Who stories, but that’s not the only factor.
Duran Duran: The First Four Years of the Fab Five, by Neil Gaiman, early stufffrom a writer who went on to much better things; out of print.
3) Doctor Who
Fiction other than comics: 39 books (13%), 10th highest total (dead in the middle) of the last nineteen years and highest since 2017, 13th highest percentage
Including non-fiction and comics: 72 (24%), 7th highest total and 6th highest percentage, both highest since 2013
Snotgirl Volume 1: Green Hair Don’t Care, by Bryan Lee O’Malley and Lesley Hung, an encouraging start to a new series; get it here
Once and Futurevol 3: The Parliament of Magpies and vol 4: Monarchies in the UK, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bonvillain, continues to delightfully and brutally subvert Arthuriana; get them here and here
The 2022 winner of the Christopher Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize was, for the first time, a book of poetry, The Sun is Open, by QUB-based writer Gail McConnell. In fact the 119 pages of text are one long poem broken into chunks, playing with text and with font colour, processing the writer’s reaction to going through a box of her father’s things, long after he died in 1984 at 35, shot dead by the IRA while checking under his car for bombs, in front of his wife and his then three-year-old daughter.
Gail McConnell barely remembers her father and has no memory of that awful day, but of course it has affected her whole life, and the poetry captures that disruption and the effect of engaging with her father through a box of personal souvenirs, most notably a diary and a Students Union handbook from his own time at QUB. There is some imaginative playing with structure – quotations from the box are in grey text, documents are quoted in fragments to let us fill in the blanks, at one point the page fills with vertical bars to symbolise the prison where her father worked. It’s provocative and unsettling, and meant to be.
I thought it was incredible and it’s my book of the year for 2022. You can get it here.
Previous Books of the Year:
2003 (2 months): The Separation, by Christopher Priest (review; get it here) 2004: (reread) The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien (review; get it here) – Best new read: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin (review; get it here) 2005: The Island at the Centre of the World, by Russell Shorto (review; get it here) 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 (review; get it here) 2007: Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, by Alison Bechdel (review; get it here) 2008: (reread) The Diary of a Young Girl: The Definitive Edition, by Anne Frank (review; get it here) – Best new read: Vanity Fair: A Novel without a Hero, by William Makepeace Thackeray (review; get it here) 2009: (had seen it on stage previously) Hamlet, by William Shakespeare (review; get it here) – Best new read: Persepolis 2: the Story of a Return, by Marjane Satrapi (first volume just pipped by Samuel Pepys in 2004) (review; get it here) 2010: The Bloody Sunday Report, by Lord Savile et al. (review of vol I; get it here) 2011: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by Edward Gibbon (started in 2009!) (review; get it here) 2012: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë (review; get it here) 2013: A Room of One’s Own, by Virginia Woolf (review; get it here) 2014: Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell (review; get it here) 2015: collectively, the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, in particular the winner, Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel (get it here). 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 (review; get it here) 2016: Alice in Sunderland, by Bryan Talbot (review; get it here) 2017: Common People: The History of an English Family, by Alison Light (review; get it here) 2018: Factfulness, by Hans Rosling (review; get it here) 2019: Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo (review; get it here) 2020: From A Clear Blue Sky: Surviving the Mountbatten Bomb, by Timothy Knatchbull (review; get it here) 2021: Carrying the Fire, by Michael Collins (review; get it here)
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.
This is the twelfth last of these posts; the last will be the October 2023 update.
My only trip outside Belgium in November 2022 was a work outing to London, which I have not otherwise recorded, but I had two interesting day trips; one with F to the sculptures at Borgloon:
And one with U to the Picasso exhibition in Brussels.
At work, I was honoured to greet a courageous woman:
7,400 pages (YTD 69,400) 9/32 (YTD 100/268) by non-male writers (Çerkez, Alderman, North, Scarborough, Newman, Jemisin, White, Hansen, McKeand) 2/32 (YTD 35/268) by a non-white writer (Jemisin, Hansen)
Four books that I really enjoyed this month:
Death of a Naturalist, the classic poetry collection by Seamus Heaney; you can get it here.
The Caucasus: An Introduction, by Tom de Waal, unfortunately out of date since the recent war but fantastic to understand the region; you can get it here.
Disobedience, by Naomi Alderman, a gripping study of an isolated culture in London. You can get it here.
The Flight of the Aphrodite, a hard sf Clarke submission that really grabbed me; you can get it here.
Several of the other Clarke submissions this month were frankly unreadable; specifically Momenticon, Azura Ghost and Prophets of the Red Night. You can get them here, here and here.
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.
I started October last year in London at a Glasgow 2024 Worldcon planning meeting; I don’t know who took this photograph but it catches the spirit well.
The next weekend we celebrated our 29th wedding anniversary with a weekend in Trier, Germany, stopping off in Luxembourg on the way back.
The most hilarious news story of the month was the resignation of Liz Truss as UK Prime Minister less than two months into the job. I can reveal now that on the morning it happened, I texted a member of her team who I knew that I hoped he might have a better day at the office than the previous day (which saw the chaotic House of Commons vote that sealed her fate). My friend, who must have already known that she had decided to resign overnight, replied “Doubt it but thanks for the thought!”
I read 24 books that month:
Non-fiction 7 (YTD 83) Doctor Who: A British Alien?, by Danny Nicol The Bad Christian’s Manifesto, by Dave Tomlinson (did not finish) Twelve Years a Slave, by Solomon Northrup The Face of Evil, by Thomas L Rodebaugh Love and Monsters, by Niki Haringsma Welcome to the Doomsphere: Sad Puppies, Hugos, and Politics, by Matthew M. Foster The Bordley and Belt Families, Based on Letters Written by Family Members, assembled and annotated by Edward Wickersham Hoffman
Plays 1 Juicy and Delicious, by Lucy Alibar
SF 12 (YTD 89) Lambda, by David Musgrave Empire Of Sand, by Tasha Suri Complete Short Stories: the 1950s, by Brian Aldiss Tell Me an Ending, by Jo Harkin Expect Me Tomorrow, by Christopher Priest La Femme, ed. Ian Whates Eversion, by Alastair Reynolds Goliath, by Tochi Onyebuchi The This, by Adam Roberts Mindwalker, by Kate Dylan Scattered All Over the Earth, by Yōko Tawada, tr. Margaret Mitsutani Life Ceremony, by Sayaka Murata (did not finish)
Doctor Who 2 (YTD 28) Lineage, ed. Shaun Russell Doctor Who and the Face of Evil, by Terrance Dicks
Comics 2 (YTD 16) Voorbij de grenzen van de ernst, by Kamagurka Weapons of Past Destruction, by Cavan Scott, Blair Shedd, Rachel Stott and Anand Setyawan
6,500 pages (YTD 62,000) 7/24 (YTD 91/236) by non-male writers (Alibar, Suri, Harkin, Dylan, Tawada, Murata, Stott) 6/24 (YTD 33/236) by a non-white writer (Northrup, Suri, Onyebuchi, Tawada, Murata, Setyawan)
I’m going to be nice and celebrate three very good books I read that month, and refrain from calling out any bad ones.
I really enjoyed Tell Me an Ending, by Jo Harkin, an sf novel set in the near future where memory editing has become a thing; but what happens when people want to reverse the process? 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 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.
I started the month in Chicago, where the Chicago River was reverse-engineered in the 19th century to flow out of Lake Michigan rather than into it. (Lake Michigan is roughly twice the surface area of Belgium.)
I was there of course for the 2022 Worldcon, at which I was once again part of the Hugo team.
The major point of drama surrounded the Hugo Awards Study Committee, which had been founded on my proposal in 2017, but which had unfortunately become dominated by a small self-appointed clique in 2021 and 2022 to the point that I successfully called for it to be abolished at the Chicago WSFS Business Meeting. This had been brewing for months, culminating when the people running the committee submitted constitutional amendments to the Business Meeting in the committee’s name, despite a previous consensus that they would not. There seemed to be no desire for course correction on the part of those concerned, and they certainly failed to persuade the Business Meeting to let them have another go. A shame; I had thought it was a good idea in principle, but it turned out not to work in practice.
The next week, Liz Truss became Prime Minister, and Queen Elizabeth II died.
The week after that, Anne graduated summa cum laude from her theology degree in Leuven.
We then went to a reunion in Clare College Cambridge, where we had met and married thirty years and more ago.
On the day of the Queen’s funeral, I went on my own quest to find my grandmother’s grave:
That evening I met up with three old friends from grammar school in Belfast who all now work in London.
I ended the month in England again, at a Glasgow 2024 Worldcon planning meeting; photos in the October update.
I read twenty books that month. When I first posted this list I disguised the Arthur C. Clarke Award submissions with Greek letters; the shortlist is now out and the winner will be announced next week, so there is no longer any need to be coy about what books I read when.
Non-fiction 6 (YTD 76) Political Animals, by Bev Laing Matt Smith: The Biography, by Emily Herbert Doctor Who (1996), by Paul Driscoll The Dæmons, by Matt Barber Richard of Cornwall: The English King of Germany, by Darren Baker Argo: How the Cia and Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History, by Antonio J. Mendez and Matt Baglio
Non-genre 1 (YTD 14) Mr Britling Sees It Through, by H.G. Wells
SF 8 (YTD 77) The Traders’ War, by Charles Stross Brasyl, by Ian McDonald Jocasta, by Brian Aldiss Black Man, by Richard Morgan Braking Day, by Adam Oyebanji The Fish, by Joanne Stubbs Speaker for the Dead, by Orson Scott Card Poster Girl, by Veronica Roth
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 26) Fear of the Web, by Alyson Leeds Doctor Who – The Movie, by Gary Russell Doctor Who and the Dæmons, by Barry Letts
Comics 1 (YTD 14) A Matter of Life and Death, by George Mann, Emma Vieceli and Hi Fi
5,700 pages (YTD 55,500) 6/19 (YTD 84/211) by non-male writers (Laing, Herbert, Stubbs, Roth, Leeds, Vieceli) 2/19 (YTD 27/211) by a non-white writer (Mendez, Oyebanji)
Mr Britling Sees It Through was a real revelation for me, hugely enjoyed it. You can get it here.
The new biography of Richard of Cornwall was very disappointing, 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 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.
A decent amount of travel this month, with ten days in Northern Ireland including a family gathering.
I also had a work trip to Belgrade, and finished the month at Worldcon in Chicago having spent a few days first at my brother’s near Boston where I did some further research:
A lot of Worldcon-related drama happened in August, but I’ll save recounting it to my September write-up.
I read 25 books that month:
Non-fiction 8 (YTD 70) Lenin the Dictator, by Victor Sebestyen Manifesto, by Bernardine Evaristo The Life of Col. Samuel M. Wickersham, ed. Edward Wickersham Hoffman The Curse of Fenric, by Una McCormack The Time Warrior, by Matthew Kilburn That Damn’d Thing Called “Honour”: Duelling in Ireland, 1570-1860, by James Kelly The Kosovo Indictment, by Michael O’Reilly Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets, by Svetlana Alexievich
Non-genre 2 (YTD 13) Alaska Sampler 2014: Ten Authors from the Great Land, eds Deb Vanasse and David Marusek The Light Years, by Elizabeth Jane Howard
SF 9 (YTD 69) Swordheart, by T. Kingfisher The Initiate, by Louise Cooper Sprawl, ed. Cat Sparks The Massacre of Mankind, by Stephen Baxter Roger Zelazny’s Chaos and Amber, by John Betancourt The Harp and the Blade, by John Myers Myers “Tangents”, by Greg Bear The Light Fantastic, by Terry Pratchett The Carhullan Army, by Sarah Hall
Doctor Who 5 (YTD 23) Dalek Combat Training Manual, by Richard Atkinson and Mike Tucker The Lost Skin, by Andy Frankham-Allen Scary Monsters, by Simon A. Forward Doctor Who: The Curse of Fenric, by Ian Briggs Doctor Who and the Time Warrior, by Terrance Dicks
Comics 1 (YTD 13) Doctor Who: The Seventh Doctor: Operation Volcano, by Ben Aaronovitch and Andrew Cartmel
6,100 pages (YTD 49,800) 9/25 (YTD 78/192) by non-male writers (Evaristo, McCormack, Alexievich, Vanasse, Howard, “Kingfisher”, Cooper, Sparks, Hall) 1/25 (YTD 25/192) by a non-white writer (Evaristo)
I enjoyed revisiting The Light Fantastic, which you can get here, and reading Bernardine Evaristo’s Manifesto, which you can get here, T. Kingfisher’s Swordheart, which you can get here, and the Dalek Combat Manual, which you can get here. I’ll draw a veil over those I liked less.
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.
Checking back, I realised that a few months ago I skipped directly from September 2021 to November 2021 in this sequence, so here’s the post I should have made on 9 June!
It’s an especially silly omission because we had a really fun post-pandemic trip to The Hague for our wedding anniversary, starting with a rijsttafel and doing various cultural things. (While poor F was isolating with our household’s first COVID-19 diagnosis.)
Non-fiction 8 (YTD 38) John Quincy Adams: American Visionary, by Fred Kaplan Groetjes uit Vlaanderen, by Mohamed Ouaamari The Ambassadors of Death, by L.M. Myles Dark Water / Death in Heaven, by Philip Purser-Hallard Free Speeches, by Denis Kitchen, Nadine Strossen, Dave Sim, Neil Gaiman and Frank Miller The Ryans of Inch and Their World: A Catholic Gentry Family from Dispossession to Integration, c.1650-1831, by Richard John Fitzpatrick (PhD thesis) Those About to Die, by Daniel P. Mannix Discipline or Corruption, by Konstantin Stanislavsky
Non-genre 2 (YTD 24) The Wych Elm, by Tana French Time Must Have a Stop, by Aldous Huxley
Scripts 1 (YTD 4) Day of the Dead, by Neil Gaiman
SF 15 (YTD 109) Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson “Fire Watch”, by Connie Willis Little Free Library, by Naomi Kritzer The Empire of Time, by David Wingrove – did not finish Crashland, by Sean Williams – did not finish City of Miracles, by Robert Jackson Bennett Silver in the Wood, by Emily Tesh The Space Between Worlds, by Micaiah Johnson Splinters and the Impolite President, by William Whyte Axiom’s End, by Lindsay Ellis Splinters and the Wolves of Winter, by William Whyte Shadowboxer, by Tricia Sullivan The Vanished Birds, by Simon Jimenez The Unspoken Name, by A.K. Larkwood Blake’s 7 Annual 1982, eds Grahame Robertson and Carole Ramsay
Doctor Who 5 (YTD 18, 24 inc comics and non-fiction) Prime Imperative, by Julianne Todd The Xmas Files, ed. Shaun Russell Mind of Stone, by Iain McLaughlin The Crimson Horror, by Mark Gatiss Doctor Who: The Ambassadors of Death, by Terrance Dicks
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’re up to only a year ago now, a month which started for me in Sofia, Bulgaria:
Non-fiction 8 (YTD 62) The Darwin Awards, by Wendy Northcutt A Short History of Kosovo, by Noel Malcolm Stability Operations in Kosovo 1999-2000: A Case Study, by Jason Fritz The Smell of War, by Roland Bartetzko Presidential Election, by John Danforth et al Make Your Brain Work, by Amy Brann Heaven Sent, by Kara Dennison Hell Bent, by Alyssa Franke
SF 10 (YTD 60) Guy Erma and the Son of Empire, by Sally Ann Melia (did not finish) Victories Greater than Death, by Charlie Jane Anders The Orphan’s Tales: In the Night Garden, by Catherynne M. Valente The Last Graduate, by Naomi Novik Moon Zero Two, by John Burke Redemptor, by Jordan Ifueko A Snake Falls to Earth, by Darcie Little Badger Winter’s Orbit, by Everina Maxwell Soulstar, by C.L. Polk (did not finish) Midnight’s Children, by Salman Rushdie
Doctor Who 2 (YTD 18) The Unofficial Master Annual, ed. Mark Worgan The New Unusual, by Adrian Sherlock and Andy Frankham-Allen
It was great to revisit Midnight’s Children, which you can get here, and Noel Malcolm’s Kosovo, which you can get here. Also good to encounter the two Black Archives on Heaven Sent and Hell Bent, which you can get here and here. But I bounced off the leaden prose of Guy Erma and the Sons of Empire; 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 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.
I started the month with a couple of days of enforced silence after my throat oepration, but have made a full recovery. (Well, almost – I don’t think I’ll ever hit the high notes again.) I had three work trips, one to Berlin, where I visited the site of Rosa Luxemburg’s murder:
and London where I relived one of my favourite urban walks, from Tottenham Court Road to Westminster.
I ended the month in Sofia where I met (among others) Finnish politician Astrid Thors.
And I discovered that my great-great-grandmother’s biological father was not her mother’s husband, but a distant cousin of President Grover Cleveland (also of Shirley Temple and Fritz Leiber).
I read 28 books that month.
Non-fiction 9 (YTD 54) Dangerous Visions and New Worlds: Radical Science Fiction, 1950 to 1985, eds. Andrew Nette and Iain McIntyre The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, by Amia Srinivasan True Believer: The Rise and Fall of Stan Lee, by Abraham Riesman Directed by Douglas Camfield, by Michael Seely Being Seen: One Deafblind Woman’s Fight to End Ableism, by Elsa Sjunneson The Eleventh Hour, by Jon Arnold Face the Raven, by Sarah Groenewegen No-Nonsense Guide to Global Media, by Peter Steven The King of Almayne: a 13th century Englishman in Europe, by T.W.E. Roche
Non-genre 2 (YTD 11) Intimacy, by Jean Paul Sartre Q&A, by Vikas Swarup
SF 7 (YTD 50) Half Life, by Shelley Jackson The Happier Dead, by Ivo Stourton Queen of the States, by Josephine Saxton End of the World Blues, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood The Monk, by Matthew Lewis Nova Swing, by M. John Harrison Killdozer!, by Theodore Sturgeon
Doctor Who 1 (YTD 16) The HAVOC Files, Volume 4, ed. Shaun Russell
Comics 9 (YTD 12) Monstress, Volume 6: The Vow, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda Far Sector, by N.K. Jemisin and Jamal Campbell Lore Olympus, by Rachael Smythe Die, vol.3: The Great Game, by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles Die, vol 4: Bleed, by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles Once & Future, vol. 3: The Parliament of Magpies, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bonvillain Once & Future, vol. 4: Monarchies in the UK, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamra Bon-villain Junker: een Pruisische blues, by Simon Spruyt Strange Adventures, by Tom King, Mitch Gerads and Evan “Doc” Shane
Half Life, by Shelley Jackson – I can’t believe that nobody recommended this to me before; you can get it here.
The King of Almayne: a 13th century Englishman in Europe, by T.W.E. Roche – ho many of you knew about the thirteenth-century English prince who captured Jerusalem and got elected Holy Roman Emperor? You can get it here.
The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, by Amia Srinivasan – difficult but important reading; you can get it here.
On the other hand, as usual for this author, I bounced off Nova Swing by M. John Harrison. 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 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.
As the pandemic finally receded, I had two very interesting trips in May 2022: at the beginning of the month, to Northern Ireland for the coverage of the election to the Northern Ireland Assembly (which at time of writing has yet to resume sitting):
And a couple of weeks later to Geneva, Switzerland and Podgorica, Montenegro for work. The end of the month had me under the surgeon’s knife for a (benign) lump in my larynx.
With all the travel, I managed to read 35 books that month.
Non-fiction 16 (YTD 45) Carnival of Monsters, by Ian Potter Thursday’s Child, by Maralyn Rittenour Pigs Might Fly: The Inside Story of Pink Floyd, by Mark Blake Queens of the Crusades, by Alison Weir A Norman Legacy, by Sally Harpur O’Dowd Tower, by Nigel Jones The Pilgrimage of S. Silvia of Aquitania to the Holy Places (circa 385 A.D.), trans. John H. Bernard, with an appendix by Sir Charles William Wilson. The Pilgrimage of Etheria, trans. M. L. McClure and C. L. Feltoe Signs and Symbols Around the World, by Elizabeth S. Helfman The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit, by Simon Bucher-Jones The Pilgrimage of Egeria: A New Translation, by Anne McGowan and Paul F. Bradshaw Terrorism In Asymmetric Conflict: Ideological and Structural Aspects, by Ekaterina A. Stepanova Marco Polo, by Dene October The Halls of Narrow Water, by Bill Hall Never Say You Can’t Survive, by Charlie Jane Anders CBT Workbook, by Stephanie Fitzgerald
Non-genre 1 (YTD 9) The Island of Missing Trees, by Elif Shafak
SF 11 (YTD 43) The Galaxy, and the Ground Within, by Becky Chambers Light from Uncommon Stars, by Ryka Aoki A Master of Djinn, by P. Djélì Clark Flicker, by Theodore Roszak Stardust, by Neil Gaiman Demons and Dreams: Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror v. 1, eds. Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling She Who Became the Sun, by Shelly Parker-Chan Mort, by Terry Pratchett Ender’s Game, by Orson Scott Card A Modern Utopia, by H. G. Wells Mythos, by Stephen Fry
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.
The highlight of the month for me was Reclamation, the 2022 Eastercon, at which I was one of the Guests of Honour.
We got the Hugo ballot out; I celebrated my 55th birthday in a pub on Place Lux (the same place where I had celebrated my 50th, five years before); and I took little U to the Magritte Museum in Brussels.
Non-fiction read in April 8 (YTD 29) Human Nature / Family of Blood, by Naomi Jacobs and Philip Purser-Hallard Diverse Futures: Science Fiction and Authors of Colour, by Joy Sanchez-Taylor The Ultimate Foe, by James Cooray Smith Worlds Apart: Worldbuilding in Fantasy and Science Fiction, ed. Francesca T Barbini Hergé, Son of Tintin, by Benoît Peeters Stucwerk, Hechtwerk van het Kasteel te Boxmeer, by W.V.J. Freling The Limbless Landlord, by Brian Igoe Full Circle, by John Toon
Non-genre fiction read in April 1 (YTD 8) No Country for Old Men, by Cormac MacCarthy
SF (non-Who) read in April: 11 (YTD 32) Blackthorn Winter, by Liz Williams Purgatory Mount, by Adam Roberts Air, by Geoff Ryman Hive Monkey, by Gareth L. Powell L’Esprit de L’Escalier, by Catherynne M. Valente Valley of Lights, by Steve Gallagher Elder Race, by Adian Tchaikovsky Across the Green Grass Fields, by Seanan McGuire A Psalm for the Wild-Built, by Becky Chambers The Past is Red, by Cat Valente A Spindle Splintered, by Alix E. Harrow
Doctor Who books read in April: 4 (YTD 15) Doctor Who: The Ultimate Foe, by Pip and Jane Baker Legends of Camelot, by Jacqueline Rayner The Man from Yesterday, by Nick Walters Doctor Who: Full Circle, by Andrew Smith
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.
This was another month when I did not leave Belgium, though such months are again becoming increasingly rare. I compensated with a couple more trips to see Hansche stuccos:
I had planned to travel to Belfast to give a lecture at the end of the month, but pressure of work in Brussels compelled me to do it virtually. Here is the preview interview I gave with Alan Meban.
The big excitement at home was the installation of a bee hotel at the end of our drive.
I mourned Erhard Busek, and did the last of my ten-day plague posts as life returned to normal.
And this humble blog moved from Livejournal to WordPress; probably not before time.
We were also busily working on the 2023 Hugo Awards, my sixth time of overseeing the process, so I read only 15 books (and was still getting to grips with WordPress).
Non-fiction 5 (YTD 21) The Twinkling of an Eye, by Brian Aldiss The Anthropocene Unconscious: Climate Catastrophe in Contemporary Culture, by Mark Bould Cyberpunk Culture and Psychology: Seeing Through the Mirrorshades, by Anna McFarlane Elles font l’abstraction/Women in Abstraction, by Christine Macel and Laure Chavelot Nine Lives, by Aimen Dean
SF 6 (YTD 21) The Green Man’s Challenge, by Juliet McKenna Skyward Inn, by Aliya Whiteley Light Chaser, by Peter F. Hamilton and Gareth L. Powell The Space Machine, by Christopher Priest Iron Widow, by Xiran Jay Zhao Shards of Earth, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Doctor Who 3 (YTD 11) The Unofficial Doctor Who Annual 1972, ed. Mark Worgan A Very Private Haunting, by Sharon Bidwell Human Nature, by Paul Cornell
Comics 1 (YTD 3) Snotgirl Volume 1: Green Hair Don’t Care, by Brian Lee O’Malley and Leslie Hung
4,300 pages (YTD 16,600) 7/15 (YTD 21/63) not by men (McFarlane, Macel/Chavelot, McKenna, Whiteley, Zhao, Bidwell, Hung) 3/15 (YTD 10/63) by PoC (Dean, Zhao, Lee O’Malley/Hung)
Greatly enjoyed rereading Brian Aldiss’ autobiography The Twinkling of an Eye, which you can get here; greatly enjoyed first acquaintance with The Space Machine, which you can get here, and volume 1 of Snotgirl, which you can get here. I will draw a veil over the ones I didn’t like so much.
![41wcwtI+eNL[1].jpg](https://i0.wp.com/fromtheheartofeurope.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/2758535_300.jpg?resize=163%2C250&ssl=1)
