This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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.
Alas, after several months of relaxation, COVID restrictions were re-imposed in the middle of the month and working from home started again. This meant that I also re-started my ten-day updates on the COVID situation, which continued until early 2022.
I don’t seem to have written it up elsewhere, but little U and I got to the newly opened permanent exhibition at the Royal Library in Brussels just before the museums closed.
Art commentary on Jean Mayné and his daughter Berthe Flaminé Mayné:
Non-fiction: 3 (YTD 44) Darwin’s Island: The Galapagos in the Garden of England, by Steve Jones Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos, by M. Mitchell Waldrop Helen Waddell, by Felicitas Corrigan
Fiction (non-sf): 9 (YTD 34) Kramer vs. Kramer, by Avery Corman Secret Army, by John Brason Secret Army Dossier, by John Brason Ordinary People, by Judith Guest Secret Army: The End of the Line, by John Brason This Must be the Place, by Maggie O’Farrell Kessler, by John Brason Titus Groan, by Mervyn Peake Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, by Robert M. Pirsig
sf (non-Who): 6 (YTD 92) Palestine 100: Stories from a century after the Nakba, ed. Mazen Maarouf Gateway, by Frederik Pohl Carmilla, by J. Sheridan Le Fanu To Be Taught, if Fortunate, by Becky Chambers The Tropic of Serpents, by Marie Brennan Wild Life, by Molly Gloss
Doctor Who: 1 (YTD 11) The Knight, the Fool and the Dead, by Steve Cole
Comics: 6 (YTD 39) Defender of the Daleks, #1, by Jody Houser and Roberta Ingranata Survivants, Tome 3, by Leo Defender of the Daleks, #2, by Jody Houser and Roberta Ingranata Survivants, Tome 4, by Leo Survivants, Tome 5, by Leo For the Love of God, Marie!, by Jade Sarson
5,900 pages (YTD 58,800) 9/25 (YTD 69/219) by women (Corrigan, Guest, O’Farrell, Chambers, Brennan, Gloss, Hoser/Ingranata x2, Sarson) 1/25 (YTD 19/219) by PoC (Maarouf)
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 a trip to western Belgium with Anne, staying at my old friend Lex’s R&Breakfast in Roeselaere. This gave rise to several blog posts:
Only later did I realise that part of my attraction to the portrait of the Jonet family may be that I have almost exactly the same age difference with my own daughters.
We also had an appropriately socially distanced work party in a park near the office; I was going in three days a week at this point.
I read only 17 books that month, but some were very long.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 began grimly, with the notorious 2020 Hugo Awards ceremony unfolding in the early hours of 1 August (in my time zone). I think we have to be clear that it went very badly wrong. Having put many hours of my own time into working on the awards that year, I felt personally that my efforts had been thrown back in my face. The fact that the first actual Hugo winner was not announced until more than an hour into the ceremony demonstrated a fundamental lack of respect for the people who should have been at the heart of the occasion. (Not to mention the rest of us.)
There was some emotional high points of the grim evening, however, and the one that will linger with me was Neil Gaiman’s acceptance speech for Good Omens.
This was another month when, due to the pandemic, I did not leave Belgium, but I plucked up my courage to go to Train World with U for a Paul Delvaux exhibition.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 high point of the month was getting out of Belgium for the first time since lockdown, a three-country trip to my cousin in Luxembourg, my sister in France and work/tourism in Geneva. While we were there we watched the Disney Hamilton and saw Comet NEOWISE.
We enjoyed watching Picard and Staged, and I delved into the etymology of the Ardennes. More seriously, the Spanish Comisión de Arbitraje, Quejas y Deontología del Periodismo found completely in my favour in a complaint I had raised against a journalist who published a false story about me.
I also paused my ten-day COVID updates, but restarted my Doctor Who anniversary posts, which I had first done in 2010-11. I am still doing them, but on Facebook only.
The Hugo Awards gave us a lot of grief. The preparation of the online voting system on the final ballot was so badly delayed that we were within hours of just using Surveymonkey, before the local software solution finally came through at the last moment. Online commentators were rightly scornful of the fact that we opened voting so late, but they didn’t know the half of it. The final ballot results came through as we were driving home from Geneva, and to my astonishment it turned out that there was a tie for the Retro Hugo for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form). I checked and rechecked the votes, but there was no error.
The CoNZealand Retro Hugo ceremony passed off OK on 30 July, though my connection was poor and some of the actual winners were a bit embarrassing. At midnight on July 31st, I was at my computer waiting anxiously for the 2020 Hugo ceremony itself. We had heard worrying hints about the presentation, but as administrators we had little to do with it (indeed, the pronunciations we had painstakingly gathered earlier in the year somehow were not communicated to the ceremony team [edit: turns out they were communicated, just not used]); surely the convention leadership would take action to protect their own reputation?
…well, I’ll write more about that when I get to August 2020.
Anyway, in July 2020 I read 21 books:
Non-fiction: 5 (YTD 37) EU Lobbying Handbook, by Andreas Geiger The Complete Secret Army: An Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Classic TV Drama Series by Andy Priestner George Eliot, by Tim Dolin Yugoslavia’s Implosion: The Fatal Attraction of Serbian Nationalism, by Sonja Biserko Too Much and Never Enough: How My Family Created the World’s Most Dangerous Man, by Mary Trump
Fiction (non-sf): 3 (YTD 18) The Overstory, by Richard Powers Guban, by Abdi Latif Ega Listen to the Moon by Michael Morpurgo
sf (non-Who): 5 (YTD 76) City of Lies, by Sam Hawke Tooth & Claw, by Jo Walton TOR: Assassin Hunter, by Billy Bob Buttons (did not finish) “Houston, Houston, do you read?” by James Tiptree Jr The Ruin of Kings, by Jenn Lyons “The Bicentennial Man” by Isaac Asimov
Comics: 6 (YTD 27) The Wicked + The Divine vol 6: Imperial Phase Part 2, by Kieron Gillen etc The Wicked + The Divine vol 7: Mothering Invention, by Kieron Gillen etc Gaze of the Medusa, by Gordon Rennie, Emma Beeby and Brian Williamson The Wicked + The Divine vol 8: Old is the New New, by Kieron Gillen etc The Wicked + The Divine vol 9: “Okay”, by Kieron Gillen etc The 1945 Retro Hugo finalists for Best Graphic Story or Comic
Doctor Who 2 (YTD 8) Doctor Who Annual 2020 Doctor Who and the Cybermen, by Gerry Davis
5,700 pages (YTD 44,200) 7/21 (YTD 54/165) by women (Biserko, Trump, Hawke, Walton, Tiptree, Lyons, Beeby) 1/21 (YTD 18/165) by PoC (Ega)
As so often, two non-fiction books stood out for me this month, Andy Priestner’s delightful Complete Secret Army, which you can get here, and Sonja Biserko’s horrifying Yugoslavia’s Implosion, which you can get here. I also enjoyed rereading James Tiptree Jr’s “Houston, Houston, do you read?”, which you can get here.
Some awful books too. The 2020 Doctor Who Annual was a poor effort; you can get it here. Guban, by Abdi Latif Ega, is very badly edited; you can get it here. TOR: Assassin Hunter, by Billy Bob Buttons, is rubbish; you can get it here. And Asimov’s “The Bicentennial Man” has not aged well, 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 late 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.
Things began to improve this month. with restrictions gradually easing; I went for a triumphant lunch with a colleague the day that the restaurants opened again.
We were allowed to see B again for the first time in more than three months, on her 23rd birthday.
More locally, I went to church, and made a final local video about an ancient enclave of imperial territory just across the river from us.
I read 20 books that month.
Non-fiction: 6 (YTD 32) The Beiderbecke Affair, by William Gallagher The Queen’s Agent: Sir Francis Walsingham and the Rise of Espionage in Elizabethan England, by John Cooper The Ode Less Travelled: Unlocking the Poet Within, by Stephen Fry Modern China: A Very Short Introduction, by Rana Mitter From A Clear Blue Sky, by Timothy Knatchbull The Room Where It Happened: A White House Memoir, by John Bolton
Fiction (non-sf): 3 (YTD 15) Local Hero, by David Benedictus The Ghost of Lily Painter by Caitlin Davies Laatste schooldag, by Jan Siebelink (did not finish)
sf (non-Who): 5 (YTD 70) The Sleeper Awakes, by H.G. Wells Heaven’s War by David S. Goyer and Michael Cassutt (did not finish) Dreaming In Smoke, by Tricia Sullivan The Master and Margarita, by Mikhail Bulgakov The Extremes, by Christopher Priest
Comics: 6 (YTD 21) The Wicked + The Divine vol 2: Fandemonium, by Kieron Gillen etc The Wicked + The Divine vol 3: Commercial Suicide, by Kieron Gillen etc The Wicked + The Divine vol 4: Rising Action, by Kieron Gillen etc De dag waarop de bus zonder haar vertrok, by BeKa, Marko and Maëla Cosson The Wicked + The Divine vol 5: Imperial Phase Part 1, by Kieron Gillen etc De dag waarop ze haar vlucht nam, by BeKa, Marko, and Maëla Cosson
5,000 pages (YTD 38,500) 4/20 (YTD 47/144) by women (Davie, Sullivan, 2x Ka of BeKa and Cosson) 1/20 (YTD 17/144) by PoC (Mitter)
The best book of this month, indeed of 2020, was Timothy Knatchbull’s From a Clear Blue Sky, his account of the Mountbatten bomb in 1979 and its aftermath; you can get it here. I also had a car-crash fascination with John Bolton’s The Room Where It Happened; you can get it here. Rana Mitter’s Modern China: A Very Short Introduction is not as exciting than either of the above but also very good; you can get it here.
I read some pretty bad books too. I gave up on Goyer and Cassutt’s Heaven’s War after a few pages; you can get it here. The short story collection Laatste Schooldag by Jan Siebelink fell flat for me; you can get it here. So did the second of the bandes dessinées by BeKa, De Dag Waarop Ze Haar Vlucht Nam; 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 late 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 continued to labour under COVID restrictions in May 2020, but our office had reopened for one day a week by the middle of the month and I certainly took advantage of being able to (cautiously) share physical space with colleagues.
I also indulged in some nostalgia, digging out photographs from my 21st birthday party in 1988. The lady in the red jacket later married the guy who is visible over my shoulder, who was one of my co-hosts. The lady in green married another of the co-hosts. The fourth co-host was the much missed Liz.
We finished the month with a visit to the park at Tervuren on a blisteringly hot day.
Non-fiction: 5 (YTD 26) The Hunt for Vulcan: …And How Albert Einstein Destroyed a Planet, Discovered Relativity, and Deciphered the Universe, by Thomas Levenson Joanna Russ, by Gwyneth Jones A Sacred Cause: The Inter-Congolese Dialogue 2000-2003, by P. E. Winter Roger of Hereford’s Judicial Astrology: England’s First Astrology Book?, by Chris Mitchell A border too far: the Ilemi triangle yesterday and today, by Philip Winter
Fiction (non-sf): 2 (YTD 12) The Godfather, by Mario Puzo The Accident, by Ismail Kadarë
sf (non-Who): 9 (YTD 65) Riverland, by Fran Wilde In an Absent Dream, by Seanan McGuire The Forever War, by Joe Haldeman Black Wine, by Candas Jane Dorsey Arthur C. Clarke’s Venus Prime 1: Breaking Strain, by Paul Preuss Slaughterhouse 5, by Kurt Vonnegut The Nightmare Stacks, by Charles Stross The Tiger’s Wife, by Tea Obreht Make Room! Make Room!, by Harry Harrison
Comics: 2 (YTD 15) Peanuts: A Tribute to Charles M. Schulz, ed. Shannon Watters The Wicked + The Divine vol 1: The Faust Act, by Kieron Gillen etc
The best of these was my former colleague Philip Winter’s account of peacemaking in DR Congo, A Sacred Cause, which you can get here. I also enjoyed rereading The Godfather, which you can get here, and reading for the first time Make Room! Make Room!, which you can get here. Nothing too awful this month.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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.
Not surprisingly, I went no further than Brussels in April 2020, and that was only once to deliver essential supplies to two colleagues who had joined just as lockdown hit. We met in the open air by the monument to the brave carrier pigeons of the first world war.
The last Sunday of the month was my birthday, and I had a virtual party on Zoom to which dozens of friends and relatives came. It was very affirming.
I read 28 books that month.
Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 21) The Lady from the Black Lagoon: Hollywood Monsters and the Lost Legacy of Milicent Patrick, by Mallory O’Meara The European Parliament, by Francis Jacobs, Richard Corbett and Michael Shackleton Becoming Superman: My Journey From Poverty to Hollywood, by J. Michael Straczynski The French Connection, by Robin Moore
Fiction (non-sf): 3 (YTD 10) A Prayer for Owen Meany, by John Irving Muddy Lane, by Andrew Cheffings The Long Song, by Andrea Levy
sf (non-Who): 14 (YTD 56) The Wind on the Moon, by Eric Linklater Minor Mage, by T. Kingfisher Prophet of Bones, by Ted Kosmatka The Wicked King, by Holly Black The Moomins and the Great Flood, by Tove Jansson A Clockwork Orange, by Anthony Burgess Gideon the Ninth, by Tamsin Muir A Woman in Space, by Sara Cavanagh Catfishing on Catnet, by Naomi Kritzer The Deep, by Rivers Solomon, with Daveed Diggs, William Hutson & Jonathan Snipes Oathbringer, by Brandon Sanderson – did not finish Dragon Pearl, by Yoon Ha Lee The First Men in the Moon, by H. G. Wells The Giver, by Lois Lowry
Comics: 7 (YTD 13) Mooncakes, by Wendy Xu and Suzanne Walker Wiske, by Willy Vandersteen Monstress, Volume 4: The Chosen, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda Barabas, by Willy Vandersteen LaGuardia, written by Nnedi Okorafor, art by Tana Ford, colours by James Devlin Torchwood: World Without End, by John Barrowman, Carole Barrowman, Antonio Fuso and Pasquale Qualano The Heralds of Destruction, by Paul Cornell and Christopher Jones
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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, as you may remember, was the month that the world ended. When I woke up in Cambridge on the morning of 1 March, I had no idea that it would be my last time outside Belgium until July. I visited B a week later, on Sunday 8 March, which was just as well because we were told on Friday 13 that we could not see the girls again until the pandemic situation allowed. As it became clear how things were going, though not how log it would last, we had a gloomy socially distanced farewell lunch in the office with the last few colleagues before lockdown hit. (Colleagues in the picture are from Cyprus, the USA, Israel, Austria, the Netherlands, France and Italy.)
And that was that; we were all working from home, and not allowed to see anyone outside our own households. It also coincided with the close of Hugo nominations, the only time of the five times that I have been involved that we did not use the Kansa system first developed by Eemeli Aro in 2017; it was a complete nightmare, on top of everything else.
I marked the passage of time with two videos about our village:
and with the first of what would become a long series of ten-day updates about life in plague times.
Despite the interruption to my commute, I read 26 books that month.
Non-fiction: 5 (YTD 17) The Almost Nearly Perfect People: Behind the Myth of Scandinavia’s Utopia, by Michael Booth 1493, by Charles C. Mann Strategic Europe, ed. Jan Techau Red Notice, by Bill Browder An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith – did not finish
Fiction (non-sf): 2 (YTD 7) Small Island, by Andrea Levy Midnight Cowboy, by James Leo Herlihy
sf (non-Who): 17 (YTD 42) The Golden Fleece, by Robert Graves Deeplight, by Frances Hardinge The Light Brigade, by Kameron Hurley (did not finish) The Green Man’s Foe, by Juliet E. McKenna Fleet of Knives, by Gareth A. Powell Babayaga, by Toby Barlow Atlas Alone, by Emma Newman Ragged Alice, by Gareth A. Powell The Survival of Molly Southbourne, by Tade Thompson Middlegame, by Seanan McGuire The Winged Man, by E. Mayne Hull Excession, by Iain M. Banks A Memory Called Empire, by Arkady Martine Blake’s 7 Annual 1979 Blake’s 7 Annual 1980 The Haunting of Tram Car 015, by P. Djélì Clark Blake’s 7 Annual 1981
Doctor Who: 1 (YTD 6) Doctor Who: The Macra Terror, by Ian Stuart Black
Comics: 1 (YTD 6) Die, vol 1: Fantasy Heartbreaker, by Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans and Clayton Cowles
7,400 pages (YTD 20,700) 9/26 (YTD 23/78) by women (Levy, Hardinge, Hurley, McKenna, Newman, McGuire, Hull, Martine, Hans) 3/26 (YTD 8/78) by PoC (Levy, Thompson, Clark)
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 Bulgarian TV interview about Brexit, which had just happened:
With no idea of what was to come, I did a lot of travelling in February 2020; a work trip to the FAO headquarters in Rome, right beside the Circus Maximus;
with a statue sculpted by Gina Lollobrigida, who died last month:
And went to another convention the next weekend in Brussels, where I slightly crossed the streams by going as a Ghostbuster but getting Doctor Who photos with Paul McGann, Alex Kingston and the Paternoster Gang:
And finally a trip to England at the end of the month, finishing at a friend’s birthday party. Little did I realise, as I fell asleep in Cambridge on 29 February, that it would be almost five months until I next left Belgium.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 no idea what was coming in that fateful month of January 2020. I went to London for work in the first week; went to the first Glasgow 2024 planning weekend in the middle of the month…
Non-fiction: 6 Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain, by Charlotte Higgins Roots and Wings: Ten Lessons of Motherhood that Helped Me Create and Run a Company, by Margery Kraus Backstop Land, by Glenn Patterson About Writing, by Gareth L. Powell The Lost Worlds of 2001, by Arthur C. Clarke (in fact this is mostly SF but the non-fiction framing is key) In Praise of Disobedience: The Soul of Man Under Socialism and Other Writings, by Oscar Wilde (mostly non-fiction but includes several fantasy stories)
sf (non-Who): 17 Exhalation, by Ted Chiang Seraphina, by Rachel Hartman Land of Terror, by Edgar Rice Burroughs Demon in Leuven, by Guido Eekhaut “Home is the Hangman”, by Roger Zelazny The Last Days of New Paris, by China Mieville Miss Shumway Waves a Wand, by James Hadley Chase Distaff: A Science Fiction Anthology by Female Authors, eds. Rosie Oliver & Sam Primeau Sirius, by Olaf Stapledon The Raven Tower, by Ann Leckie Once Upon a Parsec: The Book of Alien Fairy Tales, ed. David Gullen The Testaments, by Margaret Atwood This Is How You Lose The Time War, by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone 2001: A Space Odyssey, by Arthur C. Clarke The True Queen, by Zen Cho To Be Taught, If Fortunate, by Becky Chambers The Ten Thousand Doors of January, by Alix E. Harrow
Doctor Who: 2 Doctor Who and the Giant Robot, by Terrance Dicks Doctor Who and the Ark in Space, by Ian Marter
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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.
Ach, the innocent days of late 2019! We had no idea what was around the corner. At the start of the month I took B to explore a deserted church in Wallonia, little knowing that the opportunities for such excursions were shortly to become very scarce.
That was followed by an epic trip which started in Rome, went on to London, then Belfast for general election coverage and finally giving an after-dinner speech in Oxford where I sat beside Congresswoman Linda Sánchez for the evening. An old friend captured her household’s fascination with the election coverage.
H came for Christmas, and helped us get the traditional family photo.
H and I also went to the superhero exhibition at the Brussels Jewish museum:
And we had a further expedition to Laeken Cemetery:
Non-fiction: 4 (2019 total 49) Western Sahara: War, Nationalism and Conflict Irresolution, by Stephen Zunes and Jacob Mundy The Story of the Trapp Family Singers, by Maria Augusta Trapp The Rule of the Land: Walking Ireland’s Border, by Garrett Carr I Love the Bones of You: My Father And The Making Of Me by Christopher Eccleston
Fiction (non-sf): 5 (2019 total 46) Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo The Three Musketeers, by Alexandre Dumas Hild, by Nicola Griffith She Was Good-She Was Funny, by David Marusek The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey
sf (non-Who): 4 (2019 total 77) My Morning Glory and other flashes of absurd science fiction, by David Marusek Being Human: Bad Blood, by James Goss Being Human: Chasers, by Mark Michalowski Dragonworld, by Byron Preiss (did not finish)
Doctor Who, etc: 4 (2018 total 32) Revelation of the Daleks, by Eric Saward Revelation of the Daleks, by Jon Preddle Wildthyme Beyond!, by Paul Magrs Doctor Who: The Target Storybook, ed. Steve Cole
~4,600 pages (2019 total ~64,600) 4/16 (2019 total 88/234) by non-male writers (Trapp, Evaristo, Griffith, Massey) 3/16 (2019 total 34/234) by PoC (Dumas, Evaristo, Massey)
Several very good books here. I loved Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo, which you can get here, and also really liked:
I read 234 books in 2019, the fourth lowest of nineteen years that I have been keeping count. Being Hugo Administrator ate into my reading time.
Page count for the year: 64,600 – sixth lowest of the nineteen years I have been keeping count.
Books by non-male writers in 2019: 88/234, 38% – fourth highest ever (exceeded both in 2021 and 2022).
Books by PoC in 2017: 34/234, 15% – highest percentage ever, though I have exceeded the raw number both in 2021 and 2022.
Most books by a single author: Brian K. Vaughan with 7.
Science Fiction and Fantasy (excluding Doctor Who)
77 (33%), lowest of the last few years.
My top three sf books of 2019:
3) Children of Time, by Adrian Tchaikovsky – Great combination of loads of different SF themes – the degenerate generation starship, a very non-human civilisation; AIs pushed beyond their limits – and an intricate and well thought out plot with a satisfying ending. Won the Clarke Award in 2016. You can get it here. 2) Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman – A great YA novel combining elements of Tess of the d’Urbevilles, with a story of redemption from trauma and travel across a richly imagined landscape. A Lodestar finalist so I didn’t review it at the time. You can get it here. 1) Time Was, by Ian McDonald – Fantastic queer romance timeslip war story, tying in lots of lovely detail (both historical and narrative) and building to a conclusion that I didn’t quite see coming. Won the BSFA Short Fiction award. You can get it here.
The one you haven’t heard of: Cat Country, by Lao She – A very very direct satire on China of the 1930s, portrayed as a country on the planet Mars inhabited by cat people. You can get it here.
The one you can skip:Heartspell, by Blaine Anderson – A pretty rubbish example of the Celtic misht subgenre, where manly men fight battles and women do womanly druidic magic. In the very first chapter our hero is attacked by a cougar (there are no cougars in Ireland). There are tame wolves (wolves basically cannot be tamed). Ireland’s eastern coast is much more rugged than the west (it isn’t). Misspellings of Irish names abound. If you want, you can get it here.
The one you haven’t heard of: Cycling in Victorian Ireland by Brian Griffin – A short but comprehensive book about the evolution of cycling from upper-middle-class fad to a mechanism to erode patriarchal and class oppression in late nineteenth-century Ireland. You can get it here.
3) A Little Life, by Hanya Yanagihara – It’s a tough read but a very good one, about four friends, one of whom is deeply damaged. The whole scenario is delicately and sympathetically observed. You can get it here. 2) The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters – It’s 1922. Frances and her mother take in Lilian and Leonard as lodgers; there is a restrained clash of cultures – and then romance, and then murder. Frances as the viewpoint character is tremendously sympathetic even when she does things that are fundamentally not very nice. You can get it here. 1) Girl, Woman, Other, by Bernardine Evaristo – A huge range of characters across contemporary London (with some flashbacks to earlier times and other places), almost all women, almost all black, all telling their stories from their own perspective, but often those stories intersect and overlap, and we see the same relationships from different angles. Great ending. You can get it here.
The one you haven’t heard of: In Another Light by Andrew Greig – Great novel cutting back and forth between 2004 Britain (mostly Orkney with bits of London and elsewhere) and 1930s Malaya, both of them vividly portrayed. You can get it here.
31 (12%) – then an all-time high, since exceeded in 2020 and 2021.
My top three comics of 2019:
3) The Berlin Trilogy, by Jason Lutes – A tremendously well-done story of Berlin from 1928 to 1933, seen by just a few people caught up in the wider politics of the times. You can get volume 1 here, volume 2 here, volume 3 here, and (my recommendation) the whole lot here. 2) Paper Girls, by Brian K. Vaughan and Cliff Chiang – An everyday story of four 12-year-olds delivering newspapers in 1988 in Cleveland, Ohio, all from different ethnic backgrounds, who get swept up into a mysterious time war which takes them to the future and past, both near and far. You can get the six volumes here, here, here, here, here and here. 1) Saga, vol. 9, by Brian K. Vaughan (again) and Fiona Staples. I’ve been following this story of angel-girl and devil-boy In Space for years, and the latest novel brings us to a spectacular climax, at least for now. I understand that the authors are pausing before the next one, which is frustrating but understandable. You can get it here.
32 (14%) – same number and slightly higher % than the previous year, pretty low because I had now read almost all of the Doctor Who books that there are to read.
The one you haven’t heard of:In Time, ed. Xanna Eve Chown, the last to date of the Bernice Summerfield spinoff books from Big Finish, this one an anthology with some very good stories (which, alas, will be mostly lost on those not familiar with Benny’s continuity). 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 late 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.
November 2019 was the month that I started doing these posts rounding up monthly reading, beginning with November 2003 when I started bookblogging.
This was also the month of my infamous Ghostbusters cosplay at a work event in France.
The month had started with a trip to Washington, New York and Boston, where I caught up with an old college friend, the musician Nicholas White. (Yes, I know, confusing.)
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
We started the month with a wedding anniversary trip to Dordrecht in the Netherlands, reported in two blog posts:
I also went to a conference in the mountains in Slovakia, where there were lovely views:
And linguistic education:
I seem to have had a day in London too, but I can’t remember why. At the end of the month, colleagues from work had a volunteering day assembling tents for the Halloween party at the institution where B and U live.
In the real world, the agony of Brexit reached a temporary pause as Boris Johnson agreed the bones of a Withdrawal Agreement with the EU; I reflected on why I had not seen it coming.
5,400 pages (YTD 54,400) 7/17 (YTD 79/197) by non-male writers (Illingworth, Shafak, Gilman, Russell, Colgan, Greiner/de Vincenzi x 2)) 0/17 (YTD 29/197) by PoC (I don’t think Peter Davison counts himself in this category)
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 started with the sad news of the passing of Terrance Dicks. We then had the usual dorpfeest in the first weekend of the month, with local festive dancing.
Other artistic explorations are reported here, in a post made the following month:
In real life the Brexit situation got crazier and crazier. I was in London briefly at the end of the month but haven’t recorded much about that trip. The month ended with a positive experience:
De Bourgondiërs / The Burgundians by Bart Van Loo, brilliant exploration of this part of Europe’s heritage. You can get it here in Dutch and here in English.
How To Be Both, by Ali Smith – nicely constructed two-part novel set in different times with surprises. You can get it here.
Cycling in Victorian Ireland, by Brian Griffin; does exactly what it says on the tin. 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 late 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.
August 2019 for me personally was dominated by my usual family trip to Northern Ireland, which itself was punctuated by the Dublin Worldcon and the Hugo Awards, which I wrote up here and here.
Back in Belgium, I visited the enigmatic Vlooibergtoren with the family.
5,600 pages (YTD 44,000) 5/20 (YTD 65/157) by non-male writers (Withers, Tamm, Le Guin, Chown, Rienties/Ouwerwek/Geelen) 1/20 (YTD 23/157) by PoC (Lao She)
It was great to return to The Dispossessed, which you can get here, and the first Berlin volume, which you can get here. The third and final Berlin volume did not disappoint; you can get it here. On the other hand, Alina, by Jason Johnson, was simply an unpleasant book. You can get it here if you want.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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.
July 2019 started with a personal milestone on the first day of the month, as I reached Level 40 of Pokemon Go. I have not played it since. I visited London briefly with F, my only trip abroad that month.
On the hottest day ever recorded in Belgium, I caught up with an old friend from Ireland who I had not seen in thirty years. (Bright sun in my eyes, I think.)
On the night of the 31st, as the Hugo nominations closed, I went and threw axes with my colleagues from work.
In the real world, Ursula von der Leyen was chosen as President of the European Commission, and Boris Johnson was elected Prime Minister of the UK.
For the Love of a Mother: The Black Children of Ulster, by Annie Yellowe Palma – grim stuff, poorly edited, but you can get it here.
The Secret Lives of a Secret Agent: The Mysterious Life and Times of Alexander Wilson, by Tim Crook – historical account of the story behind the TV mini-series Mrs Wilson, but again very poorly edited; 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 late 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 historic walk around Leuven, including a visit to the replica Kangxi-Verbiest celestial sphere.
In the last weekend of the month we visited my cousins in Luxembourg again – left to right, L, my son F, little N, big N (me), S and my first cousin J. Our spouses were also present!
With so much European travel, I managed to read 35 books that month. Some of them were short.
A lot of good books this month; along with several welcome re-reads, the two best new ones were The Tea Master and the Detective, by Aliette de Bodard, which you can get here, and The Paying Guests, by Sarah Waters, which you can get here. I know that (different) people love them, but I bounced hard off both Artificial Condition, by Martha Wells, which you can get here, and The Weapon Makers, by A.E. van Vogt, 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 late 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 visit to Ireland for the Northern Irish local council elections…
…visiting my 102-year-old great-aunt…
…and more planning for the Dublin Worldcon.
To England again for our old friend K’s wedding to another K:
I voted in the European and national elections:
And then it was back to Northern Ireland for coverage of the European election count in Magherafelt. (Here with partner in crime Mark Devenport and former Justice Minister and Alliance leader David Ford, who kindly brought us both tea.)
I was very pleased with this picture of the three newly elected MEPs. I had already taken one with them all looking in different directions, but then Martina Anderson (in the middle) called out my name and Diane Dodds (left) and Naomi Long (right) both turned to look at me – funny thing really as I do not know Martina as well as I know the other two.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 following weekend, I struggled into Brussels for a tour of the city as Charlotte and Emily Bronte would have known it. Totally fascinating.
And it being Easter, we had Eastercon at Heathrow which once again I thoroughly enjoyed, counting the BSFA votes among other things. I finished the month ready to fly to Ireland once again; but more of that anon.
6,700 pages (YTD 17,700) 11/22 (YTD 23/58) by non-male writers (McIlwaine, Yanagihara, “Eliot”, Williams, Wells, Novik, Ireland, Rayner et al, Walden, Doran, de Jongh) 3/22 (YTD 7/58) by PoC (Yanagihara, Ireland, Koomson)
A lot of really good books this month. I think I will single out Daniel Deronda, by George Eliot, which you can get here; Time Was, by Ian McDonald, which you can get here; and Alarums and Excursions, by Luuk van Middelaar, which you can get here. On the other hand I completely bounced off The Land of Somewhere Safe, by Hal Duncan; 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 late 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 Brussels Comic Con, and got photographs with both Billie Piper and Michelle Gomez.
The following weekend I went to Kosovo for a conference (dubbed into Albanian from 38:00 here) and caught up with my former intern – now the same age as I was when she worked for me, fifteen years before.
But my big trip that month was to Nashville, Tennessee, to give a lecture on Brexit, which I linked with a couple of days in Washington where I admired the portrait of Alice Roosevelt Longworth in the Willard Hotel.
In Nashville, the goddess Athena inside the replica of the Parthenon is very disturbing.
I took B and F for a walk in the park, and frites.
I ended a month of much travel in Dublin, filming the Hugo announcement video. Our last filmed segment was on Howth Head with the legendary artist Jim Fitzpatrick.
The grimmest news of the month was the murder of Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee. I did not know her, but we had a lot of mutual friends.
It being the month when Hugo nominations closed, and when the Brexit drama was occupying much of my thinking time, I read only five books.
1,500 pages (YTD 11,000) 1/5 (YTD 12/36) by non-male writers (Newman) 2/5 (YTD 4/36) by PoC (Lee, Thompson)
With only five books I won’t go into great detail about what was bad and what was good, but Rosewater by Tade Thompson was good, and 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 late 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.
sf (non-Who): 4 (YTD 12) The Fire Sermon (sample), by Francesca Haig Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman Bitter Angels, by C. L. Anderson The Glass Bead Game, by Hermann Hesse
Several really good books this month; I’m going to single out Tess of the Road, by Rachel Hartman, which you can get here, and Astounding, by Alec Nevala-Lee, which you can get here, both of them on the Hugo ballot. I’ll draw a veil over the less worthy.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 year by taking B for a walk to a castle near where she lives.
We went to Mechelen to see the mysterious Enclosed Gardens, which I must write up some time.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 at SmofCon in Santa Rosa, California, as previously noted, and went to London twice for work purposes. In the world of politics, the Belgian government collapsed thanks to the dishonesty and opportunism of the N-VA, for whom I don’t think I will ever vote; and sadly, Paddy Ashdown died.
Christmas service in the chapel in the woods:
Decent photo of the whole family on Christmas Day:
3) Provenance, by Anne Leckie – not directly connected to her previous books, but a convincing story of politics and truth. Finalist for both BSFA and Hugo Awards, and I voted for it both times, though it did not win either. 2) In Other Lands, by Sarah Rees Brennan – one of the Hugo YA finalists, I thought this was a brilliant look at young wizardry with a bisexual protagonist. 1) The Sudden Appearance of Hope, by Clare North – increasingly one of my favourite authors, here with another tale of someone whose interaction with our world is very different, combined with a sinister Facebook-meets-Social-Credit Big Tech conspiracy.
The one you might not have heard of: Anne Charnock’s novella The Enclave, another BSFA Award finalist, which I thought caught a lot of things about Brexit Britain very well.
36 (14%) – lower than any year apart from the previous two and 2021.
Again, some welcome rereads (Proust, Kavalier and Clay). My three top new non-sf fiction books:
3) And The Mountains Echoed, by Khaled Hosseini – a generational tale of Afghanistan and other places which really worked for me. 2) Fingersmith, by Sarah Waters – Waters was my real discovery this year, and Iliked this most of the books by her which I read. 1) Moon Tiger, by Penelope Lively – really blown away by this twentieth-century life story, set mainly in England but with other excursions; I should probably read more by this author.
The one you haven’t heard of: Something Like Normal, by Trish Doller – author is my twin (born the same day and year); this was her first novel, about a young American soldier returning fro the wars and finding it very difficult to fit in.
The one you may not heard of: Ergens Waar Je Niet Wil Zijn / The Wrong Place by Brecht Evens – vivid evocation of two Flemish chaps whose relationship is not exactly what either of them think it is, played out against a background of suburbia, disco and sex.
The one to skip: Dark Satanic Mills, by Marcus Sedgwick – confused near-future English dystopia trying to riff off William Blake and not really succeeding.
Doctor Who (and spinoff) fiction
21 (12%) – a historic low here, basically because I had now read almost all of the Doctor Who books that there are to read.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 month started with one of the crazier trips I have done in recent years: a visit to the London office, followed by a Worldcon planning meeting in Heathrow, followed by the congress of the European People’s Party in Helsinki, followed by a conference on civil society in Belgrade, in the margins of which I visited the ancient roman imperial capital of Sremska Mitrovica (Sirmium). I then went to Paris to celebrate the centenary of the Armistice, had another trip to London, and finished the month at SMOFcon in Santa Rosa, California. (I have since discovered that I have distant cousins living there.) I went to not one but two exhibitions about the Peanuts cartoons and their creator, Charles M. Schulz.
People asked me what I was doing in Helsinki. I think it was fairly obvious.Ready to speak in the Serbian parliament chamberRoman ruins in Sremska MitrovicaThe Golden Gate BridgeWith David Gerrold at the Peanuts museum.
Despite all the travel, I read only 12 books that month.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
My travel this month was a work trip to London and a Worldcon planning trip to Dublin. At home, we had a nice excursion with the girls. It was impossible to get them both looking at the camera, but at least in this shot they are looking at each other.
My brother visited Brussels, and I persuaded F to come into the city for dinner. As far as I know, we are the only male-line descendants of our great-great-grandfather Nicholas Charles Whyte (1784-1844). He had two younger sons, our great-grandfather’s brothers. One of them never married; the other had four daughters and a son, but the son had no children. Our grandfather was one of nine brothers, but the other eight between them produced only one daughter. Our father had just the one sister. Apart from our own sister, who has kept her birth name, our closest Whyte relatives are descended from brothers of our great-great-grandfather and are therefore at least our fourth cousins.
On the last weekend of the month the local woods had a heitage day, including historical re-enactment of a local court session.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 first weekend of the month saw the Oud-Heverlee dorpfeest, with this spirited rendition of “Billie Jean” by Mechelen band Selene’s Garden:
The following weekend saw the Open Monument Day, when F and I visited Tienen and met up with an old friend and her daughter at the ceremonial opening of the Three Tumuli of Grimde.
Later in the month, I attended the dedication of Jo Cox Square in central Brussels, named after the murdered MP; both Jeremy Corbyn and his Brexit spokesman, who had been a close friend of Cox’s, were also there.
Finally, and much more happily, Anne and I ended the month with a trip to Riga to celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary.
~5,200 pages (YTD ~57,300) 11/20 (YTD 90/221) by non-male writers (Herrin, Ail, Jansson x 4, Brackett, Norton x 2, Rayner/Dougherty, Levene) 0/20 (YTD 23/221) by PoC
The best new read of these was About Time vol 8 (get it here); the best rereads were The Guermantes Way (get it here), Moominland Midwinter (get it here) and Finn Family Moomintroll (get it here). I was not impressed by Dark Satanic Mills (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 late 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 spent most of the month on holiday in Northern Ireland. After the first day, the weather improved and we got around a fair bit. F and I visited Aras an Uachtaran.
Anne is a fan of Helen Waddell, and we visited both her grave and her family home, hosted by her great-great-niece.
And caught up with relatives; here I am with the youngest of my first cousins, and watching my godson on the beach.
Comics: 1 (YTD 21) Amoras deel 3: Krimson, by Marc Legendre and Charel Cambré
~5,000 pages (YTD ~52,100) 6/29 (YTD 79/201) by non-male writers (Reynolds, Beard, Lively, Waters, Jansson, Orman – as fas as I know Tian Tao and Yin Zhifeng are men) 2/29 (YTD 23/201) by PoC (Tian/Yin x2)
Three very good ones here, one of which was a reread:
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 started with a trip to Sofia, rounding off my work with the Bulgarian EU Presidency; the photographer who was part of our group took a nice set of pictures. I like this one of me.
I got to the Tolkien exhibition in Oxford as well:
And we watched the World Cup Final in France, staying with my sister in Burgundy. France won, with the enthusiastic support of locals. Sometimes you do your best with what you’ve got.
At the start of our summer holiday, F and I went to Comic Con in London where I met with a large number of Doctors.
Blogging still a bit slow, after a couple of weekends away; look forward to catching up this weekend.
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.
Work trips to Dubrovnik, London, Paris, Berlin and Skopje this month. My Dubrovnik conference was enlivened by a Game of Thrones location walk:
A bit light on blogging in the last couple of days – a weekend on the road, plus reading award submissions has slowed down the number of books I can write up here. But anyway…
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in late 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 fair bit of travel that month, going straight from Sofia…
…to Bratislava:
…with trips to London later in the month and the Netherlands earlier in the month.
Anne had a significant birthday and we swung from the trees in celebration:
Very sadly, we lost our dear friend Andy Carling, and the European Commission spokesman who is now himself a European Commissioner) paid tribute to him.
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