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 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 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.
We offer our deepest condolences after the passing of journalist Andy Carling. Our thoughts go to his family and friends. His kindness of heart and sharpness of wit will live long in our memories. pic.twitter.com/fNhJ8YaKmq
— European Commission (@EU_Commission) May 7, 2018
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 had a fantastic family trip to (North) Macedonia over Easter weekend:
It was a busy month. I also saw Gillian Anderson at FACTS in Gent:
I met Senator George Mitchell, the broker of the Nothern Ireland peace process, in Oxford:
Went to Albania again, with my colleague E:
And also went to Dublin for a Worldcon planning weekend, arriving on my birthday (oddly enough, I am doing exactly the same this coming weekend, but not arriving on my birthday which is in April).
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.
As usual a busy month, with two work trips to London and one to Albania; I finished the month in Skopje, on my first ever non-work trip to North Macedonia, dining with my family and my friend Stevo Pendarovski (who is in a different job now). To my delight, when boarding my plane home from Tirana, I saw the planet Mercury for the first time in my life.
They also have public art in Tirana, as my colleague M and I discovered.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the month with a trip to Istanbul to give a lecture on Brexit, and also had work trips to London and Sofia.
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.
A very busy month. I went to Sofia twice to work with Bulgaria’s EU Presidency, and also to Strasbourg for the same reason; at the end of the month, Anne and I went to London to see Hamilton, and emerged to discover that Ursula Le Guin had died. I was also really captivated by the National Gallery portrait of Lord John Stuart and his Brother, Lord Bernard Stuart:
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
December 2017 started with a trip to Amsterdam, where I found the apartment where Anne Frank and her family had lived before going into hiding.
I went to London twice, the second time for the office party with a James Bond theme:
I also had a day trip to Milan.
H joined us for Christmas, as so often.
I also answered the classic question, which lines of latitude and longitude pass through the most countries?
I had spent nights away from home in 20 places in 11 countries, and tansited another four in the course of the year.
I read 22 books that month:
Non-fiction: 8 (2017 total 57) Guided by the Beauty of Their Weapons: Notes on Science Fiction and Culture in the Year of Angry Dogs, by Philip Sandifer The Most Dangerous Book: The Battle for James Joyce’s Ulysses, by Kevin Birmingham Alexander the Corrector: The Tormented Genius Whose Cruden’s Concordance Unwrote the Bible by Julia Keay The World of Yesterday, by Stefan Zweig A History of the Future: Prophets of Progress from H.G. Wells to Isaac Asimov, by Peter J. Bowler Zola and his time; the history of his martial career in letters: With an account of his circle of friends, his remarkable enemies, cyclopean labors, public campaigns, trials and ultimate glorification by Matthew Josephson Democracy and its Deficits: The path towards becoming European-style democracies in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine, by Ghia Nodia with Denis Cenușă and Mikhail Minakov The Story of English in 100 Words, by David Crystal
Fiction (non-sf): 3 (2017 total 26) The Lies Of Fair Ladies, by Jonathan Gash Men Against The Sea, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall Pitcairn’s Island, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
sf (non-Who): 3 (2017 total 68) Everfair, by Nisi Shawl Brave New Worlds: Dystopian Stories, ed. John Joseph Adams The Power, by Naomi Alderman
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (2017 total 51) Re: Collections, ed. Xanna Eve Chown Fear Itself, by Nick Wallace A Life in Pieces, by Dave Stone, Paul Sutton & Joseph Lidster
Comics 5 (2017 total 29) Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons Aliénor: La Légende Noire, vol 3, by Arnaud Delalande and Simona Mogavino, art by Carlos Gomez Het genootschap van Socrates by Yves Leclercq and Stéphanie Heurteau The Autumnlands, Vol. 1: Tooth and Claw, by Kurt Busiek and Benjamin Dewey Aliénor: La Légende Noire, vol 4, by Arnaud Delalande and Simona Mogavino, art by Carlos Gomez
6,900 pages (2017 total 60,500) 7/22 (2017 total 64/238) by women (Keay, Shawl, Alderman, Mogavino x 2, Heurteau) 1/22 (2017 total 17/238) by PoC (Shawl)
Top book of the month: Watchmen, by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (reread). Get it here. Top new book of the month: The World of Yesterday, by Stefan Zweig. Get it here. Nothing too awful.
2017 books roundup
Total books: 238, 11th highest of the years that I have counted.
Total page count: ~60,500, lowest of any year since 2005.
Diversity: 64/238, 27% by women, a bit below previous and subsequent years. 17/238, 7% by PoC, exceeded every years since.
Back to the levels of pre-2014. (I was a Clarke Award judge in 2014-15, and then deliberately cast my sf reading net wider in 2016 as part of the anti-Puppy campaign.)
This was my highest non-fiction total since 2011, and my highest percentage for non-fiction since I started tallying categories separately in 2009. I think this was partly birthday presents, which were biased towards non-fiction; partly that non-fiction books have been moving to the top of my various piles; and partly a genuine shift in my own reading tastes.
Picking up a bit from the dip of the last couple of years.
Best Who book read in 2016: The Pirate Planet, by Douglas Adams and James Goss (review) – Goss has ironed off the corners and made this a much smoother story, as usual a delight to read, and also includes bonus material on how Adams developed the plot.
Runner-up: Rip Tide, by Louise Cooper (review) – one of the good Telos novellas, taking the Eighth Doctor to a seaside resort to investigate mysterious goings on.
The ones you won’t have heard of: The three novels based on short-lived spin-off Class (review), by Guy Adams, A.K. Benedict and especially (again) James Goss.
A historic low for non-sf fiction reading, mainly I think because I had read almost all all the well-known books of that kind on my shelves, which were (and are) still heaving with unread sf and non-fiction.
There were only five of these. The only one I’d really really like to see on the stage, having seen the film that was based on it, is Cavalcade, by Noël Coward (review including also the Oscar-winning film).
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
That month I travelled to Washington DC, Sofia in Bulgaria, and twice to London. I don’t seem to have taken a lot of photos; the vast majority were from a pleasant afternoon at the Udvar-Hazy Center of the National Air and Space Museum near Dulles airport.
Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 48) Isaiah Berlin, by Michael Ignatieff Washington, D.C.’s Vanishing Springs and Waterways, by Garnett P. Williams Virginia Woolf, by Hermione Lee Brexit and Ireland: The Dangers, the Opportunities, and the Inside Story of the Irish Response, by Tony Connelly
Fiction (non-sf): 4 (YTD 24) A Man of Parts, by David Lodge Dear Old Dead, by Jane Haddam Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle Mutiny on the Bounty, by Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall
sf (non-Who): 5 (YTD 69) The Deepest Sea, by Charles Barnitz Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, by Roald Dahl The Knight of the Swords, by Michael Moorcock The Queen of the Swords, by Michael Moorcock The King of the Swords, by Michael Moorcock
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 48) Short Trips: Indefinable Magic, ed. Neil Corry A Life Worth Living ed. Simon Guerrier Doctor Who: The American Adventures, by Justin Richards
4,900 pages (YTD 53,600) 2/16 (YTD 57/214) by women (Lee, Haddam) 0/16 (YTD 16/214) by PoC
It was great to return to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which you can get here, and Tony Connelly’s masterful account of Brexit is going to be a set text for decades; you can get it here. Wolf in White Van was pretty bad, but you can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
The highlight of the month was my first trip to South Africa, the farthest south that I have been in my life, for a Liberal International meeting.
The highlight of that was probably the tour of the Constitution Hill complex, including the Constitutional Court and the prison where both Mandela and Gandhi were imprisoned at different times.
Rigorous analysis of social media found that I was the 37th most influential of the top 40 EU twitterers.
Even more important, I got my photo taken with Jenna Coleman at FACTS in Gent.
I read 21 books that month.
Non-fiction: 6 (YTD 44) What Made Now In Northern Ireland, ed. Maurna Crozier 1434: The Year a Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, by Gavin Menzies (not finished) (tempted to put this in the fiction category) Memoir of the Queen of Etruria, Written by Herself / an Authentic Narrative of the Seizure and Removal of Pope Pius VII, with Genuine Memoirs of His Journey Written by One of His Attendants An Assessment of the Economic Impact of Brexit on the EU27, by Michael Emerson, Matthias Busse, Mattia Di Salvo, Daniel Gros, and Jacques Pelkmans Running Through Corridors 2: Rob and Toby’s Marathon Watch of Doctor Who, the 70s, by Toby Hadoke and Robert Shearman A Crocodile in the Fernery: An A-Z of Animals in the Garden, by Twigs Way
Poetry: 1 (YTD 2) From Bed to Bed, by Catullus, trans. James Michie
Fiction (non-sf): 5 (YTD 20) All Quiet on the Western Front, by Erich Maria Remarque Cimarron, by Edna Ferber Grand Hotel, by Vicki Baum Caprice and Rondo, by Dorothy Dunnett Cavalcade, by Noël Coward (theatre play)
sf (non-Who): 4 (YTD 64) The Dancers at the End of Time, by Michael Moorcock (not finished) The Last Castle, by Jack Vance The Past Through Tomorrow, by Robert A. Heinlein Thorns, by Robert Silverberg
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 45) Short Trips: Christmas Around the World, by Xanna Eve Chown The Big Hunt, by Lance Parkin Plague City, by Jonathan Morris
Comics: 2 (YTD 23) Antarès, Épisode 5, by Leo Antarès, Épisode 6, by Leo
4,700 pages (YTD 48,700) 7/21 (YTD 55/198) by women (Crozier, Queen Maria Luisa of Etruria, Way, Ferber, Baum, Dunnett, Chown) 0/21 (YTD 16/198) by PoC
Several of these were very good, specifically:
What Made Now In Northern Ireland, ed. Maurna Crozier (get it here)
An Assessment of the Economic Impact of Brexit on the EU27, by Michael Emerson, Matthias Busse, Mattia Di Salvo, Daniel Gros, and Jacques Pelkmans (get it here for free)
From Bed to Bed, by Catullus, trans. James Michie (get it here)
Caprice and Rondo, by Dorothy Dunnett (get it here)
On the other hand, 1434: The Year a Chinese Fleet Sailed to Italy and Ignited the Renaissance, by Gavin Menzies, is absolute tosh. You can get it here but I wouldn’t bother if I were you.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I went to Sofia once and London twice that month, the second London trip combining with a conference at Christ Church in Oxford, where I met Sir Tim Berners Lee:
and finished with a formal dinner at Blenheim Palace.
Back in London the next day, I went to the Pink Floyd exhibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
This was also the month that I started my sequence of Oscar-winning films with Wings.
I read 15 books that month.
Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 38) Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Daniel Kahneman A Short Guide to Irish Science Fiction, by Jack Fennell Peoplewatching, by Desmond Morris Space Helmet for a Cow, vol 2, by Paul Kirkley
sf (non-Who): 4 (YTD 60) Synners, by Pat Cadigan Press Cuttings, by George Bernard Shaw The Red Leaguers, by Shan F. Bullock The Famished Road, by Ben Okri
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 42) How The Doctor Changed My Life, ed. Simon Guerrier Life During Wartime, ed. Paul Cornell Diamond Dogs, by Mike Tucker
Comics: 4 (YTD 21) Antarès, Épisode 2, by Leo Onthuld, by Kristof Spaey and Bart Vaessens Antarès, Épisode 3, by Leo Antarès, Épisode 4, by Leo
3,600 pages (YTD 44,000) 1/15 (YTD 48/178) by women (Cadigan) 1/15 (YTD 16/178) by PoC (Okri)
The best of these by a long way was Daniel Kahnemann’s Thinking, Fast and Slow; you can get it here. The worst is the near-future (of 1904) Irish independence novel The Red Leaguers, but you can get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
The major event of August 2017 for me was the Helsinki Worldcon my first gig as Hugo Administrator; I wrote up my memories of it here and here. I was also sorry to hear that we had lost Brian Aldiss and Tony de Brum. I needed a lot of decompression from Worldcon, especially after missing my flight home on the last evening. Here are two lovely Hugo ceremony pictures from Wikipedia with my successive Deputy Administrators, Colette Fozard and Kathryn Duval.
I did manage to read 21 books that month.
Non-fiction: 5 (YTD 34) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life, by Erving Goffman QI: The Book of the Dead, by John Lloyd and John Mitchinson William Cecil, Ireland and the Tudor State, by Christopher Maginn You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost), by Felicia Day The Life of the Bee, by Maurice Maeterlinck
Fiction (non-sf): 2 (YTD 15) The Help, by Kathryn Stockett Children are Civilians Too, by Heinrich Böll
sf (non-Who): 5 (YTD 56) The Moon Stallion, by Brian Hayles Exit West, by Mohsin Hamid Pelléas and Mélisande, by Maurice Maeterlinck The Fall of Arthur, by J.R.R. Tolkien The Blue Bird, by Maurice Maeterlinck
Doctor Who, etc: 6 (YTD 39) Decide Your Destiny: Claws of the Macra, by Trevor Baxendale Decide Your Destiny: Judoon Monsoon, by Oli Smith Decide Your Destiny: Empire of the Wolf, by Neil Corry Short Trips: Transmissions, ed. Richard Salter A Life of Surprises, ed. Paul Cornell The Shining Man, by Cavan Scott
Comics: 3 (YTD 17) Aliénor: La Légende Noire, vol 1, by Arnaud Delalande and Simona Mogavino, art by Carlos Gomez Aliénor: La Légende Noire, vol 2, by Arnaud Delalande and Simona Mogavino, art by Carlos Gomez Moomin: The Complete Comic Strip vol. 7, by Lars Jansson
4,500 pages (YTD 40,400) 4/21 (YTD 47/163) by women (Day, Stockett, Mogavino x2) 1/21 (YTD 15/163) by PoC (Hamid)
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.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
The month of the 2017 UK general election, where I provided BBC commentary again. The election of course left Theresa May dependent on the DUP for her parliamentary majority.
I also had two work trips to London, one of which had sidebars to Coventry for a client meeting and Canterbury for a conference – where I also caught up with my oldest first cousin, R.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the month in Loughbrickland but immediately travelled to London for the third leg of my 50th birthday, in The Sun Tavern.
…and Berlin, where I didn’t take any photos. But back in Brussels, I paid a visit to the site of the 1927 Solvay conference, beside the European parliament.
By the end of the month I was girding my loins to go to Belfast again for yet more election commentary.
A good month for reading, aided by some long flights and other journeys, and a couple of sunny weekends of sitting in the garden.
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 13) Short Trips: Ghosts of Christmas, ed. Cavan Scott and Mark Wright The Dalek Factor, by Simon Clark The Squire’s Crystal, by Jacqueline Rayner
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the month in Helsinki, filming the Hugo ballot announcement, which was a thing of beauty, sadly now lost from the internets. I was one of a crew of four who spent the whole day running around the city, finishing in the cemetery.
I also went to Eastercon, where I was caught on a panel with Dave McCarty talking about Hugo administration.
And the month finished with my 50th birthday.
I had a great party on the day itself in Brussels:
4,500 pages (YTD 14,600) 5/15 (YTD 20/60) by women (Le Guin, Lessing, Chambers, Whitely, Palmer) 2/15 (YTD 5/60) by PoC (Lee, Liu)
Of these, I enjoyed Words are my Matter the most (and was delighted when it won the Hugo in Helsinki) and Too Like the Lightning least. You can get them here and here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started March 2017 in Northern Ireland for the Assembly election, finished the month in Helsinki for Hugo preparation and went to London twice in between for work. Here’s the first part of the election show:
And before-and-after photos with my comrade Mark Devemport.
I managed very little reading in March 2017, a combination of the Northern Ireland election and the deadline for Hugo nominations in my first time round as Hugo administrator.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
Unusually, no trip to London this month; but I compensated with an epic trip to Albania in which I discovered the bunker museum in Tirana:
Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 7) Short Trips: Time Signature, ed. Simon Guerrier The Eye of the Tyger, by Paul McAuley Bernice Summerfield and the Doomsday Manuscript, by Justin Richards
2,800 pages (TYD 9,100) 4/13 (YTD 12/40) by women (Dunnett, Kingfisher/Vernon, Sullivan, Rienties) 0/13 (YTD 2/40) by PoC
The best of these was The Raven and the Reindeer, which you can get here, and I also very much enjoyed To Lie With Lions, which you can get here, though I don’t think it would be a good starting point for Dunnett’s Niccolo series; the worst was The Wild Robot, which you can get here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
The year started with my first experience of opening Hugo voting – always a white-knuckle experience, even though I’ve done it four times since. My first trip of the year was to London where I went to a lovely Moomin exhibition in the South Bank Centre, along with my newest relative and her parents.
6,300 pages 8/27 by women (Lincoln, Hurley, McGuire, Bujoldx2, Rayner, Cooper, Liu/Takeda) 2/27 by PoC (Whitehead, Liu/Takeda)
The best of these was The Underground Railroad, now a TV series which I have not seen; you can get it here. The worst was my sample of long-running Flemish post-apocalyptic comic series Jeremiah.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the month with a trip to SMOFCon in Chicago (flying out via Stockholm and back via Copenhagen), in the wake of which I saw the stage show of Hamilton, and then before Christmas went to Belfast and Frankfurt, with a side order of Strasbourg for the final European Parliament plenary of the year. My boss bought us all festive T-shirts.
Page count for December: 6200 (2016 total 62,300) Books by women in December: 6/19 (Jethà, Walton, Jansson, Holland, Winterson, Korska), 2016 total 65/212 Books by PoC in December: 2/19 (Cacilda Jethà, the AfroSF anthology), total 14/212
Runner-up: Wylding Hall, by Elizabeth Hand – I never wrote this up properly, but it’s an excellent fantasy/horror story, again set in England; get it here.
Runner-up: The Mike Tucker (and Robert Perry) Seventh Doctor/Ace novels, Illegal Alien, Prime Time and Loving the Alien – great examples of respect for continuity and also bringing more; get them here, here and here.
The one you might not heard of: Dark Horse, by Fletcher Knebel – the Republican candidate dies just before the Presidential election; his swiftly conscripted replacement is an obscure New Jersey politician who starts shaking the political system; get it here.
One is slightly comparing chalk and cheese here. I was lucky enough to see Hamilton in Chicago this month, but had also read the Hamiltome which has loads of information and is a must-have for any fan; get it here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the month at a work conference in darkest Kent, and on the day of the US election I was in Dublin, again for work, and spent the night in London for the sake of a rather brief TV interview. The next weekend it was off to Helsinki for my first Worldcon 75 meeting as Hugo Administrator. Colette Fozard was then my deputy, but in fact one of the Chairs of the convention resigned a week after the meeting, and Colette was appointed Vice-Chair in the subsequent reshuffle.
The Messukeskus was hosting an pet fair at the time. Check out the show-jumping rabbit:
I then went back to Dublin again for another work trip, and also visited the World Health Organisation in Geneva. At home in Leuven, the M Museum was hosting an exhibition to mark the 500th anniversary of the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia:
But I must say that the election of Donald Trump caused me to do so much doomscrolling that I read only three books in the whole of that month, the lowest tally since I started keeping count (and probably the lowest since I learned to read). They were:
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.
A fair bit of travel that month, with an unsuccessful work trip to Berlin followed by a more successful work trip to London. My (second) godson’s christening helpfully coincided with a convention in Dublin.
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.
Lots of travel this month, starting rather sadly with a weekend trip to Brussels to say farewell to Ian Traynor. Back at home we had the traditional Dorpfeest, including children’s toy and game sale, and display by local artists including Anne:
Lots of travel, starting with a trip to London (and Oxford), including the Bagpuss and Clangers exhibition with S and little W (who has got a lot bigger since).
This was followed by a grim work trip to Dublin and Serbia in which my back was hurting so badly that I barely staggered out of bed to my meetings. At the end of the month I went to Amsterdam with my brother, mother and sister, and then on to Albania for my first meetings with the Foundation of which I am a trustee.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
We spent the first half of the month in Loughbrickland as usual, and saw the Red Arrows fly over Tyrella Beach:
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.
July started with my personal Brexit bonuses as I gave talks on the subject in Birmingham and, more exotically, Portland, Oregon. Pleased with this picture of one of the Cascades, probably Mount Rainier, from the plane.
On the Portland trip I started off with a couple of days in Washington, taking in a Chinese TV interview on the issues of the day.
I also had work trips to Belgrade (not as enjoyable as usual) and to Dublin (more fun), and we finished the month in Loughbrickland at the start of our holiday.
Thanks to various daytime travels, I read 30 books that month.
Non-fiction: 9 (YTD 29) Fanny Kemble and the Lovely Land, by Constance Wright The Cuckoo’s Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage, by Cliff Stoll Hamilton: The Revolution, by Lin-Manuel Miranda and Jeremy McCarter Boy, by Roald Dahl Empire of Mud, by J.D. Dickey Between structure and No-thing: An annotated reader in Social and Cultural Anthropology, ed. Patrick J. Devlieger Voices from Chernobyl: The Oral History of a Nuclear Disaster, by Svetlana Alexievich Tove Jansson: Work and Love, by Tuula Karjalainen Between the World and Me, by Ta-Nehisi Coates
Fiction (non-sf): 5 (YTD 19) Diary of a Wimpy Kid: A Novel in Cartoons, by Jeff Kinney Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules, by Jeff Kinney Tales from the Secret Annexe, by Anne Frank A Delicate Truth, by John le Carré Holes, by Louis Sachar
sf (non-Who): 9 (YTD 56) The Stars My Destination, by Alfred Bester The Secret History of Science Fiction, ed. James Patrick Kelly & John Kessel Gráinne, by Keith Roberts Corona, by Greg Bear Islands in the Sky, by Arthur C. Clarke The Sands of Mars, by Arthur C. Clarke Earthlight, by Arthur C Clarke Galileo’s Dream, by Kim Stanley Robinson Doctor Dolittle in the Moon, by Hugh Lofting
Doctor Who, etc: 4 (YTD 26) Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury, ed. Paul Cornell The Algebra of Ice, by Lloyd Rose Dead Romance, by Lawrence Miles Lethbridge-Stewart: Beast of Fang Rock, by Andy Frankham-Allan
Comics: 3 (YTD 17) The Divine, by Boaz Lavie, Asaf Hanuka and Tomer Hanuka Invisible Republic, Vol 1, by Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman Bétélgeuse v.5: L’Autre, by Leo
7,500 pages (YTD 40,100 pages) 6/30 (YTD 47/139) by women (Wright, Alexievich, Karjalainen, Frank, Rose, Bechko) 2/30 (YTD 10/139) by PoC (Miranda, Coates)
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
The major development of June 2016 was the Brexit referendum, which of course went the wrong way. I wrote to over a thousand British friends in the days immediately before, pleading with them to vote Remain; I led with the likely impact of Brexit on Northern Ireland, which really was not too hard to foresee. Shell-shocked the day after, I wrote this reaction with a colleague, most of which turned out to be right. I am still resentful and angry about Brexit, though I am also pretty clear that it will not be reversed any time soon. What a shame.
My major trip of June 2016 was to Northern Ireland for my great-aunt’s 100th birthday. She is still going strong and will turn 106 next month. (Sadly her oldest daughter, on the left here, has since passed away.)
I had two work-related trips as well, one at the start of the month in London, where I took in a Comics Museum exhibition of the work of Doctor Who illustrator Chris Achilleos:
And one at the end of the month to Barcelona.
It was also the month of the Belgium/Ireland match in the European Championships; out local pub allowed space for our Irish neighbours and us despite the general Belgitude.
6,200 pages (YTD 32,600 pages) 2/22 (YTD 41/109) by women (Munro, Dunnett) 1/22 (YTD 10/109) by PoC (Dumas)
Enjoyed re-reading The Count of Monte Cristo, which you can get here, and Dark Horse, which you can get here; best new read was the Selected Stories of Alice Munro, which you can get here. Several awful books in the Hugo packet, thanks to Puppy infestation; no names, no publicity.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I had a lot of fun travel in that month. It started with a trip to Northern Ireland for the 2016 Assembly election, which was actually not all that exciting as only seven seats out of 108 changed hands; we did not know what was about to hit us. (Funny to come back to this memory after last week.)
Though the studio experience had its dramatic moments.
6,300 pages (YTD 26,400 pages) 8/23 (YTD 39/97) by women (Robinson, Carey x2, Hawking x2, Shelley, Levene, Vanistendael) 1/23 (YTD 9/97) by PoC (Tezuka)
The best of these was a reread, Walking on Glass by Iain Banks, which you can get here; followed by Mister Pip, which you can get here. The worst were Santi-Bucquoy’s disappointing Chooz, which you can get here, and Shaw’s Ragged Astronauts, which you can get here.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
As previously noted, I started the month at my sister’s in Cluny, visiting a nearby castle where her daughter dressed up.
I had two business trips to London, on the second of which I met up with one of my favourite Moldovan politicians, who I had last seen when she was Foreign Minister; meantime she had been acting prime minister for six weeks in 2015.
Back home, little U got confirmed.
With the ongoing Brexit doomscrolling, I read only 15 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 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 I have previously written, on 22 March 2016, I set off from home in slightly unusual circumstances; I had the car, because Anne was in England at a family funeral, and my phone was broken so I had no means of contacting the outside world as I drove to work. When I hit the tunnel that takes you from the motorway to Avenue de Cortenbergh at around 0850, there was the usual tailback of traffic. But it became clear by the time I reached Rond Point Schuman that this was no ordinary traffic jam; the Rue de la Loi, along which I would normally coast before taking a left turn down Rue de la Science for my office (the green line on my map), was being closed off by serious-looking police, and I ended up taking a very serpentine route indeed, not helped by thinking at one point that it might be smart to double back and then changing my mind.
I finally made it to the office at 1022, those last two kilometres having taken me 90 minutes to drive, to find most of my colleagues gathered ashen-faced in the lobby, greeting me tearfully – I was the only person who was unaccounted for, due to my phone being out of order, and people were beginning to assume the worst. They informed me that two terrorist attacks, one at the airport and one at the Maalbeek/Maelbeek metro station (marked with the four-pointed star on my map), had killed dozens of people – 35 including the perpetrators themselves, as it later turned out. I had massive numbers of messages on every possible platform asking if I was all right, which is very reassuring.
The horror hit very close to home. I had flown out of Brussels airport in the morning five times already in 2016, and was originally due to do so again three days later to go to Eastercon in Manchester (in fact my plans had already changed and I took the Eurostar to London for work and travelled on up by train). Anne’s flight home from England was cancelled and she returned by Eurostar the next day. Maelbeek metro station is in the heart of the EU quarter, and I go past it most days and through it several times a month; a former colleague was actually on the train that was bombed, but fortunately escaped without injury.
Apart from that, Mrs Lincoln, how did you enjoy the play? I had two trips to London, one of which extended into Eastercon in Manchester (Mancunicon) and also went to Barcelona. I don’t seem to have taken any photographs on any of those trips. We finished the month at my sister’s in Burgundy.
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.
In the real world, this was the month of Ireland’s 2016 parliamentary election, in which Fianna Fáil did not quite regain the top spot that they had previously had, and ended up supporting a minority Fine Gael government.
I had three trips that month – one to Belgrade again, where I don’t seem to have taken pictures, and two to London, in both of which I nipped out to see exhibitions: one about John Dee, at the Royal College of Physicians, with Shana and Alison, and one about the Soviet space programme, at the Science Museum. (Some will remember a very pleasant dinner at Mele e Pere in London.) I followed up on John Dee by analysing a hand-written horoscope that he had done. Back in Belgium, I explored the sculptures of Woluwe Saint-Pierre. Here’s St Martin-in-the-Fields, at dusk.
I read rather fewer books than usual this month – the consequence of several trips where I wasn’t able to read much either in transit or when I got there. Also to be honest the accelerating Brexit debate was developing the bad habit of doomscrolling.
This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging which will fall in 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.
I started the year with a trip to London (for some reason I flew to Heathrow rather than taking the Chunnel, no idea why). Mid month I attempted to fly to Serbia, but the weather was against me and I only got as far as Munich. Later in the month I successfully got to Skopje and then Dubrovnik on the same trip. Dubrovnik as always was spectacular.
At home, I started my very enjoyable rewatch of Here Come the Double Deckers!
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.
My one trip that month was to visit my employers’ headquarters in Washington DC, a first visit to the mothership a year or so after I had got hired (postponed from October when a client assignment to Geneva had killed my plans to include CapClave in the trip). I also had a day in New York.
Back in Brussels, someone took a nice shot of me at the office party (I have no idea who is behind me).
I also managed to get a decent Christmas picture of all three kids.
With the transatlantic flight, I read 29 books that month.
~7,500 pages (Year end 80,100) 10/29 by women (Year end 86/290) – Robinson, Bryce, Woolf, Robson, Okorafor, Valente, Walton, Levene, Beaton, Padua 3/29 by PoC (YTD 20/290) – Wilson, Okorafor, Padua
2015 Books Roundup
Total books: 290, precisely one less than the previous year’s 291; however 24 of these were dives into the first 50 pages of Clarke nominees that I knew were unlikely to win or be shortlisted. The fifth highest of the years I have been counting, but I have only passed that total in one subsequent year (last year, 2021).
Total page count: ~80,100, sixth highest of the years I have been counting, higher than any year since.
Diversity: 86 (30%) by women, the highest to date, since exceeded in both numbers and % in 2018, 2019 and 2021, and in % only in 2016. 20 (7%) by PoC, highest to date, since exceeded on both counts in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021, and in % only in 2017.
Most books by a single author: 6 by Justin Richards (4), who also topped my 2014 tally.
Science Fiction (130)
Top SF books of the year: Collectively the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, especially the winner, Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel (get it here)
Honourable mentions: The Affirmation, by Christopher Priest (review; get it here) Kushiel’s Justice, by Jacqueline Carey (review; get it here)
The one you haven’t heard of: The Last Man, by Alfred Noyes (review; get it here)
The one to avoid: The Wonder City of Oz, by John R. Neill (review; get it here)
Non-Fiction (47)
Top non-fiction book of the year: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Claire Tomalin (review; get it here)
Runners-up: Letters to Tiptree, eds Alissa Krasnostein and Alexandra Pierce (review; get it here) Selected Essays, by Virginia Woolf (review; get it here)
The one you haven’t heard of: Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture, by Rory Rapple (review; get it here)
The one to avoid: Wisdom from my Internet, by Michael Z. Williamson (review; get it here)
Doctor Who (43, 54 counting non-fiction and comics)
Best Who book read in 2015: City of Death, by Douglas Adams and James Goss (review; get it here)
Runner-up (and re-read): Walking to Babylon, by Kate Orman (review; get it here)
Best Whovian non-fiction: Companion Piece: Women Celebrate the Humans, Aliens and Tin Dogs of Doctor Who, eds. L.M. Myles and Liz Barr (review; get it here)
The two that even dedicated Whovians have not heard of: Doctor Who and the Vortex Crystal and Doctor Who and the Rebel’s Gamble, both by William H. Keith, Jr (review; get them here and here)
The one to avoid: I did not keep good notes so will be charitable.
Non-genre Fiction (42)
Best non-sff fiction read in 2015: Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie (review; get it here)
The one you haven’t heard of: The Twenty-two Letters, by Clive King (review; get it here)
The one to avoid: The Sorrows of an American, by Siri Hustvedt (review; get it here)
Comics (19)
Best graphic stories read in 2015: The Sculptor, by Scott McCloud (review; get it here) The Thrilling Adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, by Sydney Padua (review; get it here)
The one you haven’t heard of: De Tweede Kus, by Conz (review; get it here)
The one to avoid: Boerke Bijbel, by Pieter de Poortere (review; get it here)
Poetry (just 1 but I enjoyed it)
The Whole and Rain-domed Universe, by Colette Bryce (review; get it here)
Worst Book of the Year
Wisdom from my Internet, by Michael Z. Williamson, possibly the worst book I have read this century
Best Book(s) of the year
Collectively, the Arthur C. Clarke Award shortlist, in particular the winner, Station Eleven, by Emily St John Mandel. However I did not actually blog about these, being one of the judges at the time. – Best book I actually blogged about: The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, by Claire Tomalin
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