2 May 1941: birth of Paul Darrow, who played played Captain Hawkins in Doctor Who and the Silurians (1970) and Tekker in Timelash (1985).
ii) broadcast, publishing and webcast anniversaries
2 May 1964: broadcast of “The Snows of Terror”, fourth episode of the story we now call The Keys of Marinus. Ian, Barbara and Susan retrieve the Key despite the efforts of Vasor and the Ice Soldiers. Then Ian finds the last key at their last destination.
2 May 1970: broadcast of seventh episode of The Ambassadors of Death. The Doctor and the brigadier intercept Carrington before he is able to implement his plan, and the alien Ambassadors are freed.
2 May 1973: Target Books re-publish the three 1960s Doctor Who novelisations.
2 May 2003: webcast of first episode of Shada. The Eighth Doctor visits Gallifrey to persuade President Romana to come with him to Cambridge.
“Dead Souls” by Nikolai Gogol
I highly recommend this. It suffers from Gogol never having finished it, but it it is a fascinating account of a shady character at work in provincial Russia, featuring a parade of grotesques.
“The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty, Delhi, 1857” by William Dalrymple
This is a great book about an age of history coming to an end.
“The Adventures Of Luther Arkwright” by Bryan Talbot
I was thinking about this today, because of Talbot winning some big prize. It is interesting and atmospheric but maybe suffers from confusing plotting and having a main character who can just develop new superpowers whenever he finds himself in a scrape. If you like alternate history stuff this may appeal. I think the sequel (Heart of Empire) is way better and I am not sure if you would need to have read this first to appreciate it.
“The Dark Tower and Other Stories” by C.S. Lewis
I read these years ago and found them interesting. I gather there is a certain level of meta-fictional interest to them as well, as it has been suggested that they are forgeries and were not actually written by CS Lewis at all.