NB: With Russia's unprovoked murderous assault on Ukraine, I am actively looking at alternative hosts for this journal, preferably those which will retain as much content as possible. I am very uncomfortable with being part of the Russian economic system at present, in however small a way. In the meantime:

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 was the month I started Instagram, which I don’t spend a lot of time on, but I do enjoy it. My first post:

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I went to London and from there to Montenegro:

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And also to Zürich:

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And Berlin.

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Pleased with this pic of my then colleague C and Captain Europe at an EU Tweetup. Captain Europe has mostly retired from being a superhero now, and C has moved to San Francisco and just had a baby.

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With the massive kerfuffle over the puppies, I read and blogged much less than usual, but still ot through 15 books.

Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 23)
Oak, by William Bryant Logan
Martial Power and Elizabethan Political Culture: Military Men in England and Ireland, 1558-1594, by Rory Rapple
Self-Portrait, by Anneke Wills
Naked by Anneke Wills



Fiction (non-sf): 5 (YTD 18)
The Charterhouse of Parma, by Stendhal
An Infamous Army, by Georgette Heyer
The seven-per-cent solution, by Nicholas Meyer
Sculptor's Daughter, by Tove Jansson
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, by Luo Guanzhong



SF (non-Who): 3 (YTD 74)
The Complete Robot, by Isaac Asimov
True History/Ἀληθῆ διηγήματα, by Lucian of Samosata
Yesterday's Kin, by Nancy Kress



Doctor Who, etc: 3 (YTD 22)
Palace of the Red Sun, by Christopher Bulis
Sometime Never..., by Justin Richards
Deadfall, by Gary Russell



Comics : 0 (YTD 10)

~4,700 pages (YTD 37,450)
5/15 by women (YTD 38/144) - Wills x2, Heyer, Jansson, Kress
1/15 by PoC (YTD 11/144) - Luo

The best of these were Rory Rapple’s gripping treatment of sixteenth century Irish political violence, which you can get here, and Tove Jansson’s semi-autobiographical short story collection, which you can get here.

I was unexcited and somewhat bored by The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which you can get here (in what may be a better translation).

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.

Quite a lot of travel that month - I went to Eastercon at Heathrow via Belgrade, Serbia, and returned via Sofia, Bulgaria. In Belgrade I had a happy reunion with R, who had worked for me in Bosnia in 1998; I hired her the week before her 20th birthday, and she had barely changed.
On my birthday I went with F, and work colleagues T and A, to an sf convention in Antwerp, which was great fun too.
Of course the big sf news of the month was the success of the Sad and Rabid Puppies in dominating the ballot for the Hugo Awards, something I wrote a lot about and which continues to resonate.

I read 40 books that month, but did not finish most of them.

Non-fiction: 3 (YTD 17)
A Slip of the Keyboard, by Terry Pratchett
Here's One I Wrote Earlier, by Peter Purves
The Start-Up of You, by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha



Fiction (non-sf): 2 (YTD 4)
Wages of Sin, by Andrew M. Greeley
Scales of Gold, by Dorothy Dunnett



SF (non-Who): 28 (YTD 63)
Memory of Water, by Emmi Itäranta
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North
The Book of Strange New Things, by Michel Faber
Babayaga, by Toby Barlow - did not finish
The Supernatural Enhancements, by Edgar Cantero - did not finish
Shanghai Sparrow, by Gaie Sebold - did not finish
Jani and the Greater Game, by Eric Smith - did not finish
Fish Tails, by Sherri S. Tepper - did not finish
The Rain-Soaked Bride, by Guy Adams - did not finish
Shadowboxer, by Tricia Sullivan - did not finish
The Stonehenge Letters, by Harry Karlinsky
Wolf in White Van, by John Darnielle - did not finish
The Monster's Wife, by Kate Horsley - did not finish
The Return of the Discontinued Man, by Mark Hodder - did not finish
Timebomb, by Scott K. Andrews - did not finish
Hurricane Fever, by Tobias Buckell - did not finish
Kushiel's Justice, by Jacqueline Carey
The Lost Stars: Imperfect Sword, by Jack Campbell - did not finish
The Lost Fleet: Beyond the Frontier - Steadfast, by Jack Campbell - did not finish
Resistance, by Samit Basu - did not finish
Glass Shore, by Stefan Jackson - did not finish
The Rhymer: An Heredyssy, by Douglas Thompson - did not finish
Ex-Purgatory, by Peter Clines - did not finish
Indigo, by Clemens J. Setz - did not finish
The Happier Dead , by Ivo Stourton - did not finish
Hive Monkey, by Gareth L. Powell - did not finish
Symbiont, by Mira Grant - did not finish
Sky Pirates, by Liesel Schwartz - did not finish
After Me Comes the Flood, by Sarah Perry - did not finish



Doctor Who, etc: 4 (YTD 15)
Burning Heart, by Dave Stone
Timeless by Steve Cole
Ship of Fools, by Dave Stone
Lethbridge-Stewart: Top Secret Files, by Andy Frankham-Allen, Nick Walters, Graeme Harper and David A. McIntee



Comics : 3 (YTD 9)
Ms Marvel vol 1: No Normal, by G.Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona
Rat Queens, vol 1: Sass and Sorcery, Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch
Sex Criminals, vol. 1, by Matt Fraction



~6,500 pages (YTD 25,500)
11/40 by women (YTD 31/104) - Dunnett, Itäranta, North, Sebold, Tepper, Sullivan, Horsley, Carey, "Grant", Wilson, Perry
4/40 by PoC (YTD 8/104) - Buckell, Basu, Alphona, Upchurch

Several books I really enjoyed this month: the erotic fantasy Kushiel's Justice, which you can get here; the first volume of Ms Marvel, which you can get here; and Scales of Gold, in Dunnett's Niccolo series, which you can get here. Some real turkeys as well, of which my least favourite was After Me Comes the Flood, by Sarah Perry; 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.

As was increasingly routine, I had two work trips to London that month; also Anne and I went to a concert in Antwerp, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the birth of my favourite composer, Sibelius. And at the end of the month my sister C and her daughter S came to visit, and we went to the Atomium.
I read 20 books that month.

Non-fiction: 3 (YTD 11)
Het Achterhuis, by Anne Frank / The Diary of a Young Girl, by Anne Frank, see also later note on Alfred Dussel / Fritz Pfeffer
Anne Frank: The book, the life and the afterlife, by Francine Prose
Tree and Leaf, by J R R Tolkien (has a little more non-fiction content than fiction)



Fiction (non-sf): 1 (YTD 2)
I Don't Know How She Does It, by Allison Pearson



SF (non-Who): 9 (YTD 24)
The Abyss Beyond Dreams, by Peter Hamilton - did not finish
Amnesia, by Peter Carey
Firefall, by Peter Watts
The Blood Red City, by Justin Richards
Cataveiro, by E.J. Swift - not finished
Transit of Earth (anthology, no editor credited)
Descent, by Ken MacLeod



Doctor Who, etc: 4 (YTD 7)
Warmonger, by Terrance Dicks
Reckless Engineering, by Nick Walters
Dragon's Wrath, by Justin Richards
Doctor Who Annual 2015



Comics : 2 (YTD 4)
Bétélgeuse, v2: Les Survivants, by Leo
Boerke bijbel, by Pieter De Poortere



~6,000 pages (YTD 14,500)
6/19 by women (YTD 16/48) - Frank, Prose, Pearson, Byrne, McDougall, Swift
0/19 by PoC (YTD 1/48)

Always worth returning to Anne Frank, whose diary you can get here; my favourite new book was Descent, by Ken MacLeod, which you can get here. Unimpressed with both Hamilton's Abyss Beyond Dreams, which you can get here, and Boerke Bijbel, 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.

In December 2014 I had two work trips to London, one of which was combined with a visit to Albania. We finished the month by visiting my cousins who had just moved to Luxembourg. F and one of the younger cousins re-enacted a photo that had been taken some years before.
I also wrote up my thoughts on Richard III's mitochondrial DNA.
I read 21 books that month.

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 48)
Ages in Chaos: James Hutton and the Discovery of Deep Time, by Stephen Baxter
Elizabeth's Bedfellows: An Intimate History of the Queen's Court, by Anna Whitelock
101 Ways to Win an Election, by Mark Pack and Edward Maxfield



Fiction (non-sf) 0 (YTD 41)

SF (non-Who) 14 (YTD 124)
Red Rising, by Pierce Brown
Ultima, by Stephen Baxter
A Man Lies Dreaming, Lavie Tidhar
The Fat Years, by Chan Koonchung
The People in the Trees, Hanya Yanagihira
The Forever Watch, Daniel Ramirez
Vicious, by V.E. Schwab (did not finish)
Lagoon, by Nnedi Okorafor
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, by Claire North
The Three, by Sarah Lotz
I Will Fear No Evil, by Robert A. Heinlein (did not finish)
We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, by Karen Joy Fowler
The Burning Dark, by Adam Christopher
The Book of Strange New Things, by Michel Faber



Doctor Who 3 (YTD 59)
Fear of the Dark, by Trevor Baxendale
The Dying Days, by Lance Parkin
Infinity Race, by Simon Messingham



Comics 1 (YTD 19)
Sterrenrood, by "Willy Vandersteen" [Peter De Gucht]



~7,000 pages (2014 total ~97,100)
6/21 (2014 total 81/291) by women (Yanagihira, Schwab, Okorafor, North, Lotz, Fowler)
3/21 (2014 total 19/291) by PoC (Chan, Yanagihira, Okorafor)

The best of these was the near-future Chinese sf novel The Fat Years, by Chan Koonchung, which you can get here, followed by Claire North's debut The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August, another book that ended up on the Clarke shortlist, which you can get here.

On the other hand, I totally bounced off my attempted reread of I Will Fear No Evil, by Robert A. Heinlein, which you can get here, and also was very unimpressed with Vicious, by V.E. Schwab, which you can get here.

2014 Books Roundup

Total books: 291 - fifth highest of the 18 years I have been keeping track, though the next six years were lower (2021 was up again).

Total page count: ~97,100 - second highest of the 18 years I have been counting (2009 was the highest).

Diversity:
81 (28%) by women - higher than any previous year, lower percentage than most subsequent years.
19 (6%) by PoC - more than any previous year except 2010, lower percentage than than any subsequent year.

Most books by a single author:
Justin Richards (4), and Jeff VanderMeer (also 4, if we count the trilogy separately).


( sf and fantasy (non-Who) )

( Doctor Who )

( Non-fiction )
( Non-genre )

( Comics )
Worst book of the year: with some competition from others in the same series, the 1986 Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Doctor Who story by William Emms, Mission to Venus, is so poor that I would gently suggest to even the most dedicated Who completist than they can safely give it a miss.

My Book of the Year

Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell (review; get it here) - fantastic reportage, made particularly thrilling as I walked the very streets that Orwell had written about, eight decades before


( Other books of the year )

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 was the month that I changed jobs, hosting a big farewell party in my favourite local to Schuman (the 1898, since you ask) and taking a week off in between leaving the one and joining the other. This was also the month that I bought my first iPhone, and the photos I post here are therefore going to drastically improve in quality. With the job change I got a professional head shot done; not cheap, but worth it.
I had two fantastic trips to Central Europe. I spent the last weekend of my old job in Budapest, where I caught up with a surprising number of old friends and had a lovely boat trip on the Danube. This is the very first photo I took with the new phone, showing the Hungarian parliament all lit up. I do hope that Budapest has better days to come.
I also paid my respects to my favourite statue in Budapest, which has since been dismantled in a shocking act of vandalism.
The weekend between jobs, I went to a student-run conference in Ljubljana, where I was the oldest participant apart from a retired Italian diplomat. Also great fun; one of the organisers insisted on a commemorative photograph with me.
I also took the chance to meet up with my friend L, who at one point led a Dutch political party but was then in Slovenia. Her daughter V, who much later would feature in two Laibach videos, also came along for the lunch but isn't in the photo.
I have a favourite monument in Ljubljana too, the monument to the Unknown French Soldier, "mort pour notre liberté". As far as I know, it is still there.
I had one more trip that month: I spent a night and a day in London in the first week of my new job, a journey that was to become routine until the pandemic intervened.

This was also the month that I first discovered the battlefield of Neerwinden and took B there. She still likes to go and light a candle in the chapel.
Much less happily, this was the month that my tax accountants, previously a Brussels boutique firm who had been taken over earlier that year by a multinational as part of its founder's retirement plan, badly screwed up my tax return. Fortunately I caught it before the damage (which would have been very costly) was done, but I found another boutique firm, this time based in Leuven, and switched my business to them.

I read 19 books that month.

Non-fiction 4 (YTD 44)
The Strangest Man, by Graham Farmelo
Some Girls: My Life in a Harem, by Jillian Lauren
Edward Gibbon and Empire,eds. Rosamond McKitterick and Roland Quinault
Angela's Ashes, by Frank McCourt



Fiction (non-sf) 1 (YTD 37)
The Professor, by Charlotte Brontë



SF (non-Who) 9 (YTD 94)
The Hive Construct, by Alexander Maskill
Broken Monsters, by Lauren Beukes
A Kill in the Morning, by Graeme Shimmin
Wool, by Hugh Howey
Up the Walls of the World, by James Tiptree
Queen of the Tearling, by Erika Johansen
Bête, by Adam Roberts
Astra, by Naomi Foyle
The Long Mars, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter



Doctor Who 5 (YTD 52)
Divided Loyalties, by Gary Russell
The Room with No Doors, by Kate Orman
Camera Obscura, by Lloyd Rose
Silhouette, by Justin Richards
Lights Out, by Holly Black



~6,500 pages (YTD ~71,600)
10/19 (YTD 67/244) by women (Lauren, McKittrick, Brontë, Beukes, Tiptree, Johansen, Foyle, Orman, Rose, Black)
0/19 (YTD 16/244) by PoC

The best of these were Bête, by Adam Roberts, which you can get here, and The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius, by Graham Farmelo, which you can get here. Nothing too awful, I'm glad to say.

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 started the month in Northern Ireland, where among many pleasant experiences we were visited by H and also my cousin A, and did an enjoyable trip to various ancient places in County Down.
The month was dominated by the 2014 Worldcon, Loncon 3, where I was Division Head for Promotions and had a fantastic time.
At the end of the month we went to Leuven for a cinema screening of the first Peter Capaldi episode, Deep Breath, also fun.

(Which was all just as well, as work continued to be unpleasant.)

Worldcon sucked up a huge amount of my time and energy, and I read only 21 books that month, which is unusually low for a summer holiday.

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 38)
F in Exams, by Richard Benson
F in Retakes, by Richard Benson
The Making of Doctor Who, by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke


Fiction (non-sf) 8 (YTD 30)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre
A Winter Book, by Tove Jansson
Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis
Battle for Bittora, by Anuja Chauhan
The Waves, by Virginia Woolf
The Life of John Buncle, Esq: Containing Various Observations and Reflections, Made in Several Parts of the World, and Many Extraordinary Relations, vols 1 and 2, by Thomas Amory


SF (non-Who) 6 (YTD 73)
Brontomek!, by Michael Coney
A Guide to Tolkien, by David Day
The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
No Harm Can Come to a Good Man, by James Smythe
Starry Messenger: The Best of Galileo, ed. Charles Ryan
Peacemaker, by Marianne de Pierres


Doctor Who 4 (YTD 42)
Tomb of Valdemar, by Simon Messingham
Bad Therapy, by Matthew Jones
The Crooked World, by Steve Lyons
Engines of War, by George Mann


Comics 1 (YTD 14)
With The Light... vol 7, by Keiko Tobe


~6,600 pages (YTD ~56,500)
5/22 (YTD 49/197) by women (Jansson, Chauhan, Woolf, ξ1, Tobe)
2/22 (YTD 15/197) by PoC (Chauhan, Tobe)

The best of these was The Waves, by Virginia Woolf; you can get it here. Also really good: Battle for Bittora, by Anuja Chauhan, an Indian election romance novel which you can get here; The Life of John Buncle, Esq., by Thomas Amory, a fore-runner to Tristram Shandy, which you can get here; and A Winter Book, by Tove Jansson, which you can get here. Three books that I found particularly poor: Booker-winning Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre, which you can get here; A Guide to Tolkien, by David Day, which you can get here; and Peacemaker, by Marianne de Pierres, 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.

I started the month relaxing at my sister's in Burgundy:
...had a Worldcon planning trip to London midmonth:
...and ended with another visit to Barcelona.
The World Cup was on, which absorbed some of my attention as well.

I read 31 books that month. A couple of them didn't get written up at the time as they were potential Clarke nominees. (Indeed, one of them ultimately was a Clarke nominee.)

Non-fiction 7 (YTD 29)
Queers Dig Time Lords: A Celebration of Doctor Who by the LGBTQ Fans Who Love It, eds Sigrid Ellis & Michael Damian Thomas
Speculative Fiction 2012: The Best Online Reviews, Essays and Commentary eds. Justin Landon & Jared Shurin
Wonderbook: The Illustrated Guide to Creating Imaginative Fiction, by Jeff VanderMeer, with Jeremy Zerfoss
Green Living for Dummies, by Michael Grosvenor and Liz Barclay
The Global(ized) Game: A Geopolitical Guide to the 2014 World Cup, by Harrison Stark
Legacy: A story of racism and the Northern Ireland Troubles, by Jayne Olorunda
Ireland Under The Tudors vol 1, by Richard Bagwell

Fiction (non-sf) 2 (YTD 18)
Het Verdriet van België, by Hugo Claus
Death in Venice, by Thomas Mann

SF (non-Who) 11 (YTD 53)
Orbitsville by Bob Shaw
The Blazing-World, by Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
Two Serpents Rise, by Max Gladstone
A Stranger in Olondria, by Sofia Samatar
Nexus, by Ramez Naam
The Lives of Tao, by Wesley Chu
Dawn, by Octavia E. Butler
The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein, by Theodore Roszak
The Goblin of Tara, by Oisin McGann
Age of Shiva, by James Lovegrove
Europe in Autumn, by Dave Hutchinson

Doctor Who 5 (YTD 34)
A Device of Death, by Christopher Bulis
Damaged Goods, by Russell T. Davis
Trading Futures, by Lance Parkin
The Bog Warrior, by Cecelia Ahern
The Shakespeare Notebooks, by James Goss, Jonathan Morris, Julian Richards, Justin Richards and Matthew Sweet

Comics 6 (YTD 11)
The Meathouse Man, by George R.R. Martin and Raya Golden
Saga, Volume 2, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Bételgeuse v. 1: La Planète, by Leo
[Suske en Wiske] De Apenkermis, by Willy Vandersteen
[Suske en Wiske] Amoris van Amoras, by "Willy Vandersteen" [Paul Gheerts]
[Suske en Wiske] Het Aruba-dossier, by "Willy Vandersteen" [Paul Geerts]

~7,800 pages (YTD ~41,100)
9/31 (YTD 38/145) by women (Ellis, Barclay, Olorunda, Cavendish, Samatar, Butler, Ahern, Golden, Staples)
6/31 (YTD 10/145) by PoC (Olorunda, Samatar, Naam, Chu, Butler, Staples)

The best of these were Europe in Autumn, by Dave Hutchinson, which you can get here, and Legacy: A story of racism and the Northern Ireland Troubles, by Jayne Olorunda, which you can get here. Underwhelmed by Age of Shiva, by James Lovegrove, which you can get here; Meathouse Man, by George R. R. Martin and Raya Golden, which you can get here; and The Bog Warrior, by Cecelia Ahern, 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.

My conversations with my current employer continued in April 2014, but then petered out for a few months. I did have work trips to both Cyprus and Barcelona; much more enjoyably I also went to Eastercon, Satellite IV in Glasgow, where I had a great time despite forgetting to bring any actual money (thanks, once again, to the friends who helped me out with some instant liquidity) and managed (to some later confected controversy) the transmission of the Hugo final ballot to most of the world's media, and started a fight with Vox Day. I then celebrated my birthday with a visit to a convention in Antwerp, where F met the true Voice of Mario.
Colin Baker was also there.
I read twenty books that month. Unlike in some previous cases, I don't appear to have uploaded covers at the time.

Non-fiction 6 (YTD 19)
Adventures with the Wife in Space, by Neil Perryman
Anglicising the Government of Ireland, by Jon Crawford
Understanding the Lord of the Rings, eds. Rose A. Zimbardo & Neil D. Isaacs
Homage to Catalonia, by George Orwell
Other People's Countries, by Patrick McGuinness
Need for Certainty, by Robert Towler

Fiction (non-sf) 4 (YTD 12)
Buddenbrooks, by Thomas Mann
Revelation, by C. J. Sansom
The Good Husband of Zebra Drive, by Alexander McCall Smith
Cheese, by Willem Elsschot

SF (non-Who) 5 (YTD 27)
Any Given Doomsday, by Lori Handeland
Inverted World, by Christopher Priest
Deathless, by Cat Valente
The Ocean At The End Of The Lane, by Neil Gaiman
Assassin's Quest, by Robin Hobb

Doctor Who 4 (YTD 26)
Amorality Tale, by David Bishop
Return of the Living Dad, by Kate Orman
Hope, by Mark Clapham
A Handful of Stardust, by Jake Arnott

Comics 1 (YTD 3)
Aldébaran #5: La Créature, by Leo

~6,300 pages (YTD ~26,300)
5/20 (YTD 24/85) by women (Zimbardo, Handeland, Valente, Hobb, Orman)
0/20 (YTD 2/85) by PoC

The best of these was Orwell's classic Homage to Catalonia, which you can get here; a thrill went down my spine as I walked the very spot in the Ramblas where he evaded a sniper. Very closely followed by Neil Gaiman's The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which you can get here, and Other People's Countries by Patrick McGuinness, which you can get here. Very underwhelmed by Lori Handeland's urban fantasy, Any Given Doomsday, which you can get here; and also by David Bishop's Third Doctor novel, Amorality Tale, 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.

At work, my Swedish intern L left and was replaced by another L, this time English. Swedish L has gone on to a career in international affairs, and announced her first pregnancy a couple of weeks ago. Work otherwise continued to be grim. My only trip that month was to London for a Worldcon planning meeting, with the evening of the 28th seeing the start of the Jonathan Ross debacle, probably the worst media storm any Worldcon has ever had to face.

Here's B at the ruined church that she loves in Tienen:

I read 19 books that month:

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 9)

Double Down, by Mark Halperin and John Heileman
Science Fiction: The 101 Best Novels, by Damien Broderick and Paul di Filippo
Jane Austen, by Claire Tomalin
The Kindness of Strangers, by Kate Adie
The Unfolding Of Language, by Guy Deutscher


Fiction (non-sf) 2 (YTD 6)
Empire of the Sun, by J.G. Ballard
The Snowman, by Jo Nesbø


SF (non-Who) 6 (YTD 12)
Crowe's Requiem, by Mike McCormack
God's War, by Kameron Hurley
The Shining, by Stephen King
Evening's Empires, by Paul McAuley
Ack-Ack Macaque, by Gareth L. Powell
The Adjacent, by Christopher Priest


Doctor Who 6 (YTD 11)
Speed of Flight, by Paul Leonard
GodEngine, by Craig Hinton
The Adventuress of Henrietta Street, by Lawrence Miles
The Forever Trap, by Dan Abnett
Into the Nowhere, by Jenny Colgan
Keeping Up With the Joneses, by Nick Harkaway


6,300 pages (YTD 12,800)
4/19 (YTD 13/40) by women (Tomalin, Adie, Hurley, Colgan)
0/19 (YTD 1/40) by PoC

The best of these were J.G. Ballard's Empire of the Sun, which you can get here, and Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen, which you can get here. None particularly awful. 

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 travels that month were an awkward work trip to New York followed immediately by a sad trip to England for my aunt's funeral. (Straight off my transatlantic flight, I changed my shirt in the back of my taxi from Heathrow to the memorial ceremony in the Horniman Pavilion.) Little U got a special laptop for her birthday, I got a special Christmas present, and we were visited, as so often, by H who took one of the best family pictures we've had (though I've pasted U's head in from a different shot).
To get you in the Christmas mood, here's "Fairytale of New York" in Irish:

I read 22 books that month.

Non-Fiction 3 (2013 total 46)
Tardis Eruditorum vol 4: Tom Baker and the Hinchcliffe Years, by Philip Sandifer
Information is Beautiful, by David McCandless
Stuff I've Been Reading, by Nick Hornby

Fiction (non-sf) 5 (2013 total 44)
Eyeless in Gaza, by Aldous Huxley
Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson
The Popinjay, by Iona McGregor
The Truth Commissioner, by David Park
The Devils, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

SF (non-Who) 8 (2013 total 64)
The Just City, by Jo Walton (feedback on unpublished manuscript)
The Philosopher Kings, by Jo Walton (feedback on unpublished manuscript)
Patternmaster, by Octavia E. Butler
Rendezvous with Rama, by Arthur C. Clarke
The Wise Man's Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss
Looking for Jake and other stories, by China Miéville
The Father Christmas Letters, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Next Generation, vol. I, by John Francis Maguire (provisionally classified as sf)

Doctor Who 4 (2013 total 71, 83 councting non-fiction and comics)
Dancing The Code, by Paul Leonard
Death and Diplomacy, by Dave Stone
City of the Dead, by Lloyd Rose
The Men Who Sold The World, by Guy Adams

Comics 2 (2013 total 30)
Animate Europe! (responsible editor Hans H. Stein)
Le Chat du Rabbin tome 1, by Joann Sfarr

~6,800 pages (2013 total ~67,000)
5/22 (2013 total 71/257) by women (McGregor, Butler, Rose and two more)
1/22 (2013 total 11/257) by PoC

The best of these were all sf: Rendezvous with Rama, a re-read, which you can get here; the then-not-yet-published The Just City, which you can get here; and The Wise Man's Fear, which you can get here. To my surprise I bounced off Patternmaster, but you can get it here.I failed to do a proper 2012 books roundup at the time, managing only a summary. So here is what I would have written using the methodology I use now.

Total books: 257 - tenth highest of the 17 years I have been keeping track, so a minor tick below average. (Somehow this turned out to be 237 in previous reports, but it was definitely 257.)

Total page count: ~67,000 - ninth highest of the last 17 years, so firmly in the middle.

Diversity:
71 (28%) by women - higher than any previous year, lower than most subsequent years, augmented by 10 Agatha Christie novels.
11 (4%) by PoC - more than any year before 2009, less than any other year since.

Most books by a single author: Agatha Christie (10), followed by Terrance Dicks (7), Jonathan Gash (6), Philip Sandifer (5), Cressida Cowell, Gary Russell, Ian Rankin and Neil Gaiman (4 each).

( Doctor Who )
( SF )
( Non-fiction )
( Non-genre )



( Comics )

Making up the numbers: Observatory by Daragh Carville (review; get it here); Meeting the British, by Paul Muldoon (review; get it here).

My Book of the Year

A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf:  a tremendous, passionate, witty and forensic analysis of the barriers faced women who try to get anywhere in literature, or indeed in almost any other way of life. One of the great feminist texts, and at 112 pages mercifully succinct. I wished I had read it twenty-five years earlier. Get it here.
( Other books of the year )