nwhyte, posts by tag: bookblog 2013 - LiveJournal

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The Just City, by Jo Walton (feedback on unpublished manuscript)
The Philosopher Kings, by Jo Walton (feedback on unpublished manuscript)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).

( Collapse )
( Collapse )
( Collapse )
( Collapse )



( Collapse )

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.
( Collapse )

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 of course was the month of the Doctor Who 50th anniversary, with Peter Davison's The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot) featuring me in the background of an early crowd scene.
Doctor Who also provided me with one of my most successful Tweets ever ()to the extent that it featured in a Buzzfeed roundup of pictures we can stop tweeting in 2014):

#fb Tom Baker's answer when asked about his favourite memory of #DoctorWho pic.twitter.com/li28XFwyXj

— 𝙉𝙞𝙘𝙝𝙤𝙡𝙖𝙨 𝙒𝙝𝙮𝙩𝙚 🇪🇺 🇧🇪 (@nwbrux) November 14, 2013

I had a lot of leisure travel this month - we took the long 1 November weekend in Amsterdam, where we visited the Anne Frank House; F and I went to Novacon in Nottingham in the middle of the month (as it happens I am going to this year's Novacon tomorrow); and on 23 November we drove to Germany to see Day of the Doctor in a cinema near Cologne. I also flew to Edinburgh on a work trip, though even there I stayed with Charlie and Feorag. At the end of the month came the sad but not unexpected news of my aunt Nora's death. Here's Jo Walton, the Guest of Honour at Novacon, with the coins that she named her excellent Small Change trilogy after.
Work continued to be unhappy and I started seeing a career counsellor, which was quite expensive but money well spent, as we shall see when I get to that stage.

With a lot of driving, I read only 11 books.

Non-Fiction 3 (YTD 43)
The Watchers: A Secret History of the Reign of Elizabeth I, by Stephen Alford
Isaac Asimov: A Life of the Grand Master of Science Fiction, by Michael White
Reading the Oxford English Dictionary: One Man, One Year, 21,730 Pages, by Ammon Shea

Fiction (non-sf) 2 (YTD 39)
Jacob Have I Loved, by Katherine Paterson
Reamde, by Neal Stephenson

SF (non-Who) 1 (YTD 56)
There Will be Time, by Poul Anderson

Doctor Who etc 5 (YTD 67, 78 counting non-fiction and comics)
Nightdreamers, by Tom Arden
SLEEPY, by Kate Orman
Dark Progeny, by Steve Emmerson
Nothing O'Clock, by Neil Gaiman
Torchwood: Long Time Dead, by Sarah Pinborough

~3,400 pages (YTD ~60,200)
3/11 (YTD 66/235) by women (Paterson, Orman, Pinborough)
0/11 (YTD 10/235) by PoC

The two I enjoyed most were Jacob Have I Loved, which you can get here, and The Watchers, which you can get here. Michael White's Asimov biography was forgettable, 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. Today we reach exactly the half-way point - 120 posts down, 120 to go.

The month started with a rather grim work trip to Barcelona, featured a more pleasant but intense trip to the European Parliament in Strasbourg in the middle and ended with a Worldcon planning meeting in London, which I ducked out of for an afternoon to visit my dying aunt in hospital. Here's the Worldcon Committee at work.
I read 33 books that month.

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 40)
A Book of Silence, by Sarah Maitland
Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, by Mary Roach
The Girl: A Life in the Shadow of Roman Polanski, by Samantha Geimer
The History of the Hobbit vol 2: Return to Bag-End, by John Rateliff
The Last Mughal, by William Dalrymple

Fiction (non-sf) 3 (YTF 37)
The House of the Seven Gables, by Nathaniel Hawthorne
The Far Side Of The World, by Patrick O'Brian
The Flood, by Ian Rankin

SF (non-Who) 6 (YTD 55)
The Subtle Knife, by Philip Pullman
Conjure Wife, by Fritz Leiber
Returning My Sister's Face, And Other Far Eastern Tales of Whimsy and Malice, by Eugie Foster
Mortal Clay, Stone Heart and Other Stories in Shades of Black and White, by Eugie Foster
Odd and the Frost Giants, by Neil Gaiman
Equal Rites, by Terry Pratchett

Doctor Who, etc 15 (YTD 62, 73 including non-fiction and comics)
Catastrophea, by Terrance Dicks
Warchild, by Andrew Cartmel
The Slow Empire, by Dave Stone
The Mystery of the Haunted Cottage, by David Landy
Invasion of the Bane, by Terrance Dicks
Revenge of the Slitheen, by Rupert Laight
Eye of the Gorgon, by Phil Ford
Warriors of Kudlak, by Gary Russell
Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, by Rupert Laight
The Lost Boy, by Gary Russell
The Last Sontaran, by Gary Russell
Day of the Clown, by Phil Ford
The Wedding of Sarah Jane Smith, by Gareth Roberts
The Nightmare Man, by Joseph Lidster
Death of the Doctor, by Gary Russell

Comics 4 (YTD 28)
De Sigaren van de Farao [Cigars of the Pharaoh], by Hergé
De Blauwe Lotus [The Blue Lotus] by Hergé
De Zwarte Rotsen [The Black Island], by Hergé
Fables Vol. 17: Inherit the Wind, by Bill Willingham

~6,900 pages (YTD 56,800)
5/33 (YTD 63/224) by women (Geimer, Ropach, Maitland, 2x Foster)
2/33 (YTF 10/224) by PoC (2x Foster)

The best of these was William Dalrymple's The Last Mughal, which you can get here, and the worst Nathaniel Hawthorne's The House of the Seven Gables, 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, Anglo-American M left my office and moved in with a nice Bulgarian chap D, who I had actually introduced her to one evening in July. They are now married with a little girl, and currently in Bulgaria where D is running in the election next month. M's replacement was Swedish/German L.

I had a fair bit of travel in September 2013: to Berlin, for reasons I cannot now remember, to Poland for the first time for a conference in Krynica-Zdrój, where I bonded a bit with Pete Wishart, and to Dublin for a one-day mission. But the biggest work development was that I found myself rather oddly representing Somaliland at the big Brussels conference on Somalia, after the government representatives of Somaliland pulled out at the last moment. Since I wasn't allowed inside the hall, this mainly meant hanging around in the atrium of the Egmont Palace looking for people to talk to, though there was one exciting moment when I found myself (successfully) lobbying the Italian foreign minister (who I knew) about the final communique.

The Northern Ireland representation in Brussels had a fantastic culture night, with this amazing piper (whose name I have sadly forgotten), followed by the head of the office performing.
We also had the Oud-Heverlee Zomerfeest.

And Loncon II became the seated Worldcon, with this fantastic handover video, which I don't think has been excelled:

I read 19 books that month.

Non-fiction 4 (YTD 35)
Clean: An Unsanitised History of Washing, by Katherine Ashenburg
The Theology of the Gospel of Mark, by W.R. Telford
Who and Me, by Barry Letts
Strengths Finder 2.0, by Tom Rath

Poetry 1
Meeting the British, by Paul Muldoon

Fiction (non-sf) 4 (YTD 34)
The Body In The Library, by Agatha Christie
A Murder Is Announced, by Agatha Christie
Evil under the Sun, by Agatha Christie
Home Truths, by Freya North

SF (non-Who) 3 (YTD 49)
Royal Assassin, by Robin Hobb
The Queen's Bastard, by C.E. Murphy
The Moment of Eclipse, by Brian W. Aldiss

Doctor Who 5 (YTD 47, 58 including non-fiction and comics)
The Suns of Caresh, by Paul Saint
Just War, by Lance Parkin
The Year of Intelligent Tigers, by Kate Orman
The Beast of Babylon, by Charlie Higson
Shroud of Sorrow, by Tommy Donbavand

Comics 2 (YTD 24)
The Books of Magic, by Neil Gaiman
The Castafiore Emerald, by Hergé

~5,200 pages (YTD 49,900)
7/19 (YTD 58/191) by women (3xChristie, North, Hobb, Murphy, Orman)
0/19 (YTD 8/191) by PoC

The best of these, though a reread, was The Moment of Eclipse, by Brian Aldiss; you can get it here. I enjoyed almost all the rest, especially poetry collection Meeting the British, by Paul Muldoon, which you can get here, and chick-lit novel Home Truths, by Freya North, which you can get here - fourth in a series where I had not read the other three, but very accessible to a new reader. Was very unimpressed by the Agatha Christie Evil Under the Sun, 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.

We started our holiday with a Doctor Who event in Slough, attended by no fewer than twelve Doctor Who companions. (This was also where filming took place for The Five-ish Doctors Reboot.)Left to right: Bernice Summerfield (Lisa Bowerman), Ace (Sophie Aldred), Adric (Matthew Waterhouse), Nyssa (Sarah Sutton), Tegan (Janet Fielding), Leela (Louise Jameson), Romana II (Lalla Ward), K9 (John Leeson), Victoria (the late Deborah Watling), Susan (Carole Ann Ford), Jo Grant (Katy Manning) and Polly (Anneke Wills).

We saw lots of old friends while in Northern Ireland, but I don't seem to have taken photos or kept much of a record. (I was very stressed.) I also noted that Seamus Heaney died at the end of the month.

I read 31 books that month.

Non-fiction 9 (YTD 31)
Proportional Representation in Ireland, by James Creed Meredith
The Monsters and the Critics, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, by Jeanette Winterson
The History of The Hobbit, vol 1: Mr Baggins, by John D. Rateliff
The Best of Tardis Eruditorum, by Philip Sandifer
Eleanor, Countess of Desmond, by Anne Chambers
Tell My Horse, by Zora Neale Hurston
Rebus's Scotland: A Personal Journey, by Ian Rankin
In Loco Parentis, by Ken Riley

Fiction (non-sf) 7 (YTD 30)
The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie
Standing In Another Man's Grave, by Ian Rankin
Death on the Nile, by Agatha Christie
Resistance, by Anita Shreve
The Mysterious Affair At Styles, by Agatha Christie
The A.B.C. Murders, by Agatha Christie
The Murder at the Vicarage, by Agatha Christie

SF (non-Who) 7 (YTD 46)
Kraken, by China Miéville
The Gods of Pegāna, by Lord Dunsany
Shakespeare's Planet, by Clifford D. Simak
Far North, by Sara Maitland
Far North, by Marcel Theroux
The Tunnel at the End of the Light, by Stefan Petrucha
The Crown of Dalemark, by Diana Wynne Jones

Doctor Who 5 (YTD 42, 52 counting non-fiction and comics)
The Wages of Sin, by David A. McIntee
Shakedown, by Terrance Dicks
Eater of Wasps, by Trevor Baxendale
The Dalek Generation, by Nicholas Briggs
Spore, by Alex Scarrow

Comics 3 (YTD 22)
Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, by Hergé
The Dalek Project, by Justin Richards, ill. Mike Collins
Luther Arkwright, by Bryan Talbot

~7,600 pages (YTD 44,700)
11/31 (YTD 49/172) by women (Winterson, Chambers, Shreve, Maitland, Jones, 6x Christie)
1/31 (YTD 8/172) by PoC (Hurston)

The best of these were The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, by Agatha Christie (a re-read), which you can get here, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?, by Jeanette Winterson, which you can get here, and Tell My Horse, by Zora Neale Hurston, which you can get here. Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, by Hergé, is just as bad as you have heard, but you can get it here. I also bounced off The Tunnel at the End of the Light, by Stefan Petrucha, 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 month started on a high note with the accession of Croatia to the EU, something I had helped with a bit (though many others did more).
Otherwise work continued to be pretty wretched. I did not travel outside Belgium, though did have some nice gatherings; here are my two (then) favourite foreign ministers, Natalia Gherman of Moldova and Maia Panjikidze of Georgia, sharing a panel:
I held one of my regular gatherings of current and former interns (Colombian L, Estonian L, Belarusian M, Anglo-American M, and Belarusian N, who I am due to have lunch with on Thursday; picture taken by slemslempike):
South Sudan invited me to their independence day party:
Preparations for the 2014 Worldcon continued apace. Albert II, the King of the Belgians, abdicated and was replaced by his son, Philippe. My brake cables were chewed by beech martens.

I read 24 books that month.

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 22)
A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf
Shakespeare's Handwriting: A Study, by Edward Maunde Thompson
Katherine Swynford: The History of a Medieval Mistress, by Jeannette Lucraft

Fiction (non-sf) 9 (YTD 23)
The Complete Stories of Zora Neale Hurston
Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol
Desert, by J.M.G. Le Clézio
Confessions of Zeno, by Italo Svevo
The Last Empress, by Anchee Min
And Then There Were None, by Agatha Christie
Spend Game, by Jonathan Gash
Murder on the Orient Express, by Agatha Christie
The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens

SF (non-Who) 4 (YTD 39)
The Jagged Orbit, by John Brunner
Fantastic Voyage, by Isaac Asimov
Kiss of the Butterfly, by James Lyon
Mockingjay, by Suzanne Collins

Doctor Who 5 (YTD 37, 45 counting non-fiction and comics)
Harvest of Time, by Alastair Reynolds
The Also People, by Ben Aaronovitch
Vanishing Point, by Steve Cole
Plague of the Cybermen, by Justin Richards
The Ripple Effect, by Malorie Blackman

Comics 3 (YTD 19)
Misschien, by Kristof Spaey and Marc Legendre
Nooit, by Kristof Spaey and Marc Legendre
Ooit, by Kristof Spaey and Marc Legendre

~6,600 pages (YTD 37,100)
8/24 (YTD 38/141) by women (Woolf, Lucraft, Hurston, Min, Christiex2, Collins, Blackman)
3/24 (YTD 7/141) by PoC (Hurston, Min, Blackman)

The best of these was A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf, which you can get here, closely followed by what were then the Complete Stories of Zora Neale Hurston (since supplemented), which you can get here. Nothing particularly awful.</p>

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 two trips were again both pleasure rather than business - I went to Belfast to launch the new Northern Ireland elections archive, and to London for a 2014 Worldcon meeting. Towards the end of the month my back problems from 2009 returned, and my work environment started a deterioration into toxicity from which it never really recovered. The very sad news came of the death of Iain M. Banks, who had been due to be a Worldcon guest. I had taken this great picture of him in 2007:
Giants walked the streets of Leuven.
And we went to find F's tree.
In popular culture, Game of Thrones reached one of its iconic episodes.

Somewhere, there's a couple all of a sudden reconsidering their Game of Thrones-themed wedding.

— Caitlin Kelly (@caitlin__kelly) June 3, 2013

I read 22 books that month.

Non-fiction 6 (YTD 19)
The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature, ed. Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn
The Irish Constitutional Revolution of the Sixteenth Century, by Brendan Bradshaw
PR Urban Elections in Ulster 1920, by Alec Wilson
Miradal: Erfgoed in Heverleebos en Meerdaalwoud, by Hans Baeté, Marc De Bie, Martin Hermy, Paul Van den Bremt and Sara Adriaenssens
TARDIS Eruditorum - An Unofficial Critical History of Doctor Who Volume 3: Jon Pertwee, by Elizabeth Sandifer

Fiction (non-sf) 5 (YTD 14)
The Garden of Evening Mists, by Tan Twan Eng
The Gondola Scam, by Jonathan Gash
Housekeeping, by Marilynne Robinson
Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl
The Name of the Rose, by Umberto Eco and footnote

SF (non-Who) 3 (YTD 35)
Catching Fire, by Suzanne Collins
Blackbirds, by Chuck Wendig
Starship Fall, by Eric Brown

Doctor Who 5 (YTD 32, 40 counting non-fiction and comics)
Rags, by Mick Lewis
Head Games, by Steve Lyons
EarthWorld, by Jacqueline Rayner
Hunter's Moon, by Paul Finch
Something Borrowed, by Richelle Mead

Comics 3 (YTD 16)
Clockworks (Locke & Key Vol 4), by Joe Hill
Saga, vol. 1, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Afspraak in Nieuwpoort, by Ivan Adriaenssens

~5,700 pages (YTD 30,500)
7/22 (YTD 30/117) by women (Mendlesohn, Sara Adriaenssens, Robinson, Collins, Rayner, Mead, Staples)
2/22 (YTD 4/117) by PoC (Eng, Staples)

Enjoyed rereading Name of the Rose, which you can get here, and Danny the Champion of the World, which you can get here. Enjoyed discovering Tardis Eruditorum 3, which you can get here, and Housekeeping, which you can get here. Not impressed by two of the Doctor Who books, Rags, which you can get here, and Hunter's Moon, 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 two trips this month were both pleasure rather than business: my aunt Nora's 70th birthday at the start of the month, and a Worldcon preparation trip to London at the end. Spoiler: Nora sadly died only a few months later, so it was more special than we realised. Here she is on the right, with another aunt, an uncle and my cousin who is also my older godson, singing away.
As usual my own pictures largely failed to get the birthday girl, apart from one dynamic shot with her two daughters.
In London later that month, I tried a couple of unusual means of transport - a water taxi which gave me a good view of the Tower of London:
And the Emirates Air Line cable car for the last step of the journey, the ExCeL, visible here.
I read 22 books that month.

Non-fiction 4 (YTD 13)
The Crocodile by the Door, by Selina Guinness
“I have an Idea for a Book ...”: The Bibliography of Martin H. Greenberg
A History of the World in 100 Objects, by Neil MacGregor
Miracles of Life, by J.G. Ballard

Fiction (not sf) 2 (YTD 9)
Doors Open, by Ian Rankin
The Judas Pair, by Jonathan Gash

SF (not Who) 6 (YTD 32)
Redshirts, by John Scalzi
The Quantum Thief, by Hannu Rajaniemi
The Name of the Wind, by Patrick Rothfuss
The Peoples of Middle-earth, by J.R.R. Tolkien, edited by Christopher Tolkien
Toward the End of Time, by John Updike
Three Parts Dead, by Max Gladstone

Doctor Who 5 (YTD 27, 34 counting non-fiction and comics)
Deadly Reunion, by Terrance Dicks and Barry Letts
Toy Soldiers, by Paul Leonard
Escape Velocity, by Colin Brake
Magic of the Angels, by Jacqueline Rayner
Tip of the Tongue, by Patrick Ness

Comics 5 (YTD 13)
Final Sacrifice, by Tony Lee and others
Vincent van Gogh: De Worsteling van een Kunstenaar, by Marc Verhaegen and Jan Kragt
Vincent, by Barbara Stok
Grandville: Bête Noire, by Bryan Talbot
Aldébaran 4: La Groupe, by Leo

~5,800 pages (YTD 24,800)
3/22 (YTD 23/95) by women (Guinness, Rayner, Stok)
2/22 (YTD 2/95) by PoC (Ahmed, de Bodard)

The best of these was Neil McGregor's fantastic History of the World in 100 Objects, accompanying the BBC podcast; you can get it here. I also really liked my old friend Selina Guinness's A Crocodile by the Door, which you can get here, and Patrick Rothfuss' The Name of the Wind, which you can get here. Non-fiction Hugo finalist I Have an Idea For a Book... was a total waste of time, 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.

My one trip this month was to Bratislava, where I chaired a session of a conference which was sadly deficient in gender representation. My French intern MG returned to Geneva, her career base, and is still there in the private banking sector. Her replacement, Anglo-American M, was recruited by me at rather short notice when my original choice dropped out; M negotiated an arrangement where she worked for me four days a week and spent the fifth on the Iraq Body Count website. I asked her to at least sit in the office on Iraq days so that I would have company.

We were also honoured and pleased to host the late great Tony De Brum, Minister-in-Assistance to the President of the Republic of the Marshall Islands (effectively Vice-President), when he came to Brussels to meet the European Commission. We took him to a pub on Place Lux afterwards.

Marshall Islands' Minister de Brum and ID's @nwbrux in Brussels after spking at @CEPS_thinktank pic.twitter.com/DgR3W4vz35

— Independent Diplomat (@IDiplomat) April 24, 2013

We also helped out with a colourful demonstration by Somalilanders and their supporters in the EU district of Brussels.
In British news, I began the month by dropping my membership of the Lib Dems (since reinstated), and then Margaret Thatcher died. At the end of the month, more positively, my cousin Brian was appointed executive producer of Doctor Who.

My mother came to visit, and got some good photos of us and the kids.
I celebrated my birthday with an impromptu pub lunch in The Old Oak. The next day, I went to the Antwerp Science Fiction and Comics convention, which was great fun.
I read 20 books that month.

Non-fiction 2 (YTD 9)
Chicks Dig Comics, ed. Lynne M. Thomas and Sigrid Ellis
TARDIS Eruditorum, vol 1: William Hartnell, by Elizabeth Sandifer

Fiction (non-sf) 2 (YTD 7)
Bring Up The Bodies, by Hilary Mantel
Swallows and Amazons, by Arthur Ransome

sf (non-Who) 9 (YTD 26)
Throne of the Crescent Moon, by Saladin Ahmed
The Blade Itself, by Joe Abercrombie
San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, by "Mira Grant"
After the Fall, Before the Fall, During the Fall, by Nancy Kress
On a Red Station, Drifting, by Aliette de Bodard
The Emperor’s Soul, by Brandon Sanderson
1632, by Eric Flint
Something Wicked This Way Comes, by Ray Bradbury
Blackout, by "Mira Grant"

Who 5 (YTD 22, 28 counting non-fiction and comics)
The Eye of the Giant, by Christopher Bulis
Summer Falls by 'Amelia Williams' (James Goss)
Zamper, by Gareth Roberts
Father Time, by Lance Parkin
The Roots of Evil, by Philip Reeve

Comics 2 (YTD 8)
Aldébaran 3: La Photo, by Leo
Tesseract, by Tony Lee

~5,500 pages (YTD 19,000)
6/20 (YTD 20/73) by women (Thomas/Ellis, Mantel, "Grant"x2, Kress, de Bodard)
2/20 (YTD 2/73) by PoC (Ahmed, de Bodard)

Best of these was the first volume of TARDIS Eruditorum, by Elizabeth Sandifer; you can get it here. However I bounced off both Joe Abercrombie's The Blade Itself, which you can get here, and Mira Grant's San Diego 2014: The Last Stand of the California Browncoats, 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 in Berlin, but flew immediately to London for a Worldcon planning weekend. No sooner was I back from London than I went to Geneva for a day. At the end of the month I visited Barcelona, where I caught up with an old friend (who you may spot in my college-era photos) and her children.
Also a lovely picture of the Atomium at night (we were up there seeing the first Hobbit film):
I had one of those funny exchanges at work. I had attended a press conference given by several MEPs in the European Parliament, and was chatting to an assistant who I knew on the way out. He said, "What struck me was that none of them are native English speakers, but their press release was very well written."
     "Oh, do you really think so?" I replied. "Very glad to hear it." (Polishing fingernails modestly.)
     My friend was shocked. "Isn't that a bit off, a lobbyist writing a press release that is then issued by MEPs?"
     I said, "No, not really. They asked me to give a hand with drafting, I did it for free because it's in my client's interests and they all know that, they were satisfied with my text and they used it. They could have changed it if they wanted, but they didn't."
     "Anyway," I added, "I once sat in an MEP's office and wrote and sent an email to other MEPs from his official account. He was looking over my shoulder of course, and could have changed the text or stopped me sending the email if he wanted, but it was my fingers on the keyboard. I'm sure that happens all the time."
     "Wow," said my friend.
     "What's more," I added, "that MEP was in fact the MEP who you happen to work for. Before your time, I think."

No names, of course. Also I got profiled in Brussel Deze Week.

In the outside world there was a by-election in Mid Ulster.

With a lot of daytime travel and also some short books, I read 24 that month.

Non-fiction 2 (YTD 7)
The Unfree French, by Richard Vinen
What's Up With Catalonia? The causes which impel them to the separation, translated and edited by Liz Castro

Fiction (non-sf) 3 (YTD 5)
A Rag, a Bone, a Hank of Hair, by Jonathan Gash
The Castle, by Franz Kafka
The Lady and the Unicorn, by Tracy Chevalier

Play 1 (TYD 1)
Observatory, by Daragh Carville

sf (non-Who) 9 (YTD 17)
The Left Hand of Darkness, by Ursula Le Guin
Intrusion, by Ken MacLeod
2312, by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Flight of the Ravens, by Chris Butler
Adrift on the Sea of Rains, by Ian Sales
How To Train Your Dragon, by Cressida Cowell
How To Cheat A Dragon's Curse, by Cressida Cowell
How To Twist A Dragon's Tale, by Cressida Cowell
How To Seize A Dragon's Jewel, by Cressida Cowell

Doctor Who 5 (YTD 17, 21 counting non-fiction and comics)
Players, by Terrance Dicks
Endgame, by Terrance Dicks
World Game, by Terrance Dicks
The Spear of Destiny, by Marcus Sedgwick
Sky Pirates!, by Dave Stone

Comics 4 (YTD 6)
Berlin - A City Divided: Chronicles, by Susanne Buddenberg and Thomas Henseler
Bruss. Brussels in Shorts, ed. Ilke Froyen and Piet Joostens
Saucer Country, vol 1: Run, by Paul Cornell
Fugitive, by Tony Lee

~5,900 pages (YTD 13,500)
9/24 (YTD 14/53) by women (Castro, Chevalier, Le Guin, Cowell x 4, Buddenberg, Froyen and contributors)
0/24 (YTD 0/53) by PoC

The best of these was The Left Hand of Darkness, a reread of course; you can get it here. Least impressed by the often great Terrance Dicks' Endgame; you can get it here.