May 2010 books
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 big event of May 2010 was the British general election, which brought an end to 13 years of Labour government and installed the Conservatives, initially in coalition with the Lib Dems (remember them?) and later more or less on their own. It was a game-changer for me in that I spent election night punditting in the BBC studios in Belfast with Mark Devenport, an experience I wrote up here:
I got mentioned here and here in the BBC's online coverage too.
I actually had a whole week in Ireland, because the BBC asked me to turn up for rehearsals on the Sunday before the election, which was on Thursday. I spent the days in between exploring places associated with my ancestor Sir Nicholas White in the south-east. That's a project that is basically on hold because of the Hugos.
I read 22 books in May 2010:
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 25)
The Pensionnat Revisited, by Eric Ruijssenaars
Teach Yourself Irish, by Diarmuid Ó Sé and Joseph Shiels
Half-Life of a Zealot, by Swanee Hunt
Ever Since Darwin, by Stephen Jay Gould
Non-genre 3 (YTD 23)
A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
Out, by Natsuo Kirino
Rookwood, by William Harrison Ainsworth
sf 8 (YTD 40)
Cordelia's Honor / Shards of Honor + Barrayar, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest
Quidditch Through The Ages, by J.K. Rowling
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Women of Nell Gwynne's, by Kage Baker
WWW: Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
Doctor Who 4 (YTD 28, 31 counting comics and non-fiction)
The Murder Game, by Steve Lyons
The Final Sanction, by Steve Lyons
Apollo 23, by Justin Richards
Transit, by Ben Aaronovitch
Comics 3
Captain Britain and MI13: Vampire State, by Paul Cornell
Blood Upon The Rose: Easter 1916, by Gerry Hunt
Het Aïda Protocol, by Yannick Laude, Marco Venanzi & Michel Pierret
Page count ~5,800 (YTD ~37,100)
7/22 (YTD 29/125) by women (Hunt, Kirino, Baker, Rowling, Priest, 2xBujold)
2/22 (YTD 11/125) by PoC (Kirino, Hosseini)
It's always a pleasure to return to Bujold's opening Vorkosigan stories, which you can get here, and Lord of the Flies, which you can get here; the best new read of the month was Natsuo Kirino's gritty Out, which you can get here. The worst book of the month was Victorian potboiler Rookwood, which you can get (for free) here.
The big event of May 2010 was the British general election, which brought an end to 13 years of Labour government and installed the Conservatives, initially in coalition with the Lib Dems (remember them?) and later more or less on their own. It was a game-changer for me in that I spent election night punditting in the BBC studios in Belfast with Mark Devenport, an experience I wrote up here:
I got mentioned here and here in the BBC's online coverage too.
I actually had a whole week in Ireland, because the BBC asked me to turn up for rehearsals on the Sunday before the election, which was on Thursday. I spent the days in between exploring places associated with my ancestor Sir Nicholas White in the south-east. That's a project that is basically on hold because of the Hugos.
I read 22 books in May 2010:
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 25)
The Pensionnat Revisited, by Eric Ruijssenaars
Teach Yourself Irish, by Diarmuid Ó Sé and Joseph Shiels
Half-Life of a Zealot, by Swanee Hunt
Ever Since Darwin, by Stephen Jay Gould
Non-genre 3 (YTD 23)
A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini
Out, by Natsuo Kirino
Rookwood, by William Harrison Ainsworth
sf 8 (YTD 40)
Cordelia's Honor / Shards of Honor + Barrayar, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Boneshaker, by Cherie Priest
Quidditch Through The Ages, by J.K. Rowling
The Windup Girl, by Paolo Bacigalupi
The Women of Nell Gwynne's, by Kage Baker
WWW: Wake, by Robert J. Sawyer
Lord of the Flies, by William Golding
Doctor Who 4 (YTD 28, 31 counting comics and non-fiction)
The Murder Game, by Steve Lyons
The Final Sanction, by Steve Lyons
Apollo 23, by Justin Richards
Transit, by Ben Aaronovitch
Comics 3
Captain Britain and MI13: Vampire State, by Paul Cornell
Blood Upon The Rose: Easter 1916, by Gerry Hunt
Het Aïda Protocol, by Yannick Laude, Marco Venanzi & Michel Pierret
Page count ~5,800 (YTD ~37,100)
7/22 (YTD 29/125) by women (Hunt, Kirino, Baker, Rowling, Priest, 2xBujold)
2/22 (YTD 11/125) by PoC (Kirino, Hosseini)
It's always a pleasure to return to Bujold's opening Vorkosigan stories, which you can get here, and Lord of the Flies, which you can get here; the best new read of the month was Natsuo Kirino's gritty Out, which you can get here. The worst book of the month was Victorian potboiler Rookwood, which you can get (for free) here.