July 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.
July 2010 was quite a heavy travel month for me, starting with Kosovo (in advance of the ICJ ruling), a day-trip to the Hague, then a brief trip to London, and a long trip to Juba and Kampala where I was part of the delegation of Southern Sudan (as it then was) to the African Union summit, and ending the month with my sister in Burgundy. I Skyped with F the day before his 11th birthday from my hotel in Juba.
This was my fourth and last trip to South Sudan, and my only visit to Uganda so far. As you can tell, my colleague and I somewhat stuck out among the Southern Sudanese delegates in Kampala; we are not tall enough. On the left, we are meeting with the then Foreign Minister and his Undersecretary; on the right, with some of the Southern Sudan team in Kampala. The very tall chap, Ador Akok Athuai, is 7'2", 218 cm, certainly the tallest person I have ever met.
I took a hasty couple of photos which seemed remarkable enough at the time: Colonel Gaddhafi, the leader of Libya, brushed past us with his entourage as we loitered on the shores of Lake Victoria waiting for lunch. There was no sign of the rumoured bodyguard of trained Ukrainian superwomen, though we understood that he was making his way to his personal travel tent, pitched further along the bay behind us.
Seven months later, his regime had crumbled, and fifteen months later, he was dead in a ditch. (The chap he was talking to, the then president of Comoros, was also out of power less than a year later, but that was just because his term of office came to an end and he did not stand for re-election; I'm glad to say that he is still alive.)
I also visited Makerere University in Kampala, where my father had taught for several years in the late 1950s. There were still some records of his presence, though the university has had some tough times since. I identfied the corridor where his office would have been.
This is also the month that I started my daily Whoniversary blogging, first time around.
I read 21 books that month.
Non-Fiction 11 (YTD 41)
Hope-In-The-Mist, by Michael Swanwick
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol II
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol III
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol IV
A Fortunate Life: The Autobiography of Paddy Ashdown
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vols I & II, by Edward Gibbon
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol V
The Stuff of Thought, by Steven Pinker
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol VI
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol VII
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol VIII
Fiction (non-genre) 3 (YTD 28)
Dead Souls, by Ian Rankin
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
SF (non-Who) 1 (YTD 46)
Faust, by Goethe
Doctor Who etc 5 (YTD 37, 41 counting comics and non-fiction)
In The Shadows, by Joseph Lidster
Martha In The Mirror, by Justin Richards
Everyone Says Hello, by Dan Abnett
Doctor Who Annual 1973
The Highest Science by Gareth Roberts
Comics 1 (YTD 9)
Black Hole, by Charles Burns
~9,200 pages (YTD 52,100)
Rather appallingly 0/21 (YTD 34/165) by women
Equally appallingly 0/21 (YTD 11/165) by PoC (as far as I know)
This month's reading was dominated by the Bloody Sunday Report, on which more next month, and the first of the three two-volume compilations of Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Apart from that the best book was The Sun Also Rises, which I had not read before; you can get it here. The worst was the very disappointing 1973 Doctor Who Annual, which you can get here (at a price).
July 2010 was quite a heavy travel month for me, starting with Kosovo (in advance of the ICJ ruling), a day-trip to the Hague, then a brief trip to London, and a long trip to Juba and Kampala where I was part of the delegation of Southern Sudan (as it then was) to the African Union summit, and ending the month with my sister in Burgundy. I Skyped with F the day before his 11th birthday from my hotel in Juba.
This was my fourth and last trip to South Sudan, and my only visit to Uganda so far. As you can tell, my colleague and I somewhat stuck out among the Southern Sudanese delegates in Kampala; we are not tall enough. On the left, we are meeting with the then Foreign Minister and his Undersecretary; on the right, with some of the Southern Sudan team in Kampala. The very tall chap, Ador Akok Athuai, is 7'2", 218 cm, certainly the tallest person I have ever met.
I took a hasty couple of photos which seemed remarkable enough at the time: Colonel Gaddhafi, the leader of Libya, brushed past us with his entourage as we loitered on the shores of Lake Victoria waiting for lunch. There was no sign of the rumoured bodyguard of trained Ukrainian superwomen, though we understood that he was making his way to his personal travel tent, pitched further along the bay behind us.
Seven months later, his regime had crumbled, and fifteen months later, he was dead in a ditch. (The chap he was talking to, the then president of Comoros, was also out of power less than a year later, but that was just because his term of office came to an end and he did not stand for re-election; I'm glad to say that he is still alive.)
I also visited Makerere University in Kampala, where my father had taught for several years in the late 1950s. There were still some records of his presence, though the university has had some tough times since. I identfied the corridor where his office would have been.
This is also the month that I started my daily Whoniversary blogging, first time around.
I read 21 books that month.
Non-Fiction 11 (YTD 41)
Hope-In-The-Mist, by Michael Swanwick
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol II
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol III
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol IV
A Fortunate Life: The Autobiography of Paddy Ashdown
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Vols I & II, by Edward Gibbon
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol V
The Stuff of Thought, by Steven Pinker
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol VI
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol VII
The Bloody Sunday Report, Vol VIII
Fiction (non-genre) 3 (YTD 28)
Dead Souls, by Ian Rankin
Oliver Twist, by Charles Dickens
The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway
SF (non-Who) 1 (YTD 46)
Faust, by Goethe
Doctor Who etc 5 (YTD 37, 41 counting comics and non-fiction)
In The Shadows, by Joseph Lidster
Martha In The Mirror, by Justin Richards
Everyone Says Hello, by Dan Abnett
Doctor Who Annual 1973
The Highest Science by Gareth Roberts
Comics 1 (YTD 9)
Black Hole, by Charles Burns
~9,200 pages (YTD 52,100)
Rather appallingly 0/21 (YTD 34/165) by women
Equally appallingly 0/21 (YTD 11/165) by PoC (as far as I know)
This month's reading was dominated by the Bloody Sunday Report, on which more next month, and the first of the three two-volume compilations of Gibbon's Decline and Fall. Apart from that the best book was The Sun Also Rises, which I had not read before; you can get it here. The worst was the very disappointing 1973 Doctor Who Annual, which you can get here (at a price).