September 2011 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.
In my office, Belarusian N left; her replacement was another Belarusian, M. N is back in Brussels (after a brief return to Belarus when she had finished working for me) and now leads an EU-funded body promoting civil society in the Eastern Neighbourhood, and I actually caught up with her for a socially distanced coffee a couple of weeks ago.
My one trip this month was to Strasbourg to lobby the European Parliament on the Western Sahara issue, I think the first time I had been there since 2004. (I have been much more often since, but not for the last year or so.)
Back at home we had a nice family trip on Open Monument Day to the local bunkers.
And F gave a hand with B (who can walk perfectly well but is sometime more co-operative if being wheeled).
A few other notes: Balkan reading; Belgium abolished both directly elected and hereditary members of the Senate; and analysis of the Northern Ireland Boundary Commission proposals (these were the ones that were ultimately sunk by the Lib Dems in retaliation for the Tories' failure to deliver reform of the House of Lords), here (BBC), here and here.
I read 24 books that month.
non-fiction 6 (YTD 52)
Pirate Queen: the Life of Grace O'Malley, by Judith Cook
Stalin Ate My Homework, by Alexei Sayle
The Hero With A Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
British Science Fiction & Fantasy: Twenty Years, Two Surveys, edited by Paul Kincaid and Niall Harrison
Constantinople, by Philip Mansel
Federal Union Now, by Andrew Duff
fiction (non-sf) 3 (YTD 38)
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
The Princess Diaries, by Meg Cabot
The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson
sf (non-Who) 8 (YTD 57)
Ha'Penny, by Jo Walton
George's Secret Key to the Universe, by Lucy & Stephen Hawking
All Clear, by Connie Willis
Of Blood and Honey, by Stina Leicht
And Blue Skies From Pain, by Stina Leicht
The Sharing Knife: Passage, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Return of the Shadow: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part One, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole
Doctor Who / Torchwood (excluding comics) 5 (YTD 59)
Blackout, by Oli Smith
The Way Through The Woods, by Una McCormack
Storm Harvest, by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker
Tragedy Day, by Gareth Roberts
Unnatural History, by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman
Comics 2 (YTD 21)
With the Light... / 光とともに..., vol 4, by Keiko Tobe
[Doctor Who] Voyager, by Steve Parkhouse and Alan McKenzie
~8,400 pages (YTD ~66,500)
11/24 (YTD 52/227) by women (Cook, Cabot, Walton, Hawking, Willis, Leicht x 2, Bujold, McCormack, Orman, Tobe)
1/24 (YTD 12/227) by PoC (Tobe)
The best of these were the first two of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, which you can get here and here, and Jo Walton's Ha'Penny, which you can get here. I thought The Princess Diaries was rubbish, but you can get it here.
In my office, Belarusian N left; her replacement was another Belarusian, M. N is back in Brussels (after a brief return to Belarus when she had finished working for me) and now leads an EU-funded body promoting civil society in the Eastern Neighbourhood, and I actually caught up with her for a socially distanced coffee a couple of weeks ago.
My one trip this month was to Strasbourg to lobby the European Parliament on the Western Sahara issue, I think the first time I had been there since 2004. (I have been much more often since, but not for the last year or so.)
Back at home we had a nice family trip on Open Monument Day to the local bunkers.
And F gave a hand with B (who can walk perfectly well but is sometime more co-operative if being wheeled).
A few other notes: Balkan reading; Belgium abolished both directly elected and hereditary members of the Senate; and analysis of the Northern Ireland Boundary Commission proposals (these were the ones that were ultimately sunk by the Lib Dems in retaliation for the Tories' failure to deliver reform of the House of Lords), here (BBC), here and here.
I read 24 books that month.
non-fiction 6 (YTD 52)
Pirate Queen: the Life of Grace O'Malley, by Judith Cook
Stalin Ate My Homework, by Alexei Sayle
The Hero With A Thousand Faces, by Joseph Campbell
British Science Fiction & Fantasy: Twenty Years, Two Surveys, edited by Paul Kincaid and Niall Harrison
Constantinople, by Philip Mansel
Federal Union Now, by Andrew Duff
fiction (non-sf) 3 (YTD 38)
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, by Stieg Larsson
The Princess Diaries, by Meg Cabot
The Girl Who Played With Fire, by Stieg Larsson
sf (non-Who) 8 (YTD 57)
Ha'Penny, by Jo Walton
George's Secret Key to the Universe, by Lucy & Stephen Hawking
All Clear, by Connie Willis
Of Blood and Honey, by Stina Leicht
And Blue Skies From Pain, by Stina Leicht
The Sharing Knife: Passage, by Lois McMaster Bujold
The Return of the Shadow: The History of The Lord of the Rings, Part One, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole
Doctor Who / Torchwood (excluding comics) 5 (YTD 59)
Blackout, by Oli Smith
The Way Through The Woods, by Una McCormack
Storm Harvest, by Robert Perry and Mike Tucker
Tragedy Day, by Gareth Roberts
Unnatural History, by Jonathan Blum and Kate Orman
Comics 2 (YTD 21)
With the Light... / 光とともに..., vol 4, by Keiko Tobe
[Doctor Who] Voyager, by Steve Parkhouse and Alan McKenzie
~8,400 pages (YTD ~66,500)
11/24 (YTD 52/227) by women (Cook, Cabot, Walton, Hawking, Willis, Leicht x 2, Bujold, McCormack, Orman, Tobe)
1/24 (YTD 12/227) by PoC (Tobe)
The best of these were the first two of Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy, which you can get here and here, and Jo Walton's Ha'Penny, which you can get here. I thought The Princess Diaries was rubbish, but you can get it here.