March 2012 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.
Lots of work travel this month. I gave a lecture in Geneva; I spoke at a conference in Skopje; and the Georgians took me to Barcelona to (successfully) lobby Liberal International. My trip to Switzerland was more fortunate than one of our local schools, which lost seven pupils and two staff members in the Sierre coach crash. F's own school was directly affected, in that several of the victims had relatives who were either fellow-pupils or on the staff. It was pretty grim.
I read 19 books that month.
Fiction (other than sf) 4 (YTD 8)
Beggars Banquet , by Ian Rankin
Desolation Island, by Patrick O'Brian
Savrola, by Winston Churchill
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, by Umberto Eco
SF (other than Who) 7 (YTD 21)
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
The War of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Waters Rising, by Sheri S. Tepper
The Testament of Jessie Lamb, by Jane Rogers
The End Specialist, by Drew Magary
Hull Zero Three, by Greg Bear
Doctor Who etc 8 (YTD 24)
Almost Perfect , by James Goss
The Plotters, by Gareth Roberts
Strange England, by Simon Messingham
Frontier Worlds, by Peter Anghelides
The Krillitane Storm, by Christopher Cooper
Borrowed Time, by Naomi A. Alderman
Into the Silence, by Sarah Pinborough
Darkstar Academy, by Mark Morris
~6,000 pages (YTD ~20,600)
4/19 (YTD 16/69) by women (Tepper, Rogers, Alderman, Pinborough)
0/19 (YTD 1/69) by PoC
The best of these was The Testament of Jessie Lamb, which would go on to win the Arthur C. Clarke Award; you can get it here.
Runner-up was The Princess Bride, which doesn't pretend to be more than it is; you can get it here.
Very much disrecommend the Torchwood novel Into the Silence, but you can get it here.
Lots of work travel this month. I gave a lecture in Geneva; I spoke at a conference in Skopje; and the Georgians took me to Barcelona to (successfully) lobby Liberal International. My trip to Switzerland was more fortunate than one of our local schools, which lost seven pupils and two staff members in the Sierre coach crash. F's own school was directly affected, in that several of the victims had relatives who were either fellow-pupils or on the staff. It was pretty grim.
I read 19 books that month.
Fiction (other than sf) 4 (YTD 8)
Beggars Banquet , by Ian Rankin
Desolation Island, by Patrick O'Brian
Savrola, by Winston Churchill
The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana, by Umberto Eco
SF (other than Who) 7 (YTD 21)
The Princess Bride, by William Goldman
The War of the Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Under Heaven, by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Waters Rising, by Sheri S. Tepper
The Testament of Jessie Lamb, by Jane Rogers
The End Specialist, by Drew Magary
Hull Zero Three, by Greg Bear
Doctor Who etc 8 (YTD 24)
Almost Perfect , by James Goss
The Plotters, by Gareth Roberts
Strange England, by Simon Messingham
Frontier Worlds, by Peter Anghelides
The Krillitane Storm, by Christopher Cooper
Borrowed Time, by Naomi A. Alderman
Into the Silence, by Sarah Pinborough
Darkstar Academy, by Mark Morris
~6,000 pages (YTD ~20,600)
4/19 (YTD 16/69) by women (Tepper, Rogers, Alderman, Pinborough)
0/19 (YTD 1/69) by PoC
The best of these was The Testament of Jessie Lamb, which would go on to win the Arthur C. Clarke Award; you can get it here.
Runner-up was The Princess Bride, which doesn't pretend to be more than it is; you can get it here.
Very much disrecommend the Torchwood novel Into the Silence, but you can get it here.