June 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 travel with my Georgian client that month, but no time for photographs: starting with a site visit in Tbilisi, and then to Geneva to lobby the UN, and Strasbourg to lobby the Council of Europe.
In my reading world, a group of us were working our way through War and Peace and happened to hit the precise 200th anniversary of the French invasion of Russia while reading it, which was an interesting synchronicity.
In external news that I don't really care about, Queen Elizabeth II marked fifty years on the throne. (The actual anniversary is in February but they celebrate in June.) I imagine that she will make it to sixty next year.
I read 29 books that month.
Non-fiction 6 (YTD 28)
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
Jar Jar Binks Must Die, by Dan Kimmel
The Flowering of New England 1815-1865, by Van Wyck Brooks
The Steampunk Bible, by Jeff VanderMeer with S.J. Chambers et al.
The Young Elizabeth, by Alison Plowden
Danger to Elizabeth, by Alison Plowden
Fiction (non-sf) 3 (YTD 14)
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
A Good Hanging and Other Stories, by Ian Rankin
Lust, Caution and Other Stories, by Eileen Chang
sf (non-Who) 7 (YTD 39)
Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf
The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4, edited by Terry Carr
Sphere, by Michael Crichton
Waking the Moon, by Elizabeth Hand
Sauron Defeated, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Parable of the Talents, by Octavia E. Butler
Doctor Who 4 (YTD 37)
Autonomy, by Daniel Blythe
The House That Jack Built, by Guy Adams
Dying in the Sun, by Jon de Burgh Miller
Falls The Shadow, by Daniel O'Mahony
Comics 9 (YTD 12)
Habibi, by Craig Thompson
The Unwritten, vols 3-4, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross
Digger vols 1-6, by Ursula Vernon
Running totals:
~8,000 pages (YTD 38,800)
14/29 (YTD 39/130) by women (Chambers, Plowden x2, Chang, Lord, Lagerlöf, Hand, Butler, Vernon x6)
3/29 (YTD 5/130) by PoC (Chang, Lord, Butler)
The best of these was Parable of the Talents, by Octavia Butler, though it was a reread; you can get it here. Also really liked the Ian Rankin anthology, which you can get here; Waking the Moon, which you can get here; Redemption in Indigo, which you can get here; and Digger, which you can get here.
Really didn't like either Sphere, which you can get here, or Dying in the Sun, which you can get here.
Lots of travel with my Georgian client that month, but no time for photographs: starting with a site visit in Tbilisi, and then to Geneva to lobby the UN, and Strasbourg to lobby the Council of Europe.
In my reading world, a group of us were working our way through War and Peace and happened to hit the precise 200th anniversary of the French invasion of Russia while reading it, which was an interesting synchronicity.
In external news that I don't really care about, Queen Elizabeth II marked fifty years on the throne. (The actual anniversary is in February but they celebrate in June.) I imagine that she will make it to sixty next year.
I read 29 books that month.
Non-fiction 6 (YTD 28)
The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell
Jar Jar Binks Must Die, by Dan Kimmel
The Flowering of New England 1815-1865, by Van Wyck Brooks
The Steampunk Bible, by Jeff VanderMeer with S.J. Chambers et al.
The Young Elizabeth, by Alison Plowden
Danger to Elizabeth, by Alison Plowden
Fiction (non-sf) 3 (YTD 14)
Hard Times, by Charles Dickens
A Good Hanging and Other Stories, by Ian Rankin
Lust, Caution and Other Stories, by Eileen Chang
sf (non-Who) 7 (YTD 39)
Redemption in Indigo, by Karen Lord
The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, by Selma Lagerlöf
The Best Science Fiction of the Year #4, edited by Terry Carr
Sphere, by Michael Crichton
Waking the Moon, by Elizabeth Hand
Sauron Defeated, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Parable of the Talents, by Octavia E. Butler
Doctor Who 4 (YTD 37)
Autonomy, by Daniel Blythe
The House That Jack Built, by Guy Adams
Dying in the Sun, by Jon de Burgh Miller
Falls The Shadow, by Daniel O'Mahony
Comics 9 (YTD 12)
Habibi, by Craig Thompson
The Unwritten, vols 3-4, by Mike Carey and Peter Gross
Digger vols 1-6, by Ursula Vernon
Running totals:
~8,000 pages (YTD 38,800)
14/29 (YTD 39/130) by women (Chambers, Plowden x2, Chang, Lord, Lagerlöf, Hand, Butler, Vernon x6)
3/29 (YTD 5/130) by PoC (Chang, Lord, Butler)
The best of these was Parable of the Talents, by Octavia Butler, though it was a reread; you can get it here. Also really liked the Ian Rankin anthology, which you can get here; Waking the Moon, which you can get here; Redemption in Indigo, which you can get here; and Digger, which you can get here.
Really didn't like either Sphere, which you can get here, or Dying in the Sun, which you can get here.