August 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.
The main business of the month was our family holiday in Northern Ireland. We went to Newgrange, which is always amazing.
And discovered the then fairly new museum at Bagenal's Catle in Newry, where you can dress up as an Elizabethan.
We also went to the brand new Titanic exhibition, but I took only one photo, of the last despairing radio exchange from the doomed ship.
I profited from the holiday to read 30 books. A lot of my spare time was spent setting up systems for the 2014 Worldcon.
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 39)
The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong
The Portable Greek Historians, ed. M.I. Finley
The Reign of Elizabeth 1558-1603, by J.B. Black
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, by Émile Durkheim
Fiction (non-sf) 8 (YTD 28)
Gold from Gemini, by Jonathan Gash
Watchman, by Ian Rankin
The Public Prosecutor, by Jef Geeraerts
Jade Woman, by Jonathan Gash
Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner
The Great California Game, by Jonathan Gash
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Not A Creature Was Stirring, by Jane Haddam
SF (non-Who) 7 (YTD 50)
Spectrum IV, ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest
Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn
A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
Morgoth's Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien
The Quantum Rose, by Catherine Asaro
Yearwood, by Paul Hazel
The Poison Factory, by Oisín McGann
Who 7 (YTD 50)
Dark Horizons, by J.T. Colgan
Doctor Who: The Time Traveller's Almanac, by Steve Tribe
The Wheel of Ice, by Stephen Baxter
Warlock, by Andrew Cartmel
The Space Age, by Steve Lyons
Alien Adventures: The Underwater War, by Richard Dinnick
Alien Adventures: Rain of Terror, by Mike Tucker
Comics 4 (YTD 17)
With The Light vol. 5, by Keiko Tobe
Barbaraal Tot Op Het Bot, by Barbara Stok
The Book of Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley
Return of the Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley
~8,500 pages (YTD ~54,900)
7/30 (YTD 55/188) by women (Armstrong, Haddam, L'Engle, Asaro, Colgan, Tobe, Stok)
1/30 (YTD 8/158) by PoC (Tobe)
Best of the month was a reread, A Wrinkle in Time, which you can get here. Other good 'uns included no less than four excellent Doctor Who books: New Adventure Warlock, which you can get here; New Series Adventure Dark Horizons, which you can get here; Stephen Baxter's Second Doctor novel The Wheel of Ice, which you can get here; and series guide The Time Traveller's Almanac, which you can get here. At the other end, I reread The Quantum Rose and still didn't like it; you can get it here. And I thoroughly bounced off Durkheim, but you can get him here if you want.
The main business of the month was our family holiday in Northern Ireland. We went to Newgrange, which is always amazing.
And discovered the then fairly new museum at Bagenal's Catle in Newry, where you can dress up as an Elizabethan.
We also went to the brand new Titanic exhibition, but I took only one photo, of the last despairing radio exchange from the doomed ship.
I profited from the holiday to read 30 books. A lot of my spare time was spent setting up systems for the 2014 Worldcon.
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 39)
The Battle for God, by Karen Armstrong
The Portable Greek Historians, ed. M.I. Finley
The Reign of Elizabeth 1558-1603, by J.B. Black
The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, by Émile Durkheim
Fiction (non-sf) 8 (YTD 28)
Gold from Gemini, by Jonathan Gash
Watchman, by Ian Rankin
The Public Prosecutor, by Jef Geeraerts
Jade Woman, by Jonathan Gash
Emil and the Detectives, by Erich Kästner
The Great California Game, by Jonathan Gash
Tender is the Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Not A Creature Was Stirring, by Jane Haddam
SF (non-Who) 7 (YTD 50)
Spectrum IV, ed. Kingsley Amis and Robert Conquest
Heir to the Empire, by Timothy Zahn
A Wrinkle In Time, by Madeleine L'Engle
Morgoth's Ring, by J.R.R. Tolkien and Christopher Tolkien
The Quantum Rose, by Catherine Asaro
Yearwood, by Paul Hazel
The Poison Factory, by Oisín McGann
Who 7 (YTD 50)
Dark Horizons, by J.T. Colgan
Doctor Who: The Time Traveller's Almanac, by Steve Tribe
The Wheel of Ice, by Stephen Baxter
Warlock, by Andrew Cartmel
The Space Age, by Steve Lyons
Alien Adventures: The Underwater War, by Richard Dinnick
Alien Adventures: Rain of Terror, by Mike Tucker
Comics 4 (YTD 17)
With The Light vol. 5, by Keiko Tobe
Barbaraal Tot Op Het Bot, by Barbara Stok
The Book of Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley
Return of the Bunny Suicides, by Andy Riley
~8,500 pages (YTD ~54,900)
7/30 (YTD 55/188) by women (Armstrong, Haddam, L'Engle, Asaro, Colgan, Tobe, Stok)
1/30 (YTD 8/158) by PoC (Tobe)
Best of the month was a reread, A Wrinkle in Time, which you can get here. Other good 'uns included no less than four excellent Doctor Who books: New Adventure Warlock, which you can get here; New Series Adventure Dark Horizons, which you can get here; Stephen Baxter's Second Doctor novel The Wheel of Ice, which you can get here; and series guide The Time Traveller's Almanac, which you can get here. At the other end, I reread The Quantum Rose and still didn't like it; you can get it here. And I thoroughly bounced off Durkheim, but you can get him here if you want.