March 2014 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.
I started the month at a Worldcon planning meeting in London, dealing with the fallout of the Jonathan Ross affair. That was my only trip away that month; work continued to be grim, but I established initial contact with my current employers about coming to work for them instead.
Here's B with an emu.
I read 27 books that month. Crucially, this was also the month that, inspired by H, I started to try and include the second paragraph of the third chapter of every book I read in my write-ups here. I've found that a useful addition to my routine; a sort of intake of breath and nod to the original text before saying whatever I have to say about it. I dropped it at the end of March 2014, but soon picked it up again.
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 13)
The Assassination of the Prime Minister: John Bellingham and the Murder of Spencer Perceval, by David Hanrahan
The Big Finish Companion v1, by Richard Dinnick
Essays on Time-based Linguistic Analysis, by Charles-James N. Bailey
Companions: 50 Years of Doctor Who Assistants, by Andy Frankham-Allen
Fiction (non-sf) 2 (YTD 8)
The Other Hand, by Chris Cleave
Brick Lane, by Monica Ali
SF (non-Who) 10 (YTD 22)
Ancillary Justice, by Anne Leckie
Dominion, by C.J. Sansom
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Sigrid and Gudrun, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman
Unearthed, eds. John J. Johnston and Jared Shurin
Spin, by Nina Allan
Anthem, by Ayn Rand
Best Served Cold, by Joe Abercrombie
Tarzan and the Forbidden City, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Doctor Who 11 (YTD 22)
Doctor Who - The Paradise of Death, by Barry Letts
Christmas on a Rational Planet, by Lawrence Miles
Mad Dogs and Englishmen, by Paul Magrs
Tales of Trenzalore, by Justin Richards, George Mann, Paul Finch and Mark Morris
Salt of the Earth, by Trudi Canavan
Search for the Doctor, by David Martin
Crisis in Space, by Michael Holt
The Garden of Evil, by David Martin
Mission to Venus, by William Emms
Invasion of the OrmazoIds, by Philip Martin
Race Against Time, by Pip and Jane Baker
~7,200 pages (YTD ~20,000)
6/25 (YTD 19/65) by women (Ali, Leckie, Allan, Rand, Canavan, J Baker)
1/25 (YTD 2/656) by PoC (Ali)
I hugely enjoyed returning to Animal Farm, which you can get here, and reading for the first time Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, which you can get here, and Nina Allan's Spin, which you can get here. On the other hand the 1986 Doctor Who Make-Your-Own-Adventure books were generally pretty awful, with the worst being William Emms' Mission to Venus; but you can get it here.
I started the month at a Worldcon planning meeting in London, dealing with the fallout of the Jonathan Ross affair. That was my only trip away that month; work continued to be grim, but I established initial contact with my current employers about coming to work for them instead.
Here's B with an emu.
I read 27 books that month. Crucially, this was also the month that, inspired by H, I started to try and include the second paragraph of the third chapter of every book I read in my write-ups here. I've found that a useful addition to my routine; a sort of intake of breath and nod to the original text before saying whatever I have to say about it. I dropped it at the end of March 2014, but soon picked it up again.
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 13)
The Assassination of the Prime Minister: John Bellingham and the Murder of Spencer Perceval, by David Hanrahan
The Big Finish Companion v1, by Richard Dinnick
Essays on Time-based Linguistic Analysis, by Charles-James N. Bailey
Companions: 50 Years of Doctor Who Assistants, by Andy Frankham-Allen
Fiction (non-sf) 2 (YTD 8)
The Other Hand, by Chris Cleave
Brick Lane, by Monica Ali
SF (non-Who) 10 (YTD 22)
Ancillary Justice, by Anne Leckie
Dominion, by C.J. Sansom
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
Sigrid and Gudrun, by J.R.R. Tolkien
The Amber Spyglass, by Philip Pullman
Unearthed, eds. John J. Johnston and Jared Shurin
Spin, by Nina Allan
Anthem, by Ayn Rand
Best Served Cold, by Joe Abercrombie
Tarzan and the Forbidden City, by Edgar Rice Burroughs
Doctor Who 11 (YTD 22)
Doctor Who - The Paradise of Death, by Barry Letts
Christmas on a Rational Planet, by Lawrence Miles
Mad Dogs and Englishmen, by Paul Magrs
Tales of Trenzalore, by Justin Richards, George Mann, Paul Finch and Mark Morris
Salt of the Earth, by Trudi Canavan
Search for the Doctor, by David Martin
Crisis in Space, by Michael Holt
The Garden of Evil, by David Martin
Mission to Venus, by William Emms
Invasion of the OrmazoIds, by Philip Martin
Race Against Time, by Pip and Jane Baker
~7,200 pages (YTD ~20,000)
6/25 (YTD 19/65) by women (Ali, Leckie, Allan, Rand, Canavan, J Baker)
1/25 (YTD 2/656) by PoC (Ali)
I hugely enjoyed returning to Animal Farm, which you can get here, and reading for the first time Ann Leckie's Ancillary Justice, which you can get here, and Nina Allan's Spin, which you can get here. On the other hand the 1986 Doctor Who Make-Your-Own-Adventure books were generally pretty awful, with the worst being William Emms' Mission to Venus; but you can get it here.