August 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.
We started the month in Northern Ireland, where among many pleasant experiences we were visited by H and also my cousin A, and did an enjoyable trip to various ancient places in County Down.
The month was dominated by the 2014 Worldcon, Loncon 3, where I was Division Head for Promotions and had a fantastic time.
At the end of the month we went to Leuven for a cinema screening of the first Peter Capaldi episode, Deep Breath, also fun.
(Which was all just as well, as work continued to be unpleasant.)
Worldcon sucked up a huge amount of my time and energy, and I read only 21 books that month, which is unusually low for a summer holiday.
Non-fiction 3 (YTD 38)
F in Exams, by Richard Benson
F in Retakes, by Richard Benson
The Making of Doctor Who, by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke
Fiction (non-sf) 8 (YTD 30)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre
A Winter Book, by Tove Jansson
Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis
Battle for Bittora, by Anuja Chauhan
The Waves, by Virginia Woolf
The Life of John Buncle, Esq: Containing Various Observations and Reflections, Made in Several Parts of the World, and Many Extraordinary Relations, vols 1 and 2, by Thomas Amory
SF (non-Who) 6 (YTD 73)
Brontomek!, by Michael Coney
A Guide to Tolkien, by David Day
The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
No Harm Can Come to a Good Man, by James Smythe
Starry Messenger: The Best of Galileo, ed. Charles Ryan
Peacemaker, by Marianne de Pierres
Doctor Who 4 (YTD 42)
Tomb of Valdemar, by Simon Messingham
Bad Therapy, by Matthew Jones
The Crooked World, by Steve Lyons
Engines of War, by George Mann
Comics 1 (YTD 14)
With The Light... vol 7, by Keiko Tobe
~6,600 pages (YTD ~56,500)
5/22 (YTD 49/197) by women (Jansson, Chauhan, Woolf, ξ1, Tobe)
2/22 (YTD 15/197) by PoC (Chauhan, Tobe)
The best of these was The Waves, by Virginia Woolf; you can get it here. Also really good: Battle for Bittora, by Anuja Chauhan, an Indian election romance novel which you can get here; The Life of John Buncle, Esq., by Thomas Amory, a fore-runner to Tristram Shandy, which you can get here; and A Winter Book, by Tove Jansson, which you can get here. Three books that I found particularly poor: Booker-winning Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre, which you can get here; A Guide to Tolkien, by David Day, which you can get here; and Peacemaker, by Marianne de Pierres, which you can get here.
We started the month in Northern Ireland, where among many pleasant experiences we were visited by H and also my cousin A, and did an enjoyable trip to various ancient places in County Down.
The month was dominated by the 2014 Worldcon, Loncon 3, where I was Division Head for Promotions and had a fantastic time.
At the end of the month we went to Leuven for a cinema screening of the first Peter Capaldi episode, Deep Breath, also fun.
(Which was all just as well, as work continued to be unpleasant.)
Worldcon sucked up a huge amount of my time and energy, and I read only 21 books that month, which is unusually low for a summer holiday.
Non-fiction 3 (YTD 38)
F in Exams, by Richard Benson
F in Retakes, by Richard Benson
The Making of Doctor Who, by Terrance Dicks and Malcolm Hulke
Fiction (non-sf) 8 (YTD 30)
The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain
Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre
A Winter Book, by Tove Jansson
Zorba the Greek, by Nikos Kazantzakis
Battle for Bittora, by Anuja Chauhan
The Waves, by Virginia Woolf
The Life of John Buncle, Esq: Containing Various Observations and Reflections, Made in Several Parts of the World, and Many Extraordinary Relations, vols 1 and 2, by Thomas Amory
SF (non-Who) 6 (YTD 73)
Brontomek!, by Michael Coney
A Guide to Tolkien, by David Day
The Long Earth, by Terry Pratchett and Stephen Baxter
No Harm Can Come to a Good Man, by James Smythe
Starry Messenger: The Best of Galileo, ed. Charles Ryan
Peacemaker, by Marianne de Pierres
Doctor Who 4 (YTD 42)
Tomb of Valdemar, by Simon Messingham
Bad Therapy, by Matthew Jones
The Crooked World, by Steve Lyons
Engines of War, by George Mann
Comics 1 (YTD 14)
With The Light... vol 7, by Keiko Tobe
~6,600 pages (YTD ~56,500)
5/22 (YTD 49/197) by women (Jansson, Chauhan, Woolf, ξ1, Tobe)
2/22 (YTD 15/197) by PoC (Chauhan, Tobe)
The best of these was The Waves, by Virginia Woolf; you can get it here. Also really good: Battle for Bittora, by Anuja Chauhan, an Indian election romance novel which you can get here; The Life of John Buncle, Esq., by Thomas Amory, a fore-runner to Tristram Shandy, which you can get here; and A Winter Book, by Tove Jansson, which you can get here. Three books that I found particularly poor: Booker-winning Vernon God Little, by DBC Pierre, which you can get here; A Guide to Tolkien, by David Day, which you can get here; and Peacemaker, by Marianne de Pierres, which you can get here.