I don't think I'm going to manage to complete another book before the end of 2023 now, so it seems like time to post this list of what I read this year, with brief notes on each. I don't have pictures of all of them, because I've already returned one borrowed book to its owner and read another on Kindle, but these are the ones I do have:


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Still trying valiantly to catch up, here...


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This is the second book I read for the now-unlikely-to-happen DracSoc trip to Bath, again because its author lived there in the early to mid '70s. On one level it is a series of ten 'takes' on traditional fairy-tales, but even to say that rather over-simplifies and understates what Carter does with them. Most are entirely recast, reset, reframed - ( Read more... )

This is one of two books I read in preparation for this Dracula Society trip to Bath in mid-May, the relevance being that the author lived there in later life and there is a museum about him there in a tower which he commissioned. Though the trip hasn't been officially cancelled yet, it's pretty obvious that it will be, which is a pity. Nonetheless ( Read more... )

I'm uncomfortably aware that I haven't written anything other than WIDAWTW posts for over a month, or indeed commented much on other people's entries. The approach of term coincided with the local constituency party that I am chair of having to go into high alert due to the likelihood of a General Election being called at any moment, so it has all ( Read more... )

Just over a year ago, in June 2018, I went on holiday with DracSoc to Cruden Bay (formerly known as Port Erroll), a little fishing village on the east coast of Scotland where Bram Stoker spent several summer holidays and probably wrote most of Dracula. As part of the trip, we met up with local resident Mike Shepherd, who had been researching Bram's ( Read more... )

Two weeks ago, I attended IVFAF, a vampire festival combining an academic conference, a creative congress (i.e. authors talking about their work), a film festival, a number of theatrical performances, a Bram Stoker walk, a cabaret and a ball all into one glorious five-day event. I've been following their activities on Twitter / FB for a while, but ( Read more... )

These were the other two main things we spent our time on while in Scotland, although I'm sure Bram Stoker would have approved heartily of both. I'll cover them below in the order in which we did them, with cuts to save your scrolling fingers ( Read more... )

Just over a week ago I went on a five-day holiday to Scotland with DracSoc. As usual, there was a particular Gothic literature-related theme to our trip: in this case, that our main destination, Cruden Bay, was also Bram Stoker's favourite holiday spot, where he spent the month of August at least twelve time from 1893 onwards. But, while we were in ( Read more... )

I reckon if I just crack on with it and don't allow myself to get too carried away with any individual one, I can get my 2017 book reviews finished today. Let's see how that goes...

6. Nick Clegg (2016), Politics: Between the ExtremesI am Quite Ashamed that Nick Clegg has written and published a whole other book during the time it's taken me to ( Read more... )