This is the latest post in a series I started last November, 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 current circumstances when we are all somewhat distracted. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under
bookblog nostalgia.
As
previously noted, I started the month in Skopje, and then returned to Prishtina in Kosovo for more work meetings, extended by a day when fog prevented my flight home from taking off. This was all leading up to publishing
another Kosovo report mid-month. I also got
quoted in the Guardian by the lovely Ian Traynor. My other trip of the month was to Vienna, a rather mad affair which included intense chats with the
late great Albert Rohan and former president of Finland Martti Ahtisaari.
My negotiations with my future employer were meantime continuing, but I received an unexpected approach from a head-hunter looking for someone to run a new thinktank on longevity issues. I don't know a lot about the subject, but I kept up the conversation for several weeks until we mutually decided that it just wasn't my thing. (I tracked down the person who did get the job a few months ago; let's just say that I dodged a bullet.)
At home, we had a lovely ceremony organised by the municipality in which young F attended the ceremonial planting of his special tree. Our village donates or plants a tree for every child turning seven each year; we did not make anything of it for the girls, who would not really appreciate it, but F was certainly interested and engaged.
We went
back to the scene in 2013 to see if we could find the same tree, and I'm pretty sure we did.
Another seven years on, we went back again last week - you can see I think that it is the same tree, and the same person who stood by it aged six and thirteen, now twenty.
I did a bit better with reading in February 2006 than I had the previous month.
non-fiction 5 (YTD 6)EU've got mail! by Graham WatsonFirst Man: The Life of Neil Armstrong, by James R. HansenEurope and the Recognition of New States in Yugoslavia, by Richard CaplanFanny Kemble: The Reluctant Celebrity, by Rebecca JenkinsJournal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-1839, by Frances Anne Kemblenon-genre 1 (YTD 2)Little Women, by Louisa May Alcottsf 6 (YTD 9)Azem Berisha's One and Only Flight to the Castle, by Veton SurroiGhosts of Albion: Accursed, by Amber Benson and Christopher GoldenA Clockwork Orange, by Anthony BurgessThe Einstein Intersection, by Samuel R. DelanyThe Space Merchants, by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth9Tail Fox, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood4,200 words (YTD 6,200)
4/12 (YTD 5/18) by women (Jenkins, Kemble, Alcott, Benson)
1/12 (YTD 1/18) by PoC (Delany)
The best and worst of these were all non-fiction. The best is Fanny Kemble's account of slavery from the point of view of someone who married a slave-owner.
You can read it for free here. Almost as good is Richard Caplan's definitive account of the diplomatic response to the break-up of Yugoslavia, which kills a few myths and which
you can get here. The worst by far is Rebecca Jenkins' biography of Fanny Kemble. If you want,
you can get it here.
