The biggest world event of the month was the earthquake in Haiti, in which two people who I vaguely knew died: Hédi Annabi, the head of the UN mission, who had once hosted me at a brown bag lunch with his team in New York when he was at DPKO, and elections expert Gerard Le Chevallier, a colleague from NDI days, were both among the 22 UN employees killed when their headquarters collapsed (they had been meeting a Chinese delegation in Annabi's office when the quake struck).
I had another of my marathon trips in the middle of the month, visiting Cyprus for what I think was the last time before that work ended, and going straight on from there to Juba via Istanbul and Nairobi. Here I am with Gérard Prunier and the famous Riek Machar (the husband of Emma of Emma's War). It's fair to say that he's had his ups and downs over the years since.
Later Gérard and I sampled injera and wat. I think we were watching the Egypt-Cameroon match. (Egypt won 3-1.)
In Belgium the weather was different.
With many long plane flights (including a two hour delay in Istanbul due to snow there, which must be unusual), I read 30 books in January 2010.
Non-fiction 8
The Origin of Species, by Charles Darwin
The Panda's Thumb, by Steven Jay Gould
The Wheel of Engaged Buddhism, by Kenneth Kraft
The Two Faces of Islam, by Stephen Schwarz
The Language of the Night, by Ursula K. Le Guin
Ta Hsüeh and Chung Yung
Juba Arabic - English Dictionary, by Ian Smith and Morris T. Ama
Southern Sudan: Too Many Agreements Dishonoured, by Abel Alier
Non-genre 7
Framley Parsonage, by Anthony Trollope
Mortal Causes, by Ian Rankin
Thirteen Steps Down, by Ruth Rendell
Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen
The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak
Let It Bleed, by Ian Rankin
Holy Disorders, by Edmund Crispin
SF 10
Unseen Academicals, by Terry Pratchett
Year's Best SF 8, edited by David G. Hartwell
The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett
The Wandering Fire, by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Darkest Road, by Guy Gavriel Kay
The Uplift War, by David Brin
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, by Douglas Adams
Irish Tales of Terror, edited by Jim McGarry
Noughts and Crosses, by Malorie Blackman
The Turing Test, by Chris Beckett
Doctor Who 5
Cat's Cradle: Time's Crucible, by Marc Platt
Vampire Science, by Kate Orman and Jonathan Blum
Doctor Who Annual 1968
Wooden Heart, by Martin Day
Short Trips: Dalek Empire, edited by Nicholas Briggs with Simon Guerrier
~8400 pages (allowing for the fact that I didn't read all the explanatory material of Ta Hsüeh and Chung Yung, and only the front and back matter of the Juba Arabic English Dictionary)
5/30 by women (Rendell, Austen, Orman, Blackman, Le Guin)
4/30 by PoC (Blackman, anonymous Confucian sages, Ama, Alier)
Really enjoyed The Wee Free Men, by Terry Pratchett, which you can get here; The Language of the Night, by Ursula K. Le Guin, which you can get here; and The Turing Test, by Chris Beckett, which you can get here. Really did not enjoy The Uplift War, by David Brin, which you can get here, or Irish Tales of Terror, ed. Jim McGarry, which you can get here.
