A retrospective look at my Scottish Historical Review academic journal paper 10 years ago, on book ownership in Scotland in the late 18th century, and Dumfriesshire especially

10 years ago this month in 2012 my Scottish Historical Review journal paper was published. Sole authored, it looked at book ownership in Scotland in the late eighteenth century, using a local case study of Dumfriesshire after-death wills and inventories. This was part of my PhD research into reading habits in Scotland in this period, and this was one of the first journal papers I published after completing my PhD at Dundee University in 2010.

I thought it might be nice to do a retrospective blog about this journal paper. The paper was published in Scottish Historical Review, and the full published PDF version is available on my website, in green Open Access form on my publications web page.

This research arose from my belief that testaments – Scottish after-death wills and inventories – could be a useful guide to the books people owned. To be fair I hadn’t always thought this way. But from my research assistant work on Bob Harris’s small towns project, researching Angus towns in the late 18th and early 19th century, I had discovered that Scottish testaments often mentioned books, in particular testaments with lists of personal possessions. Not consistently, not totally reliably, but enough to be informative. Sometimes only e.g. a “bundle of books” might be valued. But in other cases you might get a detailed list of titles owned. I was grateful for any clues at all. Note this is very different from the situation in England at the same time, where comparable probate records rarely record any great details of personal possessions after the 1720s.

I couldn’t possibly research testaments across the whole of Scotland, just for the practicality of the scale of it. Nor was a random based approach suitable, given the scarcity of references. I needed to study a local area’s complete testaments over a given time period, but in a manner that had to be feasible and practical for me to tackle as a small part of my PhD. In the end I settled for Dumfriesshire, which is semi-rural, but with some towns and many villages. And logistically it was feasible for me to study this area.

I persuaded the then National Archives of Scotland (now National Records of Scotland) to lend me digital images of testaments for Dumfries Commissary Court between 1750 and 1800. At that time they had never lent such a set of records, and only agreed somewhat reluctantly because of my disability situation – my progressive neurological illness meant that it was essential I could do the bulk of this research from home. But this loan also set the precedent for similar loans for other (less disabled) Scottish academics in future.

In total I borrowed digital images of 1,379 testaments, including 345 with detailed inventories and 82 with wills. I also did a manual check in the Edinburgh search room of warrants of inventories, additional papers of appraisements and inventories, for lists including books not copied into the registers of testaments.

As I wrote in the published journal paper:

References to books were found in over a third of the detailed inventories of personal possessions recorded in a quarter of the testaments in the court’s register.

i.e. where there was a surviving detailed inventory of personal possessions then a third of the time that would contain references to books.

Most of these found references were detailed lists of books, including their titles. In other cases there were passing references to books, or in some cases valuations of book furniture (e.g. book cases). In total I had details of 156 different book owners, including considerable information about them, and in many cases also about the books that they owned.

The bulk of the paper looks at the Dumfriesshire book owners found in a variety of ways. For example their spread through time and space is considered, and also their range of occupations. Unsurprisingly many were from generally more prosperous occupations, but the list also included others like a gardener, a smith, a labourer, and a servant.

The lists of books recorded allowed the types of books owned to be considered, both in a broader pattern, and for individual owners. Ownership of religious books was a constant feature, but over time other books appeared more and more in the lists, fitting with wider trends in books and reading at this time in Scotland. Many books could also be linked to the occupations of their owners, for example legal reference works owned by solicitors (“writers”), and also the work-related books owned by merchants, etc.

Alongside religious books classical books remained an ongoing presence, but they were also accompanied by other language books, especially French. Well-known Enlightenment books were owned, as well as many books of history, and voyages and travels. Periodicals and magazines were also a frequent presence.

One of my favourite sections of the paper looked at the very largest book collections recorded in these records. Perhaps unsurprisingly these also often were the references that mentioned book furniture, given the practical implications of storing a large collection of books. The question of where people bought the books was considered in this section too, drawing briefly on a local Dumfries bookseller who appears – with his entire detailed stock list – in the Dumfriesshire testaments I studied, having died in 1788.

Preparing my paper for publication was a delight, reworking things and strengthening the analysis and contextualisation. I would like to thank Catriona Macdonald who was the then journal editor for an easy and very systematic editorial process. And thanks too to the peer reviewers for their helpful feedback and suggestions.

The only downside was that the final pre-publication proofs came through as I was undergoing a summer of gruelling chemotherapy infusions at Ninewells Hospital in Dundee. In fact I ended up having to proofread the journal paper one-handed, hooked up to a chemotherapy drip! It was that or I probably wouldn’t turn them around in time, given how ill I was likely to be (and indeed very much was) with side effects in subsequent days.

Looking back I am very proud of this paper. I hope to publish again in Scottish Historical Review in future. But this was a very positive experience, and one that I look back on fondly.

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1810s Haddington library borrowings of Samuel Smiles father of the author of “Self-Help”

One of Haddington in East Lothian’s most famous sons is Samuel Smiles (1812-1904), author and government reformer. His best known work is a book called Self-Help (1859), arguing for the poor to improve their lot through self education and industry, a viewpoint that fits well with Victorian moral values and thinking, but might in some of its arguments raise eyebrows among many today.

Samuel’s father was also called Samuel Smiles. The other day professional genealogist Fergus Smith tweeted about a circa 1820 reference to the father, noting that he was working then as a stationer, not just the merchant he is often referred to in his son’s biographies.

This reminded me that I’d encountered the elder Samuel as a borrower in the free Haddington town library borrowing records I transcribed and analysed as part of my history PhD at Dundee University. Haddington was unusual at this time in having a free public library for its inhabitants to use, and its borrowing registers for many of the years 1732-1816 survive.

I thought it might be nice to blog here about what the father was reading. Each line below includes the date a book was borrowed from the library, the book borrowed details as noted at that time, and in many cases in brackets fuller title/publication details per the 1828 Haddington library catalogue.

• 1810 Nov 1 – Burns Works vol 2d (Burns’s Works, 4 vols, 1803)
• 1811 Jan 23 – Beauties of Scotland 4 Vo (Beauties of Scotland: containing an Account of the Agriculture, Commerce, Mines, Manufactures, Population, &c. of each County, 5 vols, plates)
• 1811 Feb 1 – 1 vol Rollins Roman (Rollin’s Roman History, from the Foundation of Rome till the Battle of Actium, 16 vols)
• 1811 Feb 21 – 2 vol Abercrumes wariers (Abercromby’s Martial Achievements of the Scots Nation, 2 vols)
• 1811 Mar 15 – Robertsons History on Amaresia (sic) (Robertson’s History of America, 4 vols)
• 1812 Feb 19 – 1 vol Cooks Voyages (Cook’s Voyages to the Pacific Ocean)
• 1812 Mar 26 – 2 vol Capt Cooks Voyages
• 1812 Apr 7 – 3 vol Coocks Voges
• 1812 Sep 10 – 1 vol Rolins History
• 1812 Oct 6 – 2 vol Rollins History
• 1812 Oct 15 – 2d vol Rollins History
• 1812 Oct 30 – Rollans History 3 vol
• 1812 Dec 8 – 5 vol Rolins History
• 1813 Feb 4 – 7 Vol Rollins History
• 1813 Feb 27 – 8 Vol Roilns History
• 1813 Apr 19 – 9 vol Rolins History
• 1813 May 4 – Rolins History 10 vol

It is likely that father and son borrowed books after 1816, but I did not have access to borrowing records for that period. The earlier borrowing records we have are a rare survival. The original manuscript registers are held in the National Library of Scotland in Edinburgh.

Incidentally Samuel Smiles the author appears in my writings about this library, because in his autobiography he recalled his early reading experiences at this Haddington library:

I did not make much use of the library. Patrick Hardie, the master of the English School, was the librarian; and when I took out Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, he havered a bit to me, in his dictatorial way, as to how I was to read it. I did not like this, and went to other libraries

To read more about the Haddington library at this time see either my PhD thesis or my Journal of Scottish Historical Studies academic journal paper about it. The latter is available freely online, via green Open Access rules, in the publications section of my personal website.

My Haddington library borrowing transcripts and database have been donated to the Books and Borrowing 1750-1830 project at the University of Stirling, and should hopefully appear online through that at a future date.

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Thoughts on World Book Day, childhood reading and having done a PhD on reading habits

Today is World Book Day 2022, a celebration of reading in the UK and Ireland, targeted especially at children and young people. It is a day for celebrating the power of reading, but also for showing youngsters how they can access it and benefit from it. And I am a big fan.

I was an enthusiastic childhood reader, with early visits to Melrose public library, and still remember borrowing Enid Blyton books and Tudor history. Then when we moved back to Hawick I devoured first the children’s basement floor of the Hawick public library – a grand Carnegie library with lovely architecture – and then was allowed to borrow from the “grown ups” section. There I devoured masses of Agatha Christie books, science fiction and fantasy, as well as doing research into my family history in the research part of the library. I also borrowed books from primary school and secondary school libraries, and the Wilton church Sunday School small library.

Years on reading is much harder for me, thanks to a progressive neurological disease that struck in 1994 when I was just 22. Soon I could no longer easily manage print for extended periods, even large print was troublesome. But then eBooks came along, which I could adjust to have a quite ginormous font, and I was reading again. I adore reading, and on my Kindle usually have a couple of novels on the go, as well as various non fiction books. All read with a gargantuan font that lets me keep reading. I pick up a lot of bargain eBooks in sales, and also read free ones from Project Gutenberg.

However World Book Day has a special significance for me now because between 2003 and 2010 I completed a part time PhD at Dundee University on Scottish reading habits between circa 1750 and 1820. This was a surprising route to take. I’d studied first computer science at university until my illness struck. Then I retrained as a historian. But I was not in any way a literature student.

I worked part time as a research assistant 2003-4 on Bob Harris’s Scottish Small Towns Project, working on the pilot study in Angus. And among other things this introduced me to the history of reading and book history, as I uncovered the history of cultural activity in Angus in the 18th and early 19th centuries, including the spread of libraries, newspapers and bookshops. I discovered that library borrowing records existed rarely in Scotland (though since then more have turned up, all welcome!) and how researchers like Paul Kaufman had showed these could be analysed. And I was entranced.

At the same time I was completing a taught MPhil degree and pondering if I wanted to try for a history PhD. And I couldn’t get away from wanting to research reading habits more. Bob Harris agreed to supervise me, and I started a self funded PhD, though later won funding from AHRC for the rest of my part-time PhD. My approach was very much social and cultural history rather than literary, as I got to grips researching what Scots were reading and how they fitted this into their lives in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Magic, though with my own reading problems due to illness/disability I was frequently envious of how “my readers” in the past were managing to access books!

My PhD thesis is online and freely available for all to read. In a nutshell though it showed how reading was growing in Scotland in this period, and how important reading was as an activity throughout the country and at all levels of society. A very positive thumbs up for reading.

So whenever World Book Day comes around I think back to my historic research in this field, while at the same time looking forward to my future reading. I am so lucky I got to complete a PhD on this topic. And so grateful I can still read, albeit with considerable adjustments, and a gargantuan font, thankfully helped hugely by adjustable eBooks.

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Looking back on a year of reading 2021 edition

Coming to the end of another year, and I’ve recently finished the last book I’ll finish this year, my 105th of 2021. I do have other books I’ll continue reading, but I won’t finish any more before New Year. So time for my annual recap of reading!

This year I finished 105 titles, accounting for just over 25,000 pages reading in total. For the full list see my Goodreads 2021 Reading Challenge page, which the following image shows part of:

I am astonished and delighted that I managed to read so much. This year was if anything even harder for me neurologically than last year when I also read in adversity. I have had 3 Covid vaccines already this year, with a 4th to come just before the New Year (I needed an extra 3rd primary one in September because I am severely immunosuppressed, so had a very poor vaccine response to vaccines 1&2). Each Covid vaccine pushed my auto immune neurological disease to flare badly, with dramatically increased neurological symptoms, taking up to 3 months to recover from each time.

But I kept reading, primarily with my Kindle and an utterly gigantic Ladybird book style font. Rereads were a major element for me this year, with 23 books, including ones by JRR Tolkien, Douglas Adams, Lewis Carroll and Agatha Christie. I think I was often wanting to turn to books that I knew I’d enjoy, that were a guaranteed good read for me.

The main category of fiction I read, yet again, was fantasy, but I also read hefty amounts of sci-fi, children’s books and crime. Non fiction was a major component of my reading as well though, with 33 titles, including many ranging over travel and medical issues. Inspired by recent events I also read books by black authors, either fiction or non fiction about black lives matter issues.

There were a number of highlights for me in this year’s reading. and I’d like to single out a few. Firstly, after a very protracted read, I finished the Alan Garner tribute book First Light. This was utterly delightful, a wide ranging engagement by numerous writers musing on topics related to his life and works. Alan Garner is one of my favourite authors.

Another highlight, and one that I wrote a blog post here about, was reading the fictional account Rose Nicolson of the young life of my direct ancestor William Fowler, 16th/17th century Scottish poet, spy and secretary to the Queen. Yes it was very much fiction, but it brought his story to light in a marvellous way. Thank you again Andrew Greig.

Another joy has been discovering William Corlett’s Magician’s House series of children’s books. I am part way through reading these. They were released when I was at university, and though I saw the TV series then I didn’t read the books. Children’s fiction in a classic fantasy vein. I still have a couple more of the books to enjoy reading.

For a slower pace of life I’d like to recommend Michael Williams’s pair of On The Slow Train books (the original and its sequel), which are a marvellous mix of railway history, travelogue and social observation. For someone like me who has been almost entirely trapped at home this year this has been a marvellous glimpse outside my four walls.

And for my last recommendation of this year I’d like to mention Neil Thomas’s Retro Tea Breaks collection of interviews with computing and gaming pioneers. This was a lovely thing to work through, and I recommend it hugely to anyone else interested in computing and gaming history, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. I wrote a full review of it.

I’m not sure if I will manage to read so many books next year! But I look forward to another year of reading ahead, whatever.

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A retrospective look at my first history academic journal paper 15 years ago, on Haddington library borrowings in the late 18th/early 19th centuries

15 years ago in 2006 my first academic journal paper as a historian was published. Sole authored, it looked at the borrowing records between 1732 and 1816 of Gray Library in Haddington, East Lothian, an unusual example of an early free town library. The paper examined these borrowing records to see what they told us about the town’s reading habits at this time.

I thought it might be nice to do a retrospective blog about this journal paper. The paper was published in the Journal of Scottish Historical Studies, and the full published PDF version is available on my website, in green Open Access form on my publications web page. Note I had earlier co-authored publications from my computer science days, but this was the first academic journal paper I wrote fully myself, and my first history piece after retraining as a historian, picking up BA, taught MPhil and PhD history degrees.

The paper was written fairly early on in my part-time history PhD at Dundee University, investigating Scottish reading habits circa 1750-1820 (my full PhD thesis is also available freely online). I decided to write the paper to give me a push to write up this good case study, but it was also creating good analysis I could use in my PhD thesis.

I submitted the paper too late for that year’s competition by the journal for postgraduate students. I remember Callum Brown, the then JSHS editor and at the time a professor of history at Dundee University, asking me if I wanted him to hold my paper back for the next year’s competition. But my health then was so precarious with my neurological disease resisting treatment, so I asked him to just consider it for normal publication as soon as possible. So he did.

It’s common for academics looking back at their early published writing to find it naive or flawed in other ways. I’m actually really proud of this paper, and its breadth and depth of analysis. Admittedly I would struggle to write it now, as my neurological disease has progressed more. But I still think irrespective of that aspect that it stands up well to the test of time.

I was blessed with rich library borrowing records, though I had to transcribe these all myself, working on a microfilm copy of the manuscript originals at home (yes I have my own microfilm reader!). That and the subsequent checking took many months, but gave me over 5000 borrowings to analyse.

Using my genealogical skills and research, especially in the then National Archives of Scotland, I researched the library borrowers extensively, allowing me to identify hundreds of them confidently, and note their gender, occupation, birth and death dates, and address if more specific than (or different from) Haddington. Adding these genealogical details allowed me to examine the borrowers and their borrowings in myriad different ways and groupings, and was a very powerful tool.

Such analysis was only practically possible because I built a linked relational database of the library borrowing records and its readers. This is something that at that time was groundbreaking in a Scottish book history context, but even today would be unusual. The three linked relational tables of borrowers, borrowings and books were then loaded into a MySQL relational database system, where I could run SQL queries to search for the borrowings of specific groups of borrowers that I was interested in. For example the following query counts the most popular books among teenage boy borrowers:

SELECT LinkToTitle, Count(LinkToTitle) FROM
(SELECT *
FROM borrowings, readers
WHERE ((borrowings.LinkToBorrower=readers.ReaderID
OR borrowings.LinkToOtherReader=readers.ReaderID)) AND readers.AgeOfBorrower=”teenage” AND readers.Gender=”male”) AS tmptable GROUP by LinkToTitle
ORDER by Count(LinkToTitle) DESC

Comparing male and female borrowings at the library was very important, and allowed me to engage using this substantial data with academic theories and contemporary opinions about differing reading habits by gender. I also relished the way this system allowed me to examine other groups in detail. For example I was able to pull out the borrowings of teenage users of the library, both boys and girls, which led to a particularly satisfying section of my paper.

One branch of my family tree traces back to Haddington, and it was a delight to see ancestors pop up among the library’s borrowers. Two of them sneaked into my published journal paper: my 5xg-granny Jean Veitch (later Mrs Somner) and her father William Veitch, a watchmaker in the town.

My Haddington library records and database have recently been gifted to the Books and Borrowing project based at the University of Stirling. This means that other researchers can build on my work, indeed a number of them already are, which has been fascinating to see. And ultimately the Haddington borrowings I recorded will be available to view freely online.

The findings in the paper were numerous, ranging across changing reading habits, variation by gender and occupation, demonstrating the use of books to educate young minds, and different ways of fitting in the library into your working week. However I think its main contribution was as a proof of concept. Both for the power of relational databases to analyse library borrowing records in a myriad of ways, but also for the potential of enhancing the library borrowings by other genealogical and historical research to better contextualise the borrowers and their borrowings. However on a personal level it was also a proof of concept for me, re my ability to write and publish academic journal papers. Even if with it sailing through peer review with no revisions required prior to publication it perhaps gave me an overly optimistic and unrealistic view of the tribulations that might ensue in that process!

Again my journal paper about the Haddington library borrowers is freely available to download and read on my website, as a PDF linked on the publications page.

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A female ancestor borrowing books in 18th century Haddington

It’s International Women’s Day, and the Books and Borrowing 1750-1830 project I’m involved with blogged today about women borrowers in libraries.

I studied such records as part of my PhD examining Scottish reading habits between circa 1750 and 1820. Women are largely hidden as readers in historic library borrowing records, especially in libraries which restricted access to men. But sometimes they show up as borrowers directly, or it is recorded that a book was borrowed on their behalf. Other female members of the family may potentially have read any other book borrowed from the library.

At Haddington’s Gray Library which I studied female borrowers make a prominent appearance, and their borrowing patterns can also be compared with male borrowers at the same time. For example it’s possible to detect that they were borrowing on different days of the week from men, and that they also tended to choose a different pattern of books. For full details see my Journal of Scottish Historical Studies paper on this, which is available free in open access form.

However for this blog post I want to focus on one female Haddington borrower in particular. Jean Veitch (ca1770-1804) was my 5xg-granny, the daughter of a watchmaker in the town, and granddaughter of a Border laird in Peeblesshire and Selkirkshire. Jean first appears in the Haddington library’s borrowing records in June 1785, when she was about 15, and her father William started to borrow books for her. Over the following months he borrowed several volumes of Fielding’s Works for Jean. At this time the library asked that anyone borrowing especially for someone else note that when they took out the book. This rule may not always have been followed rigidly though, and it is possible that William borrowed some other books for his daughter over the following years.

In December 1790 Jean is first recorded borrowing a book in her own name, a volume of Cook’s Voyages. A week later she borrowed a volume of Pope’s Works. This was the last mention of her in the record.

Jean married in 1794, to my 5xg-granddad Richard Somner. For more on her life story see my blog post about her.

Also potentially of interest is my blog post about her grandfather James Veitch of Glen and Bowhill, including the extensive library of books he left when he died. I don’t know if any of these passed down to his watchmaker son in Haddington.

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Looking back on a year of reading 2020 edition

I thought it might be nice to look back at the books I’ve finished in the previous 12 months. Others are still in progress, but there are 75 titles I finished reading in 2020, accounting for over 21,000 pages. For the full list see my Goodreads 2020 Reading Challenge page, which the following image shows a snippet from.

Here are two charts showing the numbers of books finished and pages finished per month during 2020.

I find this reading total astonishing, given how ill neurologically I was for much of the year. It’s clear I battled to keep reading, almost always with my utterly gigantic Ladybird book style font in my Kindle. There aren’t many words visible on each screen with such a huge size font, but I gobble up books this way. Reading gives me enormous comfort, and despite the circumstances in which I have to read, unable to generally read conventional print books, or even library large print editions (I find they have too much text on a page for me to concentrate on comfortably), I read eagerly and substantially, as the page count figures show.

The most popular subject for me in 2020 was fantasy (20 books), followed by sci-fi and non-fiction (18 books each), historical fiction (14 books) and children’s books (10 books) – the last including many classic texts. These categories overlap though, so should not be viewed as distinct. Also sci-fi is a little misleading, particularly the multiple Doctor Who books it includes, which fall under sci-fi by default, but in many cases are much more than that. Though to be fair I did read some “hard” scifi this year, with I, Robot by Isaac Asimov, two Star Trek books, and a partial reread of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series.

Only 9 of the books I finished this year were rereads, for example the Hitchhiker’s books, some Sherlock Holmes, and my favourite reread every year for the run up to Halloween, Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October.

I’d like to briefly mention a number of books which were particular highlights for me in 2020. A non-fiction I enjoyed immensely was Charlotte Higgins’s Under Another Sky: Journeys in Roman Britain. This is an account of trips around Britain to visit Roman sites, recounting the history in a thoroughly readable manner. Erudite, educational, but also a page turner and a thoroughly well-written work.

My standout fiction highlight was a classic that I’d never read before, Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo. I didn’t know the story from seeing the film in the past, if I ever did. Reading the novel was an eye opener. I think it does dip a little mid way, as the location shifts and the cast expands suddenly. But it picks up again, and as a fiction read I found it astonishing. I learned about a period of French history I knew little of, and was wowed by the combination of genres (revenge plot, social intrigue, crime etc.) and rich characters and vivid descriptions throughout. Apart from Dickens this must be one of the longest fiction books I’ve read for a very long time, but I’m sure I will reread it in future.

The last two books that I want to mention are both classic time-slip novels for children, which I’m surprised I hadn’t read before. First up was Alison Uttley’s time-slip children’s novel A Traveller in Time. This sees a 20th century girl slip between her time and the late 16th century, getting caught up in intrigues with the doomed Mary Queen of Scots. I saw the TV version in 1978, and still remember scenes from it. The sense of place and the historical period in the book is strong, but against that I found much of the book a little too convenient, for example how easily the people in the past accepted the modern girl appearing suddenly in their midst. A stronger example of the time-slip genre for me was the other read this year, Penelope Lively’s A Stitch in Time. Again a modern era child makes links to the past, though more subtly handled. I found it quite unsettling in places, but in a good way. By the end I was rather wowed.

So yes, rather a packed year of reading, despite huge health problems, particularly between March and October. I’m really pleased to have been able to keep reading. On to more books in 2021!

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Recreational reading in 2019

I keep track of my reading in Goodreads and last year finished 84 books. Looking back on them there are a number of patterns that emerge, and I thought it might be interesting to blog about overall trends and some specific titles that I particularly enjoyed. Note these 84 titles are just those books I read from cover to cover. I also dip in and out of a lot of academic books – usually it is rarely necessary to read those cover to cover for what I need as an academic historian. But the 84 books were read fully.

Unsurprisingly a high portion, over a sixth, of the books finished were Doctor Who ones. Yes I’m a big fan. Most were fiction, including some of the fairly recent new Target novelisations of Tenth and Twelfth Doctor stories. But I also read older books, both more recent Who full length novels, 1990s ones like Paul Cornell’s Human Nature, and some pre-1989 Targets. A particular highlight among the Who books was the new novel Scratchman, based on a movie script idea by Tom Baker and Ian Marter, and turned into a novel more recently by James Goss with Tom Baker’s help. This was completely bonkers, and a delight from start to end. It also made some fun creative decisions writing-wise, in a similar way to the experimentation that Steven Moffat did with his new Target novelisation of his 50th anniversary episode The Day of the Doctor. Most of my Doctor Who reads were fiction, but I also read some Obverse Books Black Archive books, which analyse individual Doctor Who stories, and are always fun.

After Doctor Who the next biggest chunk of books were classic literature. Non-English titles (read in translation) were Alexander Dumas’ The Three Musketeers (which I insisted throughout on referring to as the Muskehounds), Cervantes’ Don Quixote, and Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. All fantastic reads, but the first and third particularly so. From 19th century English literature I read Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders, Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights (not a single likeable character in there I think!), Elizabeth Gaskell’s Wives and Daughters (that one superbly done), and reread my favourite Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend. From slightly later was EM Forster’s A Room With a View. And I read and enjoyed Baroness Orczy’s The Scarlet Pimpernel, though more for the adventure and scene setting than the hefty romance novel elements.

I made a deliberate effort to read some Scottish books this year, including Lewis Grassic Gibbon’s Sunset Song which I had never read. I really enjoyed that, though more for the sense of place and impressive presentation of language. Another Scottish book read set in a similar era was Donald S. Murray’s As the women lay dreaming about the Iolaire disaster. And I read and enjoyed David Greig’s play Dunsinane, a sequel of sorts to Shakespeare’s Macbeth.

Another Scottish author read was Iain Banks – the scifi “Iain M Banks” version of him! – with his The Player of Games, the first of his Culture novels that I’d read, and an inventive plot based around game playing. Another scifi book read was Michael Moorcock’s steampunk The Warlord of the Air, a theme that continued with a reread of Sterling and Gibson’s The Difference Engine. Mary Robinette Kowal’s The Calculating Stars was a fun scifi alternative history of the early days of space flight. And from the Worldcon scifi convention in Dublin’s panel on Irish fantasy and scifi I learned about 19th century Belfast writer Robert Cromie, and read his The Crack of Doom.

Another recommendation that I picked up from the Dubin Worldcon was Jane Gilheaney Barry’s Cailleach about witchcraft and a family in rural Ireland. Many other fantasy books were read over the year, including Ben Aaronovitch’s first Rivers of London, Diana Wynne Jones Deep Secret, Charles Stross The Nightmare Stacks, Ekaterina Sedia’s The Secret History of Moscow, and Andrew David Barker’s The Electric – that last an unexpected joy, a love letter to old films and the magic of cinema.

I’ve mentioned a number of 2019 rereads already. There were others, including Kenneth Grahame’s classic The Wind in the Willows, Mary Stewart’s The Hollow Hills (part 2 of her Merlin trilogy), Susan Cooper’s Greenwitch (part 3 of her Dark is Rising fantasy series), Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, and my annual pre-Halloween reread of Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October. For that last one, a Lovecraftian delight, I even treated myself to a first edition copy of the book. I reread it every year, without fail.

I finished many non fiction books. Some were related to my academic research, including Murray Pittock’s Enlightenment in a Smart City and Martha McGill’s Ghosts in Enlightenment Scotland. Others were read purely for fun. I greatly enjoyed Mary Beard’s SQPR, a history of the Roman empire. Also Chris Lintott’s The Crowd and the Cosmos, about the Zooniverse project, which was arguably more interesting for its discussions about issues of handling big data and crowd participation than the astronomy content. Other Tolkien books read included Ian Brodie’s The Lord of the Rings Location Guidebook about the films (highly recommended) and two Tolkien books bought in a Palgrave sale, The Keys of Middle Earth (excellent introduction to Old English and Norse etc. studied through Tolkien’s reuse of themes/topics) and the less successful The Riddles of the Hobbit. I also read graphic novels, including Doctor Who actress Jessica Martin’s excellent Life Drawing, and a British Museum manga exhibition book.

Crime novels were also a presence in my reading, ranging from classic crime (including the first Campion and an Agatha Christie) through more modern works (including a Hamish Macbeth and the first Ellis Peters Brother Cadfael – the latter yet another reread), and my first read of Donna Leon’s Venice set crime novels, read just after we came back from a trip to the city. I’m less interested in real life crime or anything too gory, but like books that have a good sense of place and plot. I lean towards older crime novels.

Just three computing books show up on my 2019 list. A fun, quick read was Steven Howlett’s A Diary of an 80s Computer Geek, which recalled 1980s British home computing, albeit with a heavy leaning towards the ZX Spectrum. Far less successful was Cara Ellison’s Embed with Games, which promised interesting insights into game developers, but ended up being far too much about the author’s own life and travails. Far better for me was Jason Schreier’s Blood, Sweat and Pixels, which gave an often agonising behind the scenes account of the development of a good number of computer games, both small-scale indie ones with a single developer, and huge large studio projects. It did not always end well, but was a riveting read.

Other than this there were some other scattered books. I particularly enjoyed another Obverse Books publication, Paul Magrs’ festive Bowie tale Stardust and Snow. Recommended reading, especially for any David Bowie fan. Another highlight was the reprinted edition of the Usborne World of the Unknown Ghosts book. This book captivated many children back in the 1970s and 1980s, but somehow passed me by. Now rectified!

So it’s been a good year of reading for me. Almost all read on my Kindle with a gigantic font (think the youngest children learning to read book style, including some Ladybird books) that helps me overcome significant reading problems from neurological disease. Next year I think I’ll continue trying to read more word literature books, and already have some lined up waiting on my Kindle. But beyond that who knows! Looking forward to it anyway.

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On rereading Lord of the Rings

I recently embarked on another reread of JRR Tolkien’s epic fantasy classic The Lord of the Rings. I considered blogging my way through it, but for various reasons, mainly my health situation, I decided against doing that. However I think it still merits a blog post.

It’s been my favourite book for a very, very long time. I first read it back in the early 1980s. At the time I was still using the children’s library in my home town Hawick, and this title was shelved in the “grown ups” section. So a parent borrowed the volumes for me, in turn. I was gripped. A few years later I got my own single volume paperback copy, on a summer holiday day trip to Dundee. It was bought in a tiny gaming shop (RPGs, miniatures and board games) in Exchange Street in the city centre (long since closed). Little did I know that two decades on I’d be living in Dundee myself …

That paperback copy was read lovingly repeatedly over the following decades. I still have it, and it’s one of my most cherished books, albeit in a “well-loved” state by now! But nowadays I generally read fiction on my Kindle, for disability reasons, and have trundled through Lord of the Rings that way several times over recent years.

The book is an epic tale of little people, of various kinds, fighting against adversity. But it’s also a tale of a vanishing rural idyll. And a world of myths and legends, and magic, all vividly imagined by Tolkien in the fantasy world that he created.

As I reread the opening portion, Fellowship of the Ring again, I’m struck by how many things I don’t recall noticing so much before. For example the opening prologue has a surprising amount of spoilers, albeit easy to miss, for what happens later! Likewise I was enchanted by Elvish names for constellations such as Orion and the Pleiades. It very much makes you feel that the book’s Middle Earth is an earlier version of our own world, and that looking up to the sky today you see, by and large, the same view that the hobbits and the elves did that night in The Shire.

Rereading this book is proving to be a delight, as always, and something that I will continue doing for the rest of my life. It never loses its magic for me, and is always a familiar friend to return to.

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Looking back on a year of recreational reading

As we near the end of 2017 I thought I’d reflect on the books I’ve been reading over the last year. Note this is the books I’ve been reading for fun, usually on my Kindle. I have a to-read pile for academic books of quite scary proportions – well several piles! Academic books are trickier for me to read, due to my brain damage, because I usually can’t adjust the font etc. I also tend not to get on well with PDF-based ebooks. But I read ebooks avidly for fun, and got through a fair number this year. 89 finished so far, and there may be more yet.

My list of books completed in 2017 is online at Goodreads. I set myself, just for fun, the goal of completing 50 books this year, and have surpassed it. Particularly good again given my MS-like illness, which wipes me out for much of the time, and makes reading extremely difficult.

Looking through the list of books completed in 2017 a number of trends jump out. For example I really like fantasy and horror books. I’m not a big scifi fan, preferring fantasy, sword and sorcery, magic etc. So, for example, I’ve been continuing my read through (and reread in many cases) of all the 41 Terry Pratchett Discworld novels. I completed six more Discworld books this year, numbers 32-37 in the sequence, interspersing them with other reading material. I started reading book #38 last night.

Another series that I’ve been reading throughout the year, and will carry on doing so into 2018, is Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series of comics / graphic novels. I’ve read these before, and love them, and am rereading them on my iPad in Comixology’s guided panel view. There are 10 collected graphic novel volumes in the main Sandman series, and I read numbers 1-6 this year, and am part way through number 7. Again enjoying immensely.

Other comics that I read this year included those shortlisted for the Hugo scifi awards. As a member of the 2017 Worldcon (actually attending it, in Helsinki) I got a voter’s packet of many of the Hugo shortlisted works. And that included the comics up for the award. So I read loads of these. Many of the works, such as Saga, were parts of ongoing series, but I enjoyed them nevertheless, and have thus found more comics that I want to read in future. I also read most of the Hugo-shortlisted novelettes and novellas.

The Worldcon in Helsinki was held in August 2017, and not long after that I read several horror books in the run-up to Halloween. The first was Graeme Macrae Burnet’s Booker-shortlisted His Bloody Project, more crime than horror, but could easily fit into the latter genre too. I followed this with an annual favourite reread: Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October. I recommend this book to any fans of horror, weird fiction etc. Especially in the days before Halloween. It is rather designed to be read daily throughout October, though I always gobble it up more quickly. Other horror works read in October include Robin Jarvis’s The Whitby Witches, and Ray Bradbury’s The Halloween Tree. October was definitely a good month of reading for me.

Although as noted above I’m not a big fan of scifi I did read several Doctor Who books throughout the year. For me Doctor Who is less a scifi series than a storytelling engine with time travelling aspects. I also read famed scifi writer Michael Moorcock’s The Jewel in the Skull, though this is very much a fantasy novel of his, rather than the scifi that some may associate him more with.

Something new for me this year was reading a number of play scripts. I haven’t done this since I was at school, wading through Shakespeare etc. Thanks to attending a nationwide cinema screening of a live performance of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead I read the script of this play afterwards. To my surprise, finding play scripts vastly easier to read than most print books – lots of space on the page, not too much crammed text to wade through – this was followed by Liz Lochhead’s Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off, which I saw on stage in St Andrews in the 1990s, and Rona Munro’s trilogy The James Plays about Scottish Stewart kings James I, II and III. I have my eye on David Greig’s Dunsinane play next – definitely getting a theme here for historical Scottish ones!

Quite a few of the books I read this year were bought for me as birthday or Christmas presents, usually in ebook form for my Kindle, where I read with a gigantic font and huge line spacing – more in appearance like a Ladybird book for a 5 year old child. Such present titles read included The Moon Stallion, which I saw on the television long, long ago, and Frost Hollow Hall, another Young Adult book with a historical bent and several supernatural elements to it.

I’d like to mention the books that were my favourites this year, all of which I rated as 5-star in Goodreads. In reading order they are as follows:

• A Hat Full of Sky by Terry Pratchett
• The Crystal Cave by Mary Stewart, the first in her Merlin trilogy
• The Weirdstone of Brisingamen by Alan Garner
• The Swish of the Curtain by Pamela Brown
• Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury, a love-letter to small town America and childhood in the 1920s
• Mary Queen of Scots got her head chopped off by Liz Lochhead
• Ms Marvel vol 5 “Super Famous” graphic novel
• Saga vol 6 graphic novel
• Comet in Moominland by Tove Jansson – read in the run-up to our trip to Finland
• Peril at End House by Agatha Christie – one of my favourite Hercule Poirot stories
• Rotherweird by Andrew Caldecott
• Tommy v Cancer: One man’s battle against the Big C by Tommy Donbavand
• The Moon Stallion by Brian Hayles
• The James Plays by Rona Munro
• The Fellowship of the Ring (Lord of the Rings part 1) by JRR Tolkien
• A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny
• The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
• Doctor Who Yearbook 1993
• The Express Diaries by Nick Marsh
• Frost Hollow Hall by Emma Carroll

To be fair many of these top-rated titles were rereads for me, including my absolute favourite Lord of the Rings. But I also found some new favourites to reread in the future, including the already-mentioned The Moon Stallion and Frost Hollow Hall, and Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine.

So that’s my look back at a year of reading. It’s been fun! I look forward to reading more in 2018.

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