Looking back at a year of reading 2023 edition

End of another year, and time for another end of year reading retrospective from me, looking back at the books I read for fun in 2023. I adore reading, despite my progressive neurological disease meaning that I am often heavily sedated, and struggle hugely with print. Most books are read with an utterly gigantic font on my Kindle. But I gobble up books. I even have a PhD in historic Scottish reading habits, so it’s nice when I can gobble up books myself, and not just stare longingly at past historic readers who in some cases could read more than me!

This year I finished 60 books, almost 20,000 pages read, average 375 pages a week. Of these 42 of the books were fiction, 17 non fiction, and 1 a poetry collection. Here is a link to my full list for the year on Goodreads. And the picture below shows a glimpse of some of the books I was reading over the months.

20 of the books were fantasy genre, and 7 graphic novels or manga or comic books. Fantasy remains my favourite genre by far, and I can still read and enjoy graphic novels and manga despite my neurological problems with print. 8 books I would categorise as historical fiction (with some overlap in cases with the fantasy count), but just 6 were scifi. I read some scifi – especially Doctor Who novels – but am not a fan of hard scifi. Despite adoring since childhood first Star Trek and then Doctor Who, Babylon 5 and others. But reading is mostly about fantasy for me. I also have a fondness for children’s or YA fiction from time to time, and read 9 of those this year, ranging from old classics to modern. Only 5 of my reads this time were horror genre.

In some recent years I’ve reread a lot of much loved novels for comfort. There was less of that this year, though I reread a few, such as my annual pre-Halloween read of Roger Zelazny’s A Night in the Lonesome October. I continued my slow Wheel of Time read, with 3 more novels in that series – up to the end of number 7 now, and hoping for another couple next year. Though I’ve tended towards shorter rather than longer novels. I also read some novels for the book club I’m in.

I am surprised by how many non fiction books I gobbled up. I read these alongside fiction, flitting between the two night to night. And I had some really good non fiction reads this year. In fact when I look at my top rated books and think about which books made the biggest impression on me in 2023 it’s 3 non fiction books that stand out most.

The first two were read at the very start of the year. Firstly Mensun Bound’s The Ship Beneath the Ice: The Discovery of Shackleton’s Endurance, which was a very rare in print read for me, after I managed to nab a signed copy from my local bookshop in Broughty Ferry. Even knowing the ending of the story this was still a gripping page turner. And I cried tears at the end. Another tear jerker, though happy too, was Rob Wilkins’ Terry Pratchett: A Life With Footnotes: The Official Biography. Which was a deftly written biography of a much loved author, and so phenomenally insightful. I was delighted later in the year when it won the Hugo Award for best related work.

The third standout non fiction book was The Climate Book, written by Greta Thunberg and many many others. This is probably the most important book I have ever read. Certainly the most affecting. It’s devastating in many places, but something I needed to get to grips with. And there are seeds of hope in there. But yes, just read it.

Although my favourite books were non fiction I’d like to mention my favourite fiction books of the year too. Firstly Legends & Lattes by Travis Baldree, which was a cosy fantasy, combining a traditional fantasy world and characters with the comfort of coffee shop culture. So good! Another standout was Bob Mortimer’s comic novel The Satsuma Complex, another award winning book, which had more than a hint of Douglas Adams about its writing. It felt almost like another Dirk Gently book. And so very very funny. Finally, classic scifi The Technicolor Time Machine by Harry Harrison sees a film crew go back in time in a time machine to film a Hollywood blockbuster, with totally authentic scenery and cast – real Vikings! This was utterly bonkers. A joy.

Looking ahead to 2024 I’d like to reread The Lord of the Rings, and also Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens – both some of my most favourite books. And long books, so I’ll be aiming more for quality than quantity. Would also like to get through a couple more Wheel of Time books. And read more books in translation. But yes, just keep reading!

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Watching the SHARP 2023 conference on catchup

I’m a book historian, with a PhD in historic Scottish reading habits. For many years I have been a member of SHARP, the Society for the History of Authorship, Reading & Publishing. I have also attended numerous SHARP academic conferences in person, since 2005, presenting papers at a number of them. Though now attendance in person isn’t feasible any more for me, given my progressive neurological disease.

During the Covid pandemic era some of the SHARP conference content has been available to view online, though this has been varied by year in terms of number of online events. However this year, 2023, the conference was run completely online, organised by the University of Otago in New Zealand, but streaming worldwide, both to watch live and on catchup. This way speakers and attendees from all over the world could participate.

I was too ill to offer a talk this year, and also too ill in late June to watch the conference live. However I’ve just enjoyed watching it on catchup. Talks as originally streamed via Zoom were available for paid attendees to watch on catchup through August, using a web browser Zoom interface (which my laptop browser was a bit flaky over, but we got there!). I had also printed out the programme, and noted which talks were of most interest to me to watch, given my limited time. Here are the panels I watched over the last couple of months:

• Readers on Bookstagram
• Eighteenth-century Libraries Online: An Introduction and Showcase
• Special Collections’ Pedagogies as Immersive Encounters
• Dickens as Author and Publisher
• Networks of Support
• ‘They Are Books to Me’ (Until they Aren’t): Reader Experiences of the Realness of Electronic Books.
• Traces of Readers
• Black Voices in North American Colonial Print
• Counterculture and Collections
• Censorship in Spain and Mexico
• Reading Together and On Screen
• Digital Platforms and New Opportunities in Book History

Most of these panels had a couple of speakers plus a chair. I must thank all the speakers and chairs I saw, for what was a very efficiently run series of talks. Plus thanks to the people taking part after in the Q&A sessions for each panel, even if as a catchup viewer I was not able to take part in the live Q&As myself. And enormous thanks to the technical team keeping things running smoothly, and to the organisers of the conference. Though I was surprised there was no directly provided chat facility to assist networking and communications between attendees. For example a Discord facility could have helped here.

My own book history research focuses on reading habits, primarily in seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth century Scotland. However I have wider book history interests, both in time and space, and also theme. So I was delighted to watch many talks from this conference. Every single talk I watched inspired me in some way or another, whether it be research questions, interesting areas new to me to follow up, or methodology or presentation. I was constantly taking screen shots of interesting things for later followup.

A particular highlight for me was Laura Dietz’s keynote on electronic books. Due to my progressive neurological disease I have struggled increasingly with print books since the late 1990s, including throughout my PhD. I am a passionate advocate of ebooks as a valid form of reading, and angry that this can be dismissed too readily by some readers and also some academic book historians. If I’d given a talk to SHARP this year it was going to be a very personal one about my own experiences as a disabled reader who is both academic book historian and enthusiastic reader, and relies on ebooks for accessibility reasons. Laura’s talk touched on this, discussing results from a survey researching in this reader. And some of the people who had responded echoed my views. So I felt represented.

I am also an enthusiastic member of online book groups, so talks about Bookstagram and communal book club reading appealed. Likewise learning about Black book history topics was enlightening. And of course familiar areas to me, such as the Liverpool Eighteenth-Century Libraries Online group presenting a demo of their database plus initial findings.

I know that there is a push back towards face to face conferences, including in SHARP. But I hope that online streaming – and some form of hybrid – will continue to allow access to the conference for people who cannot be there in person, whether for economic reasons, disability or health risks, family or caring commitments, or aspects of geography. SHARP 2023 has been a delight for me, even on catchup. I hope that SHARP 2024 will be too.

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Watching the Cymera writing festival on catchup

This passed me by in previous years, but this year I was lucky to find out in time about the Cymera festival of fantasy, scifi and horror writing. It takes place in Edinburgh, but in recent years due to Covid has been online too. It took place in early June and I bought a digital weekend pass. This let me watch events streamed live, but more importantly let me also watch after on catchup. I had until today, 3rd July, to watch them, and have been putting in the time in recent weeks to get through as many as I could. Today I watched my last talk, my 22nd. This is a quite incredible tally for seriously ill me to have managed. And as someone with a very restricting neurological illness (I am mostly bedbound now, and asleep most of the time) it was a marvellous opportunity to watch and enjoy things from home at my own convenience that in the past you would have to be there in person to see.

I watched a huge list of panels and author chats, as listed below. Initially looking through the programme before the event I spotted 3-5 events that immediately jumped out to me. Events taking place live in Edinburgh that were streaming too, or Zoom chats that would be available to watch either live or on catchup for digital ticket holders later. However because I bought a digital weekend pass (£50, though available earlier at £40) I could watch *everything* recorded live and on catchup. And in practice I ended up watching way, way more than even I could hope. Not all the talks aired, but a huge number of them.

• Folkways with JJA Harwood and Kit Whitfield
• Cityscapes with Adrian Tchaikovsky, E.C. Hibbs and J.L. Worrad
• Expanding Universes with Aliette De Bodard and Ann Leckie
• Dead Weird with Gemma Amor, John McGlade and Heather Parry
• Unlikely Friendships with Travis Baldree and Heather Fawcett
• Haunted and Hunted with Fiona Barnett, Anya Bergman and Catriona Ward
• Catching Up With Helen Sedgwick
• War Stories with Gareth Hanrahan, Anna Smith Spark and Ian Whates
• The Epic’s New Clothes with Sharon Emmerichs, Juliet McKenna and Claire North
• It’s Grim up Norse with Thilde Kold Holdt, Shauna Lawless and Suzie Wilde
• N.K. Jemisin in conversation with Tasha Suri
• Daring Deeds with Justin Lee Anderson and Sebastien de Castell
• Adventures in Time and Space with A.G. Riddle and Gareth Worthington
• Catching Up With Silvia Moreno-Garcia
• Connection, Interrupted with Nina Allan, Cory Doctorow and Ian McDonald
• Catching Up With Brent Weeks
• Yesterday’s Tomorrow with Nicholas Binge and Christopher Priest
• New Scottish Stories with Paul Tonner, Letty Wilson and Ell J Walker
• Of Gods and Dragons with Amie Kaufman and L.R. Lam
• Dangerous Magics with Chelsea Abdullah and Hadeer Elsbai
• Underworld with C.K. McDonnell, Sarah Painter and Adam Simcox
• CyberJunk with M.R. Carey, Dave Cook and Ever Dundas

The order in which I watched the events above isn’t representative of what I was most intrigued by. I could flit from event to event, and saved some of the best to last. Many were two or three-author panels based around a theme with a chair person. Others were single author chats with a chair by Zoom.

The range of fantasy, scifi and horror writing covered was immense. There would rarely be a panel where I wouldn’t be adding titles to my book watch list, or even buying something immediately. Some authors I knew already, but I discovered many authors new to me, whose works I now want to read. And despite watching so many of author events I was impressed by how little overlap there was in terms of content. Every panel or chat would give me new insights and experiences into the writing process, as well as touch on the specific themes of that panel and introduce me to the writers and their books.

I would like to thank the organisers for allowing streamed access like this. It was so enabling for me, and as a reader and writer myself I am throughly inspired by having watched these. I would also like to thank the festival team for managing the technology and practicalities so well. This was a very smooth operation. I will definitely be back to watch next year. Though aiming to book my digital weekend earlier so I can benefit from the reduced early bird weekend pass price!

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Looking back on a year of reading 2022 edition

Time for my annual look back at what I’ve been reading – primarily for fun – this year. Reading has continued to be an important part of my life, despite recurring flares in my neurological disease throughout the year. I read mainly on my Kindle with an utterly gargantuan font. But that way I can get through a lot of books.

This year I finished 75 books, just over 20,000 pages read. For the full list see my Goodreads 2022 Reading Challenge page, which the following image shows part of:

5 of the books I read were set in Japan and another 2 in other southeast Asian countries. Some of these came from the patron book club run by a book YouTuber I follow, Christy Anne Jones in Australia. But others were from the TBR paid recommendation service I signed up for a year of. Here you answer a probing questionnaire about your reading tastes, and a professional bibliologist recommends books to you. I’ve so far finished 5 of the 6 books TBR recommended to me this year, and some were really really strong, and all a delight. I was particularly keen to read books from other perspectives, other parts of the world, the LGBTQ community etc. Good stuff.

47 of the books finished were fiction, 28 non fiction. I tend to read multiple books at the same time. As usual fantasy was a huge part of my reading. I read very little sci-fi, despite being a huge fan of Doctor Who and The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy series. Fantasy fiction is a huge draw for me though, and I read many big ones, including three more in The Wheel of Time series, and smaller ones too. Another significant genre was historical fiction, and I also read a good number of children’s books and crime novels. Not so much horror this year. I think having been bereaved mid year it wasn’t so appealing this time around. And just a few graphic novels.

Generally the books I read this year were enjoyable. I left a few unfinished, but most that I finished were a good read. I’d like to highlight a few particular highlights, all books that were new reads for me this year. I also reread quite a few old favourites. Very good comfort reads.

My favourite book of the year was Babel by R.F. Kuang. This historical fantasy / alternative history book is set in the 1830s, largely in Oxford, and is a potent mix of academia, thriller and a vivid look at colonialism. It’s been a social media sensation this year, but it’s one of the strongest novels I’ve read new for a long time, and thoroughly deserves the praise it has earned. Highly and unquestionably recommended.

Another wonderful new read for me was Lud-in-the-Mist by Hope Mirrlees. This is a lost fantasy classic, that I have long wanted to read, after hearing Neil Gaiman praise it. But only got to it when Christy read it – also prompted by Neil – and reviewed it on her YouTube channel. It’s a curious mix of a strange fantasy world, reminiscent of Neil Gaiman’s own Stardust, but also with a strong feel of Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell.

A popular British children’s classic that I finally got to is Charmed Life by Diana Wynne Jones, the first in the Chrestomanci series. I don’t know why I hadn’t read this years before. It’s delightful. Sort of similar in feel to Lud-in-the-Mist actually, but with elements of Edith Nesbit books, Harry Potter and much more besides.

Another standout book that I got to via Christy’s channel, this time through her patron book club monthly reads, was The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa. This was a potent tale of memory loss, mathematics and deep emotional connections. I didn’t expect to be so moved. And it raised many questions.

The last book I’d like to highlight as a standout new read for me was Hello, World! Opinion columns from the Daily Princetonian by Brian W. Kernighan. Yes the same man better known to former computer scientist me as a Unix pioneer and author of a definitive C language programming text book I relied on so much in my undergraduate years! This is a collection of his columns for the Princeton University student newspaper. And it’s a delightfully varied mix of academia, computer science, and just life and stuff.

So yes, a fun year of reading! I look forward to reading more next year.

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My top 10 favourite books

Prompted by recent tweets I thought I’d draw up a list of my favourite books. I thought about widening beyond fiction, but in the end I’ve gone for the easier option of just favourite fiction books. Note that I’ve excluded “Complete Works” or complete series.

The list is generally not in order apart from the first book in it, which is by far my favourite. This was republished in a single volume soon after publication of the final third, so I think I can include it in its entirety:

• The Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien

I first read this when I was too young to borrow books from the adult section of Hawick Public Library. So my Mum borrowed them for me. It has been a regular reread ever since.

The remaining 9 books are not in any order. They almost look like a best of from many favourite authors, with no author in the list twice. But for each author’s work there is a book I especially cherish. Here they are:

• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams (the first book of that title in the series)
• Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens – despite my concerns re one particular aspect of the plot. But rereading it every few years is a constant delight.
• Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett – the first in the Watch sub series, and the best for me still.
• The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas
• A Night in the Lonesome October by Roger Zelazny – I reread this every year in the run up to Halloween.
• Death on the Nile by Agatha Christie
• The Hound of the Baskervilles by Arthur Conan Doyle
• The Dark is Rising by Susan Cooper (the second book in the larger 5-book sequence)

That’s a really satisfying set of books for me. All ones that I adore, all ones that I reread with delight. There are many other books that I am extremely fond of. But these are the standout top 10.

I was lucky to do a PhD on historic Scottish reading habits and studied the books that many individual Scots were reading in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. But there were virtually no records of individual readers’ favourite books, though it’s quite a common thing to ask nowadays. I think that it can provide an interesting snapshot view of a reader’s interests.

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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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Reading a book about a stroke survivor and recognising so many things

I’ve been reading a book about a stroke survivor, a neurologist actually. His stroke was really catastrophic, so different what I’ve experienced from my cerebral vasculitis since 1994. But there are so many shared experiences.

For example late on in his rehabilitation he would often get stuck, knowing what he wanted to do, but needing encouragement to do it. So eg sitting on the edge of the bed, but unable to stand up without encouragement. That is so familiar to me. Often I just ask my husband to encourage me to do something, like stand, or move my leg etc. I’ll typically say “I’m stuck. Help!” Often it happens when we get home from an outing, and it’s an almighty mind over matter effort to encourage me to move my legs out of the car, get up, and walk into the house, carefully. I could just vegetate there indefinitely on the spot.

Anyway an interesting book for me. I have had lots of mini strokes, and a bigger one in 2004. But I’ve had no neurology support re understanding what is going on with me, or for recovery or rehabilitation. So I battle on! But I wish I understood more about it.

The book is Surviving Stroke: The Story of a Neurologist and His Family by Helen Kennerley and Udo Kischka.

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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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Attending the Edinburgh Book Festival online rather than in person

This year I’ve been an online attendee of the Edinburgh Book Festival. I thought it might be helpful to blog some thoughts about this, and in particular how it compared for me to being there in person in the past.

I’ve been going to the Edinburgh Book Festival many times since the late 1990s. In the early visits I would travel down by train. More recently, as my neurological disease progressed, my husband and I had to switch to driving down with my wheelchair and staying a couple of nights in a hotel. Much more costly and time consuming, but giving me much valued experiences and memories.

This year the festival is being held in a new venue, and is offering a hybrid in-person/online attendance option. It would not have been safe for me to go there in person this time, being immunosuppressed during a Covid pandemic. The vaccine has fortunately given me antibodies – yay! – but at an extremely low level. So I am still at great risk, and being ultra cautious. But the availability of online tickets for most of the book festival’s events this year allowed me to attend in a different way.

The highlight of the festival for me has always been the author talks. I’ve written here before about attending some of these in person, e.g. in 2013, 2015 and 2018. Usually because I have to travel from a distance I can only see one or at the very most two author talks, depending on the timing options, and what I can get tickets for. But online attendance allows me to potentially attend more events more events spread over more days, even at a distance.

This year I bought online tickets for three events: Helena Attlee talking about the tale of a violin through time (I am a long lapsed violin player), James Robertson talking about his new ghostly novel set in the Angus glens (I live in Angus), and Denise Mina talking about her new novella retelling of the Rizzio murder. I watched the first and third of these live, and the second on catchup in the middle of a neurologically disturbed night. All were watched from bed in my pyjamas, on my iPad with Bluetooth headphones. Definitely a form of access I haven’t enjoyed attending the festival before!

With each event I was able to watch video footage of the author talks, with good camera shots of the authors, interviewers and audience in the room (a very spaced out and masked up audience). The audio was clear, and the experience of watching reassuringly close to being there in person.

In addition to the live video stream online attendees have access to online text chat rooms, where we can share comments, and ask questions to be posed to the speakers. I didn’t ask a question myself, but participated actively in the chats. I was pleased to see the online questions asked by the interviewers on behalf of the online audience members. This was integrated well alongside questions from the audience in the room in Edinburgh.

So yes, positive impressions from watching author talks online. On the downside online participants do miss out on face to face signing events, though some of the author talks had prebookable (days in advance) online signing options. I was more concerned though at how online members could miss out on the festival bookshop. Visiting the festival bookshops – adult and children’s – was always a major highlight for me of attending in person. With a huge range of books on offer, including from publishers I would never normally encounter, I would always come away with unexpected gems.

Yet the bookshop is not promoted effectively in the festival website. Yes on individual events pages there is a link to order book(s) associated with the event. And clicking on that takes you to the bookshop website. But otherwise the online bookshop is not linked as far as I can see from the festival website. Even if you know it exists it can be very hard to find. Google is often the best option! Which is ridiculous. Because when you get there it is possible to browse the shelves well, and find gems. Ok not the same as physically in person, but worth some minutes of your time for many online attendees.

So yes some downsides, but overall I’m really happy I could attend in person. Very grateful in fact. Looking ahead it may be safer for me to attend in future years, but my neurological disease is progressing, and that might simply not be practical. But I’m encouraged that the festival organisers have said that they value the online attendance, and intend to continue to make it part of the festivals in future years. So hopefully I can attend in that way in future years. And maybe the bookshop be better linked too?

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