One of those years...

In later years when someone asks me about 2011 I suspect I'll look a bit blank. It's all rather blurry really. This is not to say I haven't done things...

Director of Research for my School
A new house
Three month's research in Canada
A month's research in Newcastle

...but there is nothing I can point to and say "this was completed in 2011". I seem to be in the middle of absolutely everything, from building and decorating, to two books, to articles owed, to not knowing if my position will be confirmed, to trying to get promotion, etc, etc, etc. The one book that was supposed to be out in 2011 is now out in Jan 2012, The Cambridge Companion to Fantasy Literature


2012 looks rather different.

two achievements:
a) finish An Introduction to Children's Fantasy for Cambridge
b) Launchpad I am on a deferred place from last year when they chose the only week I couldn't do

and two ongoings:

c) being to think seriously about my role as director of Exhibits for the UK worldcon.
d) write two more chapters of the Trease book.

On more general issues:

I will be blogging exercise from Jan 1st because the past three months have been wobbly (in all senses). The new route to work is not exercise compatible so I need to get serious with the gym again.

I will be blogging books I read and they will be books that are *not* intended for work, because this year I seem to have read nothing that wasn't in an archive. Just as with exercise, I seem to be in need of a public display of virtue to get me back on track.

Books of my year.

Not a good year for reading in the sense of new books, but overall these have been my favourites:


Two dead obvious that everyone is listing:

1. China Mieville's Embassytown: I really like alien contact novels and there aren't that many at the moment. I also like linguistics books (Delany's Babel 17 and Elgin's Native Tongue are long term favourites. There was never really any doubt I'd love this.

2. Jo Walton's Among Others: fairies, books, teenage angst, immediate sense of recognition all written with wit and elegance. This will be my first nomination for the Hugo this year.


Two non-fiction books only one other person here will have heard of:
1 and 2. Geoffrey Trease, Portrait of a Cavalier, and Lucy Worsley, Cavalier, both about William Cavendish, Duke of Newcastle, friend of Charles II, and husband of Margaret Cavendish.


Two early children's fantasy books I'd like more people to read:
1. Jean Ingelow, Mopsa the Fairy, 1869
2. Boumphrey, E. The Hoojibahs, 1929
Both of these are original, unexpected and deserve more attention.

Three Canadian children's fantasies I loved.
1. Donn Kushner's A Book Dragon, 1987 tho E is correct to point out that Serpent Grimsby cannot possibly be in the south.
2. Barbara Haworth-Attard, Haunted, 2009, a very unusual YA ghost story set in 1920s rural Canada.
3. Paul Yee, The Bone Collector's Son, 2003, set in turn of the century Vancouver China town, also a ghost story.