I thought I had done a fiction-reading post like this last year, and now can't find it. Turns out it was in August of 2022, when I crossed the 100 book threshold that year, and also I posted it on Facebook. This year hasn't been nearly so dense in terms of books read; I capped out at 86 compared to the previous year's 138. A number of those I read this year turn out to have been very chunky, though, which is a thing I haven't learned to judge with ebooks. And there were a few I didn't finish, mostly because I realised I'd rather do other things than read them, so I gave up and moved on to something else.

I have been trying to read more books by women and non-binary authors than by men, and I'm happy enough with the outcome of this that I'll mostly continue. I do intend to re-read a lot of Pratchett this year, which will likely skew my numbers. I didn't chase that nearly as hard in 2023 as I did in 2022 - most of this year's reading came from either "new books by authors I like" or "recommendations that turned up on social media or newsletters", so I'm quite pleased that the numbers are still skewing heavily away from dudes.

So:

Year	Books Read	Percentage Books by Women & NB	Percentage Women & NB Authors
2022	138	80.58%	74.71%
2023	86	73.63%	69.01%

I'm not going to chase hard on the number of books I read in 2024, but I am halfway through the second one already.

Highlights from 2023:

Naomi Novik's A Deadly Education: This was a re-read; I didn't really get it the first time through. Second reading was much better, and I went to on to read both sequels. Highly recommended.

Annalee Newitz' The Terraformers: I didn't think it was great while I was reading it, but it has absolutely and thoroughly stuck in my head since, and I've gone back to it a few times to pull out details. It's a deeply interesting book, and I reckon we'll see more like it in the next few years.

T. Kingfisher's A House With Good Bones was as usual stellar. Later in the year, Thornhedge and Paladin's Faith by the same author were also excellent. I am reasonably certain that anything she writes will be similar, and her characters' level of practicality and sense (from my point of view, at least) makes it very easy for me to relate to them.

Nicola Griffith's Hild is almost entirely a historical novel, rather than fantasy, and I was still all over it. I am looking forward very much to the sequel.

H. A. Clarke's The Scapegracers and its sequel The Scratch Daughters are both odd books in an almost jarring abrupt narrative style, but I recommend them highly. Teenage witches wreaking magical revenge on various deserving people.

Gareth Hanrahan's The Sword Defiant is totally different to his first trilogy, and again I recommend it very greatly. It's a sort of long-form commentary on the concept of "adventurers" in the fantasy genre.

Martha Wells' System Collapse is the latest Murderbot book, and I think I'll be re-reading all of those this year too, and looking forward to whatever she does next. I also read her The Witch King, which was great, but didn't have Murderbot in it, and therefore just couldn't be as good.

And Emma Törzs' Ink Blood Sister Scribe reminded me of Leigh Bardugo's books, but somehow with a deeper, more thought-out world and more relatable characters. I love Bardugo's settings, but I sometimes have a tough time getting on with the people in her books; this did not have that issue.

Swiped, this year, from freewaydiva.

1. What did you do in 2021 that you'd never done before? Started a business. This will be a theme throughout these answers, because it really was the most significant thing of the year.

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? I don't really make them. I have some incremental organisational changes in mind for 2022, and that's about it.

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? I think my middle brother and sister-in-law had a second daughter this year. It could have been last year. I honestly can't be sure without going and looking it up, which seems a bit like cheating.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Nobody very close. A moderate number of people at a short remove, unfortunately.

5. What countries/places did you visit? Miraculously, I was in the Netherlands for one weekend.

6. What would you like to have in 2022 that you lacked in 2021? The ability to make plans in reasonable confidence that they'll work out.

7. What date from 2021 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? I'm reasonably sure 2021 had individual dates, but telling one from the next was tough enough at the time, and absolutely impossible in retrospect.

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? Starting a business.

9. What was your biggest failure? I don't feel I had any real failures this year, to be honest. There was a soup that definitely did not work, and that seems to have been the worst of it.

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? I did not.

11. What was the best thing you bought? The Tome of Adventure Design

12. Whose behavior merited celebration? One of my client contacts (not naming names here, but if I say he's from Glasgow, that'll identify him enough) who sent plenty of work my way and was relentlessly cheerful through some pretty tough working conditions.

13. Whose behavior made you appalled and depressed? Politicians worldwide, but most especially the Tory party on the next island over.

14. Where did most of your money go? The mortgage, or at least my contribution to the joint account from which the mortgage going out is the biggest expense.

15. What did you get really, really, really excited about? One of the things I am recognising about my probabla-autism is that I don't feel momentary emotions particularly strongly. And getting excited about anything in advance in 2021 was not a great idea. I looked forward greatly to the glamping week that my SCA household and some friends did in October and it actually happened, which was good.

16. What song will always remind you of 2021? Baha Men's Dancing in the Moonlight, maybe? But see General Temporal Confusion.

17. Compared to this time last year, are you: a) happier or sadder? Happier.
b) thinner or fatter? Probably very slightly thinner, but I haven't measured.
c) richer or poorer? Richer, by dint of having work at all.

18. What do you wish you'd done more of? I could have done some more fiction and public writing. But I also did quite a lot of the latter, and at least some of the former, so... I think I did ok.

19. What do you wish you'd done less of? Waking up at random times of the night, which has become a thing. I haven't had significant insomnia since I was 19 otherwise.

20. How will you be spending Christmas/New Years? Christmas Day was at Anna's place, New Year's Eve was at home with in-laws.

21. Which DW people did you meet this year? Nobody new.

22. Did you fall in love in 2021? More every day.

23. How many one-night stands? As per usual, zero.

24. What was your favorite TV program? I think it has to be Sex Education.

25. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? I am not sure I knew Priti Patel's name this time last year, but she's done some firm work in the meantime in getting on the hex list.

26. What was the best book you read? I think that's between Krystal Sutherland's House of Hollow and T. Kingfisher's The Hollow Places. I hadn't copped the titles until I wrote that just now...

27. What was your greatest musical discovery? Corr Mhóna, an Irish metal band.

28. What did you want and get? Vaccines and boosters.

29. What did you want and not get? An end to this damned pandemic.

30. What was your favorite film of this year? I think Dune took it, but there have been a few I meant to see and didn't yet.

31. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I recognised it as little as possible, which is how I like it, and seem to have got to a stage where most people I know also know that I don't like to acknowledge it. I was 44.

32. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? See Q29.

33. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2021? Jeans and t-shirt.

34. What kept you sane? Running D&D games over Zoom.

35. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? I'm... not entirely sure I did, to be honest. There's certainly nobody springing to mind.

36. What political issue stirred you the most? The way in which the whole world seemed not to recognise that keeping schools open was a massive contributor to the spread of COVID-19. Also, the whole fiasco that was COP 26.

37. Who did you miss? A whole bunch of people that I haven't seen in more than two years now.

38. Who was the best new person you met? I am fairly sure that I didn't meet anyone new outside of a business context this year.

39. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2021: Take the jump, do the thing. Either it succeeds, or you actually gave it a try.

40. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: As in most years: "I am the one and only; there's nobody I'd rather be."

Describe your style. What is your aesthetic comprised of?

My personal aesthetic is "arcane hobo", coined by korpikuusi. You can see a lot of it at my Tumblr. It's somewhere in the space between wizardcore, forestcore and dark academia, if it had to be pinned down in terms of existing aesthetics.

What is your favourite type of weather? What do you like to do during this weather?

I love snow, but I've come to think that's novelty value more than an abiding liking for it; I suspect that if I had to deal with it for weeks at a stretch every year, I might like it less. I think on the whole, I prefer autumn frosts, and walking in them, or sitting outdoors with coffee, is the preferred activity. I'm also partial to a good downpour, if I can sit inside an open window, again with the coffee, and preferably something to read or write. As long as it's not too warm, where warm is above 23C.

Describe yourself in 5 words.

Calm, continuous, arcane, interested, rooted.

Do you like to read? What sort of books do you read? Do you have a favourite?

I do, indeed, like to read. I read many kinds of books; principally sf and fantasy, although I have verged over into reading other novels a little more in the last year or so. I also read non-fiction on woodsy stuff, climate, food, food history, agricultural history, historical economics, and... loads more stuff. The most recent books I've acquired were an ebook of Snow Crash, which I want to reread, while it was available for small money, and a physical book about urban exploration in New York.

My favourite book is a little in flux at the moment, but in the long term, it probably settles back, as it has done for about 30 years, to Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. Which I should also re-read soon.

Do you like sweets? What kind do you like? Can you cook or bake? What do you fancy eating?

I like some sweet things. I don't like sweets in the Isles sense - candy, for the Americans - as much as I used to, although fruit jellies are still a thing. Cadbury's new orange chocolate bars are excellent, and I like fairly simple biscuits (cookies); the malted milk with chocolate on being good. Also donuts, but not the weird heavy ones that were in fashion here for the last few years.

I can most definitely cook, and do so a lot; I am a rank amateur at baking. And breakfast foods will always get my attention.

Which time era do you fancy? Why?

I love the high medieval, in a slightly distant wouldn't-want-to-live-then sense; the choice between being the exploited or the exploiter is much too stark then, and even the exploiters are subject to sudden catastrophic change. There are also some fascinating spots in the Early Modern, particularly as worldwide trade got going, but before the advent of anything you could call globalism was around. The Little Ice Age is very interesting. 20th century history mostly bores me; 20th century Irish history is honestly a little bit repulsive, because it's that of an entire nation handed over to the Catholic Church for about 70 years, and the Catholic Church is pretty close to being a purely evil organisation.

A fact about you not many know? Do you have a hidden talent?

I have lived my life online for about 25 years; I don't think there's much that's unknown. But then, very few people have followed me in all the media I've used, so maybe there are some. Possibly: I am not a pacifist. There are a number of things that only violence will solve, and it is incumbent on those of us with the ability to do so to punch Nazis, for instance.

What mythological creature would you be and why?

Merlin.

Are you a night owl or an early bird?

I am a night owl by instinct, nature and biology. Decades of school and employment forced me to develop a habit of waking up at 06:30, but I never liked it. Self-employment allows me to get up a bit after 08:00 most mornings, which is much better. Left to my own devices entirely, I think I'd sleep between 04:00 and noon.

One thing you could spend hours discussing?

Food history. And worldbuilding for RPGs. And honestly, lots of other things too. I find that as long as the person I am talking to is genuinely interested in something, then I can be interested in it as well. Except for men's team sports, which nothing can make entertaining. Even then I can muster some interest in ice hockey and hurling, I suppose. I suspect, though, that I have met very few people who has an actual interest in such sports; the vast majority of people "interested" in them use it as a social/tribal signal or a gender marker - they don't, for instance, read books about it, research it, look into its history, participate in it themselves, or do any of the other things which genuine interest provokes.

Are you afraid of the supernatural? Do you have any scary stories to tell?

I am cautious of it, in the way that many Irish people are. I'm a heathen and a chaos magician, so I also make use of it, but I do treat it carefully. In particular the Nice People; there's a Pascal's Wager-style approach in Ireland where you might not formally believe in them, but you still avoid doing things that might annoy them.

The only genuinely scary thing I have to recount is a visit in my teens as part of a school trip to Loftus Hall, on the Hook Peninsula in Wexford. I went in, I looked around, and I absolutely had to get the fuck out of there as fast as possible. The sense of grim, evil, lonely, impending doom in there was overpowering. I've passed the house a few times since, and it still gives me the cold shudders. At an intellectual level, I'd like to go back and have another look; at the more visceral level, I don't think I'd be physically able.

What makes you infuriated? Do you get upset easily?

Selfish people. The two people in the last... twenty years? thirty years? that I have been genuinely ragingly angry with were both completely and spectacularly self-centred people. One of them is dead, and I am not even a little bit regretful about it. I've had no contact with the other for a long time, and I would strongly prefer it to remain thus.

I do not get upset easily, although I've been known to cry in cinemas and SCA courts.

What do you find beauty in? What is the definition of beauty?

I find beauty in thought and un-thought; things which have been well-thought-out, largely in writing, and things that are not thought-of at all, natural processes. There are spots in-between as well, but mostly things that are part-thought are ugly. I feel that defines it pretty well, albeit kind of in the inverse.

1: Man, Things Get Busier in January

I've always been told that employment and new contracts are busier in January. In line with this, I have two interviews tomorrow, another place where my CV is being pushed hard by a recruiter, and a fairly solid possibility of some freelance work coming up. Compared to the utter non-response from the employment market through most of last year, this is quite a difference. Hopefully something will arise from it.

2: The Uk Government Sucks

I give out a lot about the Irish government, but man, the comparison to the clowns next door is pretty stark. The latest shenanigans (which I'm writing about in Commonplace, coming soon to a mailbox near you, assuming you subscribe) concern replacing a £30 food voucher with a bag of badly chosen groceries worth about £5 as a substitute for school lunches. It is a telling thing that a lot of the notable, newsworthy, and generally bad crossovers between my areas of interest and governments are happening in the UK and US.

3: Weather

We had -6.5C last Saturday morning. It tipped 11C here yesterday afternoon. A 17.5C difference over a little more than 48 hours. There were some mad things in the long range weather forecasts over the last few days, too; the figure of -9C appeared in one of them. That is the outer edge of the forecast, where the models are flailing around, but still. We haven't had anything as cold as -6.5C in a decade; colder still would be pretty notable. We also got a little bit of snow last Thursday; I live in hope of a better fall within the month. Various places in Europe are getting heavy snow around now, so the hope isn't entirely pointless.

I got temporary work for the past two weeks, packing boxes in a warehouse for the Celtic Whiskey Shop. Quite aside from the whole getting paid thing, I really enjoyed the work. Physical work with a little bit of spatial thinking ("will this object, once covered in bubble wrap, fit in that box?"; "which size of box am I going to need for these five objects of widely assorted size and shape?"; etc) is excellent for peace of mind, and the back and forth of fetching stuff is pleasingly active. The job was only just above minimum wage, but it's still money.

Bizarrely, I also had a lot in common with my co-workers, rather more so than I've ever had in an office job. There were fellow metalheads and techno enthusiasts, someone with a more eclectic taste in music than me (the only such person I've ever met), whiskey enthusiasts, cooks, a just-getting-started witch, a geologist, and a chap who, having overheard a conversation about ingredient substitution in medieval dishes, offered me work on the 25th and 26th as a chef in his second job, since they were having trouble finding anyone else (I didn't take it; I want those days off, and also despite years of SCA cooking, I don't feel qualified to walk straight into a restaurant kitchen as a chef).

Some observations from the warehouse: we saw - and indeed, have to spend some time seeing - the notes that people attach to gifts. There is a very clear correlation between the amount spent, and the way in which daughters address their fathers. All manner of address happens below about €60 - Da, Dad, Daddy, Pa, Oul' Fella, Father, and one instance, probably joking but not clear without context, of Pater. Between €60 and €150, give or take a bit, you only see "Dad", "Daddy", and "Father". And above €150, there is only "Daddy". (I am assuming that these women are actually addressing parents).

The address "to Dadlet and Mumbley" was also in the under €60 bracket, and is quite unique.

Other greetings I have seen, directed to either siblings or friends, include "Bonjour shithead", "Happy Christmas, Dickhead", "Yiz are all fuckers", "Howya wanker", "Yer a right cunt" (the entire message, accompanying a €249 bottle of whiskey), and "I was going to send you a bottle of piss, but I chickened out". There was one which the nice Romanian lady in charge of the orders wouldn't let us see ("it is too private"), and considering that we did see one that read "Best lesbian. Lick lick lick!", I do wonder what was in it.

Women frequently send whiskey to men. I saw one single instance of a man sending whiskey to a woman; they send gin, liqueurs, wine, vodka, etc, but almost never whiskey.

The most expensive one I packed was a Green Spot 12 Year Old, coming in at nine hundred and some euros. One of the people at my station packed something which had retailed at €5000, and was going by courier to Singapore.

Over the two weeks, there were clear waves of purchases - friends and family first, particularly parents, then siblings and in-laws. Then as that died down, there was a wave of corporate purchases; either "send us 16 bottles of this and we'll sort them out", or "ship bottles to these people with these notes, in the attached spreadsheet". And as that faded out, we had a wave of people re-stocking their cocktail cabinets, buying things like cherry brandy and bitters (there are SO MANY kinds of bitters, I had no idea) and industrial quantities of vodka. And strainers, mixers, and spoons of various sorts.

The body corporate was very good. Any day there wasn't enough work to keep us occupied until closing, we were sent home early, everyone was given a free bottle of something, and I got a paid day off on the 22nd (unheard of for temporary workers). Plus there was an employee discount by way of removing the VAT, which is 23%. And one of the boss guys - the owner, I think, or possibly co-owner - kept us plied with biscuits, mince pies, and other goods pretty steadily throughout. It's also the first place I've ever worked where someone came around to check that everyone had taken a lunch break. I've made it clear that if they have more work going in January, I'd like to be in there.

I have a theory. But let me backtrack a bit first and say what I'm theorising about. The USA is in the process of barely, just about, unseating from the White House a man who is patently, obviously, completely unfit to be there. He has done nothing good for the country - or the world - since he got there, and he's done a hell of a lot of harm. Yet, despite all the evidence, just under half the country voted to re-elect him to that office. Why the fuck would they do that?

I think the answer lies in sports, and specifically, the media treatment of sports. Team sports in particular - football, soccer, American football, hurling, ice hockey, rugby - are all reported in the news as though they were things of import, things that matter. There's been a lot of focus on when sports competitions of various kinds could restart after COVID-19 lockdowns. I mean, why? What use is it to have 22 grown men crashing into each other while chasing an inflated bit of leather around a field? Clearly, it is of no use at all.

(The correct answer is: it is of use to the media and the 'owners' of the sports businesses, who make a lot of money from it. But let's leave capitalism aside for now, because the answer to "why is anything shit" is "capitalism", and that's not what I'm after here.)

It's important to ordinary people, though, to have sports - or more strictly, sports coverage - back in the "news". I say sports coverage, because it's been adequately demonstrated by wrestling and greyhound racing that actual competition is unimportant; what people want is an appearance of competition. They want this back because it is part of their identity. Every sad sack of an office lad has a team they think of as being theirs. They will wear that team's scarf or an expensive replica of the kit worn by the players (I think of this as sports cosplay, although it's a pretty poor level of cosplay). They will be better disposed toward people who support the same team. If that team has a traditional opponent team, they will be poorly disposed toward supporters of that team. Clearly, this is ridiculous shite, but it's essentially tribalism. Denied the possibility of identifying with clan or liege lord, humans will apparently find something - anything to glom onto. And of course, loyalty is important. One does not give up on a team merely because it is losing, and even if it is relegated, yea, even unto the third division, one sticks with it. Because, y'know, tribalism.

The winning and losing, and much of the surrounding guff, of teams is covered in the media as though it had import. This give the tribalists a feeling of relevance. Their identity-mascot, their clan substitute, is being talked about! They are important! And the tribalist, by the magic of association, feels important. But at the same time, the winning and losing and surrounding guff, and this is important, has no impact on their life. It does not put more, or less meat on the table. It does not affect how warm or cold their dwelling is. It does not, in short, have any impact other than being entertaining, and giving a playful collective identity.

So, we are now in the position where a thing that is covered in the media is not actually a real, relevant thing. The same people who have that experience also read about (or watch) politics in the media. And by the magic of similarity, they understand that politics is the same as sport. You pick a team, you wear your team's colours, you slag off the other team's supporters, and of course, when your team loses, you stick with them. Giving up on your team, and worse, switching to the opposition team, why that would be disloyal. And we have already established that the things covered in the media do not make a difference in real life. They they do not put more or less meat on the table. They do not affect how warm or cold the dwelling is. They do not, in short, have any impact other than being entertaining... no, wait.

But the tribalists do not get as far as the "no, wait". Many of the good people of the US of A will complain about the government at the same time as they stand under and wear the symbols of that government. Because the media has provided enough evidence that the team identity isn't a real thing, they will stick dedicatedly to Their Team, Their Party, in the face of all the evidence, because it's not real, it's just entertainment, exactly like the media have shown.

In short, media coverage of sport is responsible for half of America trying to vote back in a racist, narcissist, downright evil fucker. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

(And it's probably best not to get me started on celebrity culture.)

For those who used to get these things on Facebook, I present the new seasonal playlist: Samhain.

Go-to hot drink? Black coffee in the mornings, tea in the evenings. Hot chocolate on particularly frosty mornings, or if there's snow.

What book gets you into the cosy spirit? John Masefield's The Box of Delights, despite it being technically set at Christmas.

Favourite costume as a child? We didn't ever really have Hallowe'en costumes as kids, just masks. I had a full-head rubber zombie mask I saved up for, though, of which I was very fond.

What woodland animal do you connect to on an emotional level? Badgers. Always badgers.

Film that gets you in the spooky spirit? Nightmare Before Christmas, very definitely.

Favourite tasty treat to bake? I am not a good baker, yet. I can muster chocolate chip cookies, though, so that'll do.

Do you fantasise about falling in love with a hot vampire or sickly ghost?. I do not. The undead are for armies and world takeover, not romance.

The scent you want filling your room? I have a tar candle I got in Helsinki last Christmas. It has an excellent slightly wood-smokey, slightly darker scent. It is the best scent.

Pick a date- gingerbread biscuit decorating, pumpkin patch, hunting through a book shop, popcorn and spooky films? Hunting through a bookshop. I mean, there isn't even any competition in that list.

If you were a coffee syrup or spice which would you be? Tar syrup. It's a real thing. You can get it in Finland.

Any ghostly encounters? A whole load of minor things. But the one that sticks most in my head is Loftus Hall, near Hook Head. Very little specific about it, but I absolutely could not stay in the building, and it gives me the cold shudders every time I pass by it.

Favourite time of day during the cinnamon season? Sunrise, if there's frost. Otherwise, dusk.

Gift economies came before money, not the barter that Adam Smith seems to have invented. I am amused that the creation story of economics is a fairytale.

Shoshin, the beginner's mind, is a valuable thinking tool, which saves you from the embarrassing situation of thinking you're right because you already know so much. I've been employing bits of this for years, most notably the technique of explaining myself and arguing with myself; I'm interested to find there's a name for it.

Shareable: Building Collective Resilience in the Wake of Disasters - does what it says on the can. Expect to see chunks of this resurfacing in Gentle Decline, assuming I don't just send one final issue going "read this". (I jest, I don't shut up that easy.)

I ran my first gaming session in about six months yesterday, for the ongoing super-epic gods-and-worlds-level campaign that I run for annaw and korpikuusi. My brain has just plain not been up to it for most of the pandemic. However, in some of the planning for that, we decided that we'd also start a 5th Edition D&D game with some more crunch and low-level stuff, which I can run while I develop more Plot for the epic game.

The degree to which this has re-enthused me about running games is something else. I've been reading the rules, reading over various forums and commentary, and watching an episode of Critical Role (given it's video, this is notable) as general getting-up-to-speed stuff. In the last low-level game I ran (4E, for a bunch of my co-workers in LearnUpon), I built the world slowly as I went along, and that was a good experience, so I'm going to try to do that this time too. It's hard not to start writing stuff in advance, though.

Re-starting the mid-level 4E game with all the players (I think one session had 11 players) will have to wait until a point when the various COVID-19 restrictions change, but this will very much keep me going in the meantime.