It was a year many of my personal rituals dissolved for one reason or other, but I will try to maintain this one. Even if I won't bother too much to make it readable. . .

I've had worse years, but I've had much better years. In fact most recent years have been quite a bit better. I won't bore you all with the personal stuff, suffice it to say it largely put a damper on everything. Even without the directly personal stuff, it was difficult not to feel like the world was collapsing around one (Stephen Pinker's obnoxious Panglosism notwithstanding).


Trump has surpassed all expectations, making a right snot-rag of whatever was left of the American dream. Jealous and copy-catty as ever, we in Ontario installed our very own version here, who, besides slashing environmental protections, rent controls and education funding, has told everyone he'd have no problem disregarding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which, we all learned, wasn't a very binding document anyway.


Social democracy in the west appears in retreat. Populist xenophobes are winning elections everywhere. Erdogan is doing his thing in Turkey, Duarte in the Phillipines, Orban in Hungary, those mad twins in Poland. . . My shit-of-the-year award goes to Mohammed Bin Salman, the thin-skin cry-baby Clown Prince of Saudi Arabia, who showed the world what a beacon of decency he is by chopping-up Jamal Khashoggi. The West, naturally, said nothing, let alone do anything - Trump - loyal as ever to like-minded men - refuses to believe it was him. What does the FBI know anyway?

Of course, next year Salman may have some stiff competition from Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil, who's promised to bulldoze the Amazon rainforest and called the indigenous people who live in them "parasites".

Did the West mean what it said after Nuremberg? We'll see.

On a more personal level, we lost Ursuala Le Guin, and my old favourite, Harlan Ellison ("Unca Harlan" to his fans). For anyone who followed his career and hung on his every word, it's impossible not to feel the loss personally. It also seems to reflect the death of my youthful dreams and ambitions, which once found so much inspiration in his life and work.

It's not all bad news though: I did read a lot of books. My total this year is 24 (roughly - two novellas count as one). Up from 16 the previous year (which was up from the previous 14). The tally will impress no-one (one Facebook acquaintance of mine claims more than a hundred), but it's 24 more than a lot of people read in a year. They were:

Ban this Book - Alan Gratz
Engineers of the Soul - Frank Westerman
Space Tyrant: Refugge- Piers Anthony (ugh)
The Lathe of Heaven - Ursula K. Le Guin
 The Commodore - Patrick O'Brian
Ruins - Brian Aldis
Unacknowledged Legislation - Christopher Hitchens
Book of Laughter and Forgetting - Milan Kundera
In Praise of Stepmother - Mario Vargas Llosa 
The Miracle Game - Joseph Skvorecky
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency - Douglas Adams
Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
Into the Wild - Jon Krakaur
Gun for Hire - Graham Green
Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad (huh?)
Tuesdays With Morrie - Mitch Albom (ugh)
Missing - Kathryn Fox
Cat's Eye - Margaret Atwood
The Influence -  Ramsey Campbell
Death is a Lonely Business - Ray Bradbury
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
Tatiana - Martin Cruz Smith
And Yet - Christopher Hitchens.

The best was "Engineers of the Soul". The worst was "Space Tyrant", which inspired an entire blog post. Honourable mentions to Kundera and Hosseini.


But listing the novels gives a somewhat false picture of my reading habbits - I also tend to read tons of short fiction, which seems out of style these days, and goes largely unacknowledged. I've tried to keep, but lost track of, the pieces of short fiction I read, but it there were 31 which I took note of. I'll list them later. . .


Got to see a couple cool concerts - Ross the Boss, Raven, and a Motorhead tribute act that for one glorious evening brought Lemmy back to life. I rode the Hamilton Rail-Trial. I went back to England, revisited old friends and old haunts, and even met Peter Capaldi.


Best of all though, I became an uncle - new blood has been injected into the family line, to benefit of all. Our batteries have been recharged; we've been rejuvenated by a new sense of hope. The next year can only be better. . .