In anticipation of the 25th anniversary of my bookblogging, which will come in late 2028, I’m reposting my monthly summaries since November 2003 when I started. (I already did this in 2019-2023, but this gives me a chance to consolidate all the posts and links to this WordPress site rather than my old Livejournal.) Everything will be linked under the bookblog nostalgia tag.
March 2004 began with a week of travel, to Paris, Washington DC and New York. Riots broke out in Kosovo. We published a report on Serbia. I had to cancel a trip to Oslo (did not visit Norway until 2023), but I also visited Budapest, and finished the month with a work conference in Dublin and a day in Belfast, where I met (separately) with Peter Robinson and Denis Donaldson. At home, we parted company with our au pair (a grumpy Belgian). One news item which I knew was important, but had no idea just how important it would be for me, was the announcement of Christopher Eccleston as the new Doctor Who.
I read 14 books that month.
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 10)
The Sandman Companion, by Hy Bender
Ask Me Anything about the Presidents, by Louis Phillips
Eleanor of Aquitaine: Lord and Lady, ed. Bonnie Wheeler and John Carmi Parsons
Chance Witness: An Outsider’s Life in Politics, by Matthew Parris
SF 10 (YTD 21)
On, by Adam Roberts
Changing Planes, by Ursula Le Guin
Maul, by Tricia Sullivan
The Gambler’s Fortune, by Juliet E. McKenna
The Green Gene, by Peter Dickinson
Coalescent, by Stephen Baxter
The Hounds of the Morrigan, by Pat O’Shea
The Sandman Book of Dreams, ed Neil Gaiman and Ed Kramer (and, uncredited, Martin Greenberg)
Kushiel’s Avatar, by Jacqueline Carey
The Master, by TH White
5,400 pages (YTD 13,700)
6/14 by women (YTD 12/34)
still none by PoC
Some very good books this month, and none that I would particularly disrecommend. I think top non-fiction are Matthew Parris and the Eleanor of Aquitaine book, and top sf are The Master and The Gambler’s Fortune, probably in that order.
