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.
Back at work, I continued lobbying for a Commission cabinet position until it became obvious that this was not my year. (I have not seriously tried again since.) I had another op-ed on Macedonia as the political situation there took another twist. I travelled to Moldova, Belfast and ended the month in Portugal, with a day trip to the Hague. A writer whose books I don’t especially like rather sweetly got in touch and offered to send me some more so that I could make a more informed judgement; I accepted. And we celebrated little U’s christening (sadly since then we have lost both Liz, her godmother, and Guy Van Haver, the parish priest).
I read 12 books that month.
Non-fiction: 2 (YTD 32)
Judgement Day: The Trial of Slobodan Milosevic, by Christopher Stephen
The 9/11 Commission Report
Non-genre 1 (YTD 12)
To The Nines, by Janet Evanovich
SF: 7 (YTD 56)
The Warrior’s Bond, by Juliet McKenna
The Tale of the Next Great War, ed. I.F. Clarke
Star Trek: Enterprise – The First Adventure, by Vonda N. McIntyre
Monstrous Regiment, by Terry Pratchett
The Gods Themselves, by Isaac Asimov
Downbelow Station, by C.J. Cherryh
Brother Berserker, by Fred Saberhagen
Comics: 2 (YTD 5)
Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Marjane Satrapi
The Sandman: Endless Nights, by Neil Gaiman
I see that when I first tallied this month I counted Janet Evanovich as sf; I think that was wrong and will have to correct the record going forward.
4,300 pages (YTD 36,400)
5/12 by women (YTD 29/109)
1/12 by PoC (YTD 2/109)
The best of these were Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, the first half of Marjane Satrapi’s memoir of growing up in Iran, a milestone in comics which you can get here; and the morbidly factual 9/11 Commission Report, which notably fails to make any connection between the September 2001 attacks and Iraq – you can get it here.
My dislike of The Gods Themselves is well recorded; I was also deeply disappointed by Janet Evanovich’s To The Nines – I had enjoyed several earlier books in the series but this one put me off the rest. You can get them here and here.
