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.
We saw in the New Year with Anne’s brother and his wife, and a big chunk of slow-cooked venison; and then immediately zoomed off to Birmingham to watch John Barrowman in pantomime. While we were in the theatre, it was announced that Matt Smith would be David Tennant’s successor on Doctor Who. Otherwise I didn’t travel and it was cold.
This was also the month that I set up reading lists using LibraryThing, and I wrote more about my great-uncle’s horrible death in 1906 and the Duke of Wellington’s Irishness. Scotland House hosted Iain Banks.
Non-fiction 4
The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates, by Des Ekin
Shakespeare’s Wife, by Germaine Greer
How To Read Shakespeare, by Nicholas Royle
Geschiedenis van Cyprus, by Alain Blondy
Non-genre 4
The Fountainhead, by Ayn Rand
Fortunata and Jacinta, by Benito Pérez Galdós
The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia, by Samuel Johnson
The Go-Between, by L.P. Hartley
Scripts 4
The Merry Wives of Windsor, by William Shakespeare
Hamlet, by William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night, by William Shakespeare
Troilus and Cressida, by William Shakespeare
SF 8
The Tales of Beedle the Bard, by J.K. Rowling
A Case of Conscience, by James Blish
Most Ancient Song, by Casey Flynn
Starship Troopers, by Robert A. Heinlein
The Stainless Steel Rat Omnibus, by Harry Harrison (three books)
Farmer in the Sky, by Robert A. Heinlein
Doctor Who 1
Twilight of the Gods, by Christopher Bulis
Comics 1
32 Stories, by Adrian Tomine
5700 pages
3/22 by women
1/22 by PoC
I see that I previously counted The Stainless Steel Rat Omnibus as a single book, but it is a compilation of three novels so I am increasing the SF total by 2.
Totally delighted with Hamlet, which you can get here, and Twelfth Night, which you can get here. Utterly repelled by The Fountainhead, which you can get here.
