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 (still have never yet been to Norway), 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.
Non-fiction 4 (YTD 10)
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)
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.
Same here. I saw less than half of these; I clicked through to read the Aldiss (new to me, and entertaining), and Ecclesiastes (an old favourite). I think I’d have watched out for them if I’d realised they were being posted regularly; I’d assumed, Nicholas, that it was just stories you’d come across by chance and were sharing.