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.

In December 2003 we celebrated little U’s first birthday, and at work I was dealing with the fallout from the previous month’s events, rushing out a report on Georgia on the first of the month (actually most of it had been writen before the revolution on 25 November, but obviously needed updating) followed by one on the Preševo Valley in Southern Serbia. At the end of the month Serbia had an election.

I read 13 books that month.

Non-fiction 3
The Myth of Greater Albania, by Paulin Kola
The Music of the Primes: Searching to Solve the Greatest Mystery in Mathematics, by Marcus du Sautoy
Eats Shoots and Leaves, by Lynne Truss

SF 4
Paladin of Souls, Lois McMaster Bujold
After London, by Richard Jeffries
Carolan’s Concerto, by Caiseal Mór
Gateway, by Frederik Pohl

Comics 6
Sandman V: A Game Of You, by Neil Gaiman
Sandman VI: Fables & Reflections, by Neil Gaiman
Sandman VII: Brief Lives, by Neil Gaiman
Sandman VIII: World’s End, by Neil Gaiman
Sandman IX: The Kindly Ones, by Neil Gaiman
Sandman X: The Wake, by Neil Gaiman

3,500 pages
2/13 by women
none by PoC.

I reread Paladin of Souls last year and am very happy to make it my book of the month in retrospect. You can get it here.

The one I really wouldn’t recommend is the Celtic Misht novel Carolan’s Concerto, but you can get it here.

Back in 2019-23, I revisited each of the months that I’ve been bookblogging since November 2003, in anticipation of the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging. I’m going to do the same now for the tweenty-fifth anniversary in November 2028, this time spacing the monthly updates at three or four day intervals. Also since my first go started on Livejournal and moved to WordPress only in March 2022 when I abandoned LJ, it means I can tidy up the internal links and have the definitive versions all in one place.

November 2003 was politically momentous – there were elections in Northern Ireland and Croatia, a major political crisis in Moldova, and an election followed by a revolution in Georgia, all of which affected my work, though we were able to publish a report on Mostar. I also attended a conference in Vienna with my American intern B, who now works in IT in Arizona. He left halfway through the month and was replaced by a Croatian journalist, S, who I last heard of back in Zagreb working as a press officer for an international organisation.

At home, we took the kids to a snoezelruimte, which the older two both enjoyed. (B was six and F was four.)

For me (aged 36) and U (eleven months) it was a bit overwhelming.

I read 8 books that month.

Non-fiction 1
Why is Sex Fun? by Jared Diamond

SF 6
American Gods, by Neil Gaiman
City of Saints and Madmen, by Jeff VanderMeer
Floater, by Lucius Shepard
Double Star, by Robert Heinlein
The Separation, by Christopher Priest
Ersatz Nation, by Tim Kenyon

Comics 1
Sandman IV: Season of Mists, by Neil Gaiman

2,300 pages
8/8 by white men.

The one I wrote least about at the time, but that on reflection I think is definitely the best of them, is The Separation, Christopher Priest’s story of dual identites, overlapping histories and alternate timelines for the second world war. I’ll return to it in due course, as it won both the Clarke and BSFA Awards. You can get it here. (I always felt that American Gods was interesting but flawed; you can get it here.)

The book I would not recommend is Ersatz Nation, a poorly written and jumbled narrative.