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.

The major event of August 2005 was my first Worldcon, Interaction in Glasgow. I had a whale of a time, met many people who I had previously known only online, shared a room with Alaskan writer David Marusek, spoke on several panels, attended many more. The two best pictures of me were taken at a panel with Harry Turtledove, by Elizabeth Patrick, and just hanging around, by Anna Feruglio Dal Dan.

For our summer in Northern Ireland, the kids were able to use a trampoline:

At the end of the month, back at work, I went to an exceptionally fun conference in Macedonia, afterwards meeting with the famous Baba Tahir Emini of the Bektashi sect (who sadly died a few months later).

I read 17 books that month:

Non-fiction 6 (YTD 29)
Getting Things Done: How To Achieve Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen
A Very British Genre, by Paul Kincaid
The Last Journey of William Huskisson, by Simon Garfield
Peace Without Politics? Ten Years of International State-Bulding in Bosnia, International Peacekeeping vol 12, no 3, Autumn 2005; ed. David Chandler
Knowledge, Power and International Policy Coordination, ed. Peter M. Haas
The Orientalist: In Search of a Man Caught Between East and West, by Tom Reiss

Non-genre 1 (YTD 7)
The Black Tor, by George Manville Fenn

SF 9 (YTD 51)
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, by J.K. Rowling
The Prize in the Game, by Jo Walton
Nineteen Eighty-Four, by George Orwell
The World Inside, by Robert Silverberg
Imperial Earth, by Arthur C. Clarke
City, by Clifford D. Simak
Cultural Breaks, by Brian Aldiss
A Mirror for Observers, by Edgar Pangborn
King of Morning, Queen of Day, by Ian McDonald

Comics 1 (YTD 6)
Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron, by Daniel Clowes

4,900 pages (YTD 30,900)
2/17 (YTD 23/94) by women
None by PoC

The two new books from this month that have lingered with me are Ian McDonald’s King of Morning, Queen of Day, which you can get here, and the seminal international relations book which I still swear by, Knowledge, Power and International Policy Coordination, which you can get here. I was disappointed by Daniel Clowes’ Like A Velvet Glove Cast In Iron, but you can get it here if you want.

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.

The grim news of July 2005, 21 years ago this month. was the 7/7 bombings in London, in which 56 people died, including the bombers themselves (and a friend of a friend). This was actually the first Islamist terror attack in the UK.

I had one extended trip in the middle of the month, combining a work visit to Georgia and South Ossetia and my cousin’s wedding in England. This was still three years before the war of 2008, and it was awkward but not impossible to visit South Ossetia. Mr Dzhioev, the Foreign Minister, received me hospitably enough. (Their current foreign minister has the same surname; presumably they are related.)

However, when I asked him what else I should see in Tskhinvali, given that it was probably the only visit I will ever make to the city, he gave me a funny look and said (though my translator), “Well, you didn’t come here for our scenery or our climate, did you, you came for the political situation!” Which was perfectly true, but if I were foreign minister I would have had a better reply. I put the same question to my two minders. They looked at each other. One said, “We could show him the theatre.” The other said, “It did burn down last year.” But if life gives you lemons, you make lemonade, and here is my picture of the burned out (but repainted) theatre of Tskhinvali.

My cousin’s wedding after that was a lot of fun. (Not quite sure what had been said or done to her just before this picture was taken.)

It as a lovely hot day and I got a nice picture of myself, my mother and my brother and sister with their respective other halves (Anne had had to stay in Belgium).

We also managed to have an actual party at our own house at the end of the month; I have not located any photographs from it. Young F celebrated his sixth birthday, but I don’t seem to have pictures of that either.

I read 14 books that month.

Non-fiction 2 (YTD 23)
The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, by Christopher Hibbert
The Rules of Management, by Richard Templar

Non-genre 4 (YTD 6)
The Great Fortune, by Olivia Manning
The Spoilt City, by Olivia Manning
Friends and Heroes, by Olivia Manning
Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiassen

Poetry 1
The Knight in the Tiger Skin, by Shot’ha Rust’hveli

SF 6 (YTD 42)
The Sword of the Lictor, by Gene Wolfe
The Citadel of the Autarch, by Gene Wolfe
The Hallowed Hunt, by Lois McMaster Bujold
Keepers of the Peace, by Keith Brooke
The Light Ages, by Ian R. MacLeod
The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land, by Diana Wynne Jones

Comics 1 (YTD 5)
Ice Haven, by Daniel Clowes

3,300 pages (YTD 26,000)
5/14 (YTD 21/77) by women (3x Manning, Bujold, Wynne Jones)
none by PoC

Top books: The Tough Guide to Fantasy Land, by Diana Wynne Jones, which you can get here, and Skinny Dip, by Carl Hiaasen, which you can get here. Least impressed by The Rise and Fall of the House of Medici, by Christopher Hibbert, which you can get here.

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.

No Crisis Group publications in June 2005, 21 years ago this month, though I did get quoted in the Financial Times again, and just the one trip, to Belfast to speak at a conference. And B had her eighth birthday.

Her birthday was also the day of the last episode of the first series of New Who.

Young F took the first steps towards freedom of movement (he is now preparing for his driving test):

And I did my traditional big review of the Hugo written fiction nominees.

I read only 7 books that month.

Non-fiction 2 (YTD 21)
The Best of Xero, by Pat and Dick Lupoff
With Stars In My Eyes: My Adventures in British Fandom, by Peter Weston

Non-genre fiction 1 (YTD 2)
The Trial, by Franz Kafka

SF 4 (YTD 36)
The Best of the Best: 20 Years of the Year’s Best Science Fiction, ed. Gardner Dozois
The Assassin’s Edge, by Juliet E. McKenna
The Shadow of the Torturer, by Gene Wolfe
The Claw of the Conciliator, by Gene Wolfe

2,400 pages (YTD 22,700)
2/7 by women (YTD 16/63)
None by PoC

These are all good books, though I don’t rave about Gene Wolfe to the extent that others do. If I have to pick one as my favourite of the month, it’s Gardner Dozois’ Best of the Best, which you can get here.

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.

May 2005 was a massively busy month. Most notably from the family point of view, we mounted a massive expedition with little F and littler U to Washington, New York and Boston, seeing spaceships and whales, for my brother’s wedding in Massachusetts.

I went almost directly from the wedding to the first ever meeting of NATO’s Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council, held in Åre, Sweden, where I spoke on a panel of people with Wikipedia pages: James Elles (then an MEP), Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović (then foreign minister and subsequently president of Croatia), Pierre Lellouche (then a French MP), Dimitrij Rupel (the foreign minister of Slovenia), Nick Burns (newly appointed Under Secretary of State), and Kastriot Islami (then foreign minister of Albania).

The British election took place earlier that month on 5 May, the only Westminster election this century other than 2024 for which I did not do broadcasting coverage (I was on BBC TV for the four from 2010 to 2019, and was on RTE radio for the 2001 vote). I did manage to win a modest £30 – I advised an online betting company that they had underestimated the swing from the SDLP to SF, and they gave me a free wager in recompense, which I used to profit from the lower than expected seat total for Labour. (Which netted me far less than they gained from my advice, of course.)

The EU was thrown into disarray by the rejection of the proposed Constitutional Treaty by the French people in a referendum on the 29th, by 55% to 45%. See June for more details…

On a sadder note, my uncle Alastair Downie died around the time of the British election – the first of my uncles to have left us; I did not lose another until last year. He was 88, and the widower of my father’s only sibling, my aunt Ursula, who had died in 1998 aged only 59; my current age.

I read only 6 books that month.

SF 5 (YTD 32)
The Dancers At The End Of Time, by Michael Moorcock
No Enemy But Time, by Michael Bishop
Iron Council, by China Miéville
The Algebraist, by Iain M. Banks
Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross

Comics 1 (YTD 4)
David Boring, by Daniel Clowes

SF 5 (YTD 32)
The Dancers At The End Of Time, by Michael Moorcock
No Enemy But Time, by Michael Bishop
Iron Council, by China Miéville
The Algebraist, by Iain M. Banks
Iron Sunrise, by Charles Stross

Comics 1 (YTD 4)
David Boring, by Daniel Clowes

2,600 pages (YTD 20,300)
None by women (YTD 14/56)
None by PoC

I enjoyed all of the above, I think David Boring most. You can get it here.

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.

April 2005 began for me with a job interview to run a Brussels-based thinktank (I didn’t get it, and the thinktank has since folded), and also included trips to the USA (Washington and New York) and, for the first time in my life, Albania.  I got a letter about Kosovo and Bosnia in European Voice; we published a briefing on refugee rights in South Ossetia (wildly optimistic, as it now turns out) and a full report on the Sandzak, which includes my favourite footnote from my time at Crisis Group:

The Sandzak of Novi Pazar is chiefly remembered as one of the smaller pieces in the game played by the Great Powers before World War I, an obscure place which doomed those who got too closely involved with it.^1
1 See, for instance, “The Lost Sanjak“, a short story by Saki (H.H. Munro) published in 1910, whose protagonist’s failure to remember the location of Novibazar (Novi Pazar) proves fatal; and Thomas Pynchon’s novel, Gravity’s Rainbow, in which a minor character, Lord Blatherard Osmo, “occupied the Novi Pazar desk at the Foreign Office … for on this obscure sanjak had once hinged the entire fate of Europe”, and similarly comes to a very sticky end.

(Lord Blatherard Osmo is eventually discovered mysteriously suffocated in a bathtub full of tapioca pudding, at the home of a Certain Viscountess, shortly before the outbreak of war in 1939.)

In the wider world, the Pope died while I was on the plane to DC, and his replacement was the infamous Cardinal Ratzinger. The runner-up in the election was the Argentinian cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio; I wonder what happened to him afterwards?

I celebrated my 38th birthday by speaking at a meeting of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Belgian Senate. Here I am with my new intern J (originally from Pittsburgh but of Ukrainian/Russian heritage) waiting in the wings.

I caught up with J again in 2019 in Kosova; she was by then the same age (38) as I am in the 2005 picture.

But it’s not all about me; I used the new camera to get some pictures of the children as well – B aged 7, F aged 5 and U aged 2.

Anne and I had a rare romantic break to the Kröller-Müller Museum in the Hoge Veluwe near Apeldoorn in the Netherlands; you can cycle through and experience the art. Anne was enjoying it more than her expression here suggests (sun in her eyes). We went back again in 2022.

On the last day of the month, B made her First Communion as arranged by the school and local church, which I found a kind and compassionate ceremony which of course meant little to her but was a comfort to us. I got a couple of decent pictures of the family.

Despite the transatlantic travel, I read only 13 books this month, and three of them were very short guides preparing for the May 2005 odyssey.

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 19)
Investing in Prevention: An International Strategy to Manage Risks of Instability and Improve Crisis Reponse, by the Prime Minister’s Strategy Unit
Collision Course: NATO, Russia and Kosovo, by John Norris
Journey Around New York from A to Z, by Martha Day Zschock and Heather Zschock
Journey Around Washington DC from A to Z, by Martha Day Zschock
Journey Around Boston from A to Z, by Martha Day Zschock

SF 7 (YTD 27)
Broken Angels, by Richard Morgan
The Wanderer, by Fritz Leiber
The Snow Queen, by Joan D Vinge
Cities in Flight, by James Blish (I would now count this as four books, but I tallied it as only one in 2005)
Reach for Tomorrow, by Arthur C. Clarke
Banner of Souls, by Liz Williams
The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth and other stories, by Roger Zelazny

Comics 1 (YTD 3)
Nu We Hier Toch Zijn, by Barbara Stok

3,900 pages (YTD 17,700)
6/13 by women (YTD 14/50) by women
None by PoC

These are all good books. If I had to pick a top three, they would be the two short story collections by favourite authors – you can get the Clarke here and the Zelazny here – and Barbara Stok’s graphic reflections on life, which you can get here.

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 2005 was a momentous month. I travelled twice to London and also to Thessalonica for a big Balkan conference. My Kazakh intern A left my office after a fairly brief stint; she then moved to Florida, took a family break, and is now running a hotel. I had a rare night out in Brussels with Anne at a pub quiz MC’d by none other than Nick Clegg, at that time still an MEP (our team came second).

The big cultural news of the month was the return of Doctor Who on Easter Saturday, the 26th. We sent young F to bed early and settled down to watch with Anne’s sister and an Irish friend who was visiting from Antwerp. We were blown away.

The big family news, however, was that little U was diagnosed with a severe learning disability. At almost two and a quarter years old, her non-verbal communication was at the level expected at seventeen months; her verbal communication at the level of twelve to fifteen months. She did not respond to her name, or to the word “No”. (She does both now.) Lightning sometimes does strike twice. It was less of a shock than B’s diagnosis in late 1999, but it was still a shock and we are still dealing with it.

I read 15 books that month.

Non-fiction 8 (YTD 14)
The Island at the Centre of the World, by Russell Shorto
Around Washington, D.C. with Kids, by Kathryn McKay
Around New York City with Kids, by Mindy Bailin
Around Boston with Kids, by Lisa Oppenheimer
Dave Barry Hits Below the Beltway, by Dave Barry
John Adams, by David McCullough
Tolkien and the Great War, by John Garth
Aldiss Unbound: The Science Fiction of Brian W. Aldiss, by Richard Mathews

SF 5 (YTD 20)
A Wind from Bukhara, by M.J. Engh
Science Fiction: The Best of 2004, ed. Karen Haber and Jonathan Strahan
The Saliva Tree, by Brian Aldiss
Emerald Magic: Great Tales Of Irish Fantasy, ed. Andrew M. Greeley
Tomorrow’s Worlds: Ten Stories of Science Fiction, ed. Robert Silverberg

Comics 2 (YTD 2)
Strangers in Paradise, Pocket Book #2, by Terry Moore
Bone, by Jeff Smith

5,600 pages (YTD 13,800)
5/15 by women (YTD 8/37) by women
none by PoC

The Island at the Centre of the World, Russell Shorto’s history of New Amsterdam before it became New York, was not just my book of the month but my book of the year for 2005 – a glorious reconstruction of a forgotten history. You can get it here. Bone was a comic that I had bought issue by issue when it started, and then lost track of, but I hugely enjoyed getting through the whole story. You can get it here. On the other hand, David McCullough’s biography, John Adams, is hugely over-rated and I was really disappointed in it. If you want to, you can get it here.

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.

February 2005 was rather a busy month. The Macedonian government held a major reception in Brussels on Valentine’s day, which I attended with family in tow, and then referenced in a briefing on the country published a few days later. I went to Geneva to give a lecture, and ended the month in Belgrade, but also had a couple of trips to London – on one of which I attended Picocon at Imperial College, bonding with a lot of newish friends in sf fandom; and using another for an initial conversation with my future employer, who I had met in Kosovo the previous year. It would be another year and a half before the conversation turned into something more concrete.

I read 13 books that month.

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 6)
Blowing My Cover: My Life As A CIA Spy, and other misadventures, by Lindsay Moran
Theft of A Nation: Romania since Communism, by Tom Gallagher
Cyprus: The Search for a Solution, by David Hannay

SF 10 (YTD 15)
Cloud Atlas, by David Mitchell
The Ethos Effect, by L.E. Modesitt Jr
Heartfire, by Orson Scott Card
His Majesty’s Starship, by Ben Jeapes
We/Мы, by Yevgeny Zamyatin/Евгений Иванович Замятин
Manna from Heaven, by Roger Zelazny
Foundation’s Edge, by Isaac Asimov
Forty Signs of Rain, by Kim Stanley Robinson
ThiGMOO, by Eugene Byrne
Stamping Butterflies, by Jon Courtenay Grimwood

4,800 pages (TYD 8,200)
1/13 (YTD 3/22) by women
none by PoC

Best book of the month was Zamyatin’s dystopian We, a fore-runner to 1984 and Brave New World; you can get it here. Second best probably Cloud Atlas; you can get it here. Deeply unimpressed by Lindsay Moran’s take on Macedonia. You can get that here.

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.

The year began with a big push at work on the future status of Kosovo, with a full-scale report and also an op-ed by me. We also did a report on the EU’s crisis response capacities which I’m still rather proud of, and got me a quote in the Washington Times. My new intern, A, from Kazakhstan, started working with me. I went to Rome to speak to the NATO Defence College, spoke at the European Parliament’s Foreign Affairs Committee, and also to Ljubljana to brief the Slovenian foreign minister as he took up the OSCE Chairmanship-in-Office. Here’s me waiting to speak at the European Parliament.

I read 9 books that month.

Non-Fiction 3
The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, by Stephen R. Covey
The Twelve Caesars, by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus
The Star Factory, by Ciaran Carson

Non-Genre 1
Crime and Punishment, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

SF 5
England Swings SF, ed. Judith Merril
Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan
Dangerous Visions, ed. Harlan Ellison
Nebula Award Stories Number Three, ed. Roger Zelazny
The Chick is in the Mail, ed. Esther M Friesner

3,400 pages
2/9 by women
none by PoC

Best book of the month was Dostoevsky’s classic Crime and Punishment, which you can get here, closely followed by The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, which is not as awful as the title may suggest, and which you can get here. I rather bounced off The Chick is in the Mail, but you can get it here.

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.

December 2004 was a quieter month, celebrating little U’s second birthday and then Christmas at home with just the five of us; I cooked boar as usual, and we watched the extended versions of the Lord of the Rings DVDs during the holiday. No Crisis Group publications, though I was working hard on the big Kosovo report for early 2005, and I did have the thrill of being quoted by the prosecutor in the trial of Slobodan Milošević (at end here and then again here). I don’t even seem to have travelled – cancelled a planned trip to Albania at the last moment owing to pressure of work. (My non-systematic tally, before I started doing the overnights meme properly, was that I had been to twenty different countries in 2004.) My Slovenian intern K left; by peculiar coincidence, within a few months she was working for my present employers, and now works for one of our biggest corporate clients, so we are still in touch. This was also the year of the Boxing Day tsunami.

I read 9 books that month.

Non-fiction 2 (2004 total 42)
A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility Report of the Secretary-General’s High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change
The Uncyclopedia, by Gideon Haigh

SF 5 (2004 total 75)
Cyteen, by CJ Cherryh
The Time Traveler’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger
The Silmarillion, by J.R.R. Tolkien
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell, by Susanna Clarke
The Radiant Seas, by Catherine Asaro

Comics 2 (2004 total 9)
A Contract With God, by Will Eisner
Berlin: City of Stones, by Jason Lutes

3,600 pages (2004 total 46,800)
2/8 by women (2004 total 33/149, 22%)
None by PoC (2004 total 2/149, 1%)

I hugely enjoyed both The Time Traveler’s Wife, which you can get here, and Berlin: City of Stones, which you can get here. However, The Radiant Seas failed to convert me to Catherine Asaro. You can get it here.

So looking at the 150 books that I read in 2004 as a whole (the first full calendar year that I systematically tracked my reading):

SF 75 (50% – higher percentage than in any recent years, though if you count Doctor Who and SF together it works out about average)
Best of 2004: Sacrifice of Fools, by Ian McDonald, The Time Traveller’s Wife, by Audrey Niffenegger, Changing Planes, by Ursula Le Guin
The one you haven’t heard of: Bad Timing, by Rebecca Levene
Worst of 2004: Humans, by Robert J. Sawyer

Non-fiction 42 (28% – also higher than any recent years, though not by as much)
Best of 2004: Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin; J.R.R. Tolkien: author of the century, by Tom Shippey
The one you haven’t heard of: Home Rule: an Irish History, 1800-2000, by Alvin Jackson
Worst of 2004: Tolkien: A Look Behind the Lord of the Rings, by Lin Carter

Non-genre 20 (13% – lower than most recent years)
Best of 2004: The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson, Beasts and Super-Beasts, by Saki
The one you haven’t heard of: The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits, by Emma Donoghue
Worst of 2004: To the Nines, by Janet Evanovich

Comics 9 (6% – lower than any recent year)
Berlin, Maus, Persepolis are all great.

Book of the year 2004: Claire Tomalin’s bio of Samuel Pepys. You can get it here.

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.

November 2004 was grimly dominated by the re-election of President Bush, which I honestly had not seen coming. It was an important lesson to me to avoid wishful thinking in my elections analysis in the future.

The newly re-elected Bush administration immediately recognised what is now North Macedonia under the name of Macedonia, which probably played an important role in the failure of the following week’s referendum which would have reversed some elements of the post-conflict local government reform if it had passed.

We presciently published a report on South Ossetia, and I had another op-ed on Moldova.

My one work trip was to Geneva, where I rather bravely drove there and back; I remember a long and valuable walking conversation with Pat Cox beside the lake, where he gave me some invaluable career advice (“get up early, and read the paperwork before the meeting”), and also giving Hattie Babbitt a lift to Geneva Airport as I departed. We actually managed two family trips, one ot the Ardennes with the kids, and one with just the two of us to the Hague for a dance performance connected with the royal wedding earlier in the year.

I read 10 books that month.

Non-genre 7 (2004 total 19)
Atonement, by Ian McEwan
The Scheme for Full Employment, by Magnus Mills
The Man Who Was Thursday, by G.K. Chesterton
The Summer Book, by Tove Jansson
The Distant Past, by William Trevor
The No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, by Alexander McCall Smith
Tears of the Giraffe, by Alexander McCall Smith

SF 3 (YTD 70)
Science Fiction: The Best of 2003, ed. Jonathan Strahan and Karen Haber
Missing Man, by Katherine MacLean
Year’s Best SF 9, ed. David Hartwell and Kathryn Cramer

2,800 pages (YTD 46,000)
3/10 by women (YTD 34/140)
None by PoC (YTD 2/140)

The best of these is Tove Jansson’s quiet novel, The Summer Book; you can get it here. The Hartwell/Cramer collection is particularly good this year. You can get it here. On the other hand, I could not see the point of Magnus Mills’ The Scheme for Full Employment. If you want to try it anyway, you can get it here.

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.

I started the month in Portugal, and also went to Washington, New York, Utah, Boston, and London. At work, we published a report on Armenia. (Anne and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary, but I was in Portugal on the day itself.) Somewhere in the internets there is video of me giving evidence to the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee in London on 26 October, but you’ll have to settle for the minutes, here and here. Misha Glenny and I emerged from Westminster to see the sad news that John Peel had died. Here I am speaking at Brigham Young University on 13 October. I had more hair then.

The saddest news of the month was the loss of my former assistant from Bosnia days, Danijela. I was able to visit her resting place in 2019.

I read 22 books that month, thanks to lots of daytime flying.

Non-fiction 8 (YTD 40)
Scholars and Rebels in nineteenth-century Ireland, by Terry Eagleton
The Measure of All Things, by Ken Alder
Roger Zelazny and Andre Norton: proponents of individualism, by Carl B. Yoke
Making Sense of the Troubles, by David McKittrick and David McVea
America Right or Wrong: an anatomy of American nationalism, by Anatol Lieven
A Treasury of Great American Scandals, by Michael Farquhar
Fermat’s Last Theorem, by Simon Singh
Walking the Bible, by Bruce Feiler

Non-genre 1 (2004 total 13)
Around the World in Eighty Days, by Jules Verne

SF 11 (YTD 67)
Veniss Underground, by Jeff VanderMeer
Destiny’s Shield, by Eric Flint and David Drake
The Well of Lost Plots, by Jasper Fforde
Primary Inversion, by Catherine Asaro
Strontium Dog: Bad Timing, by Rebecca Levene
The Thackery T Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, ed. Jeff VanderMeer
The Locus Awards: thirty years of the best in science fiction and fantasy, ed. Charles N. Brown
The Forever Machine/They’d Rather Be Right, by Mark Clifton and Frank Riley
The Pilgrim’s Progress From this World to that which is to come, by John Bunyan
Wondrous Beginnings, ed. Steven H. Silver
The Golden Age, by John C. Wright

Comics 2 (YTD 7)
Strangers in Paradise v1, by Terry Moore
In The Shadow Of No Towers, by Art Spiegelman

6,800 pages (YTD 43,200)
2/21 by women (YTD 31/130)
None by PoC (YTD 2/130)

Best book of the month: the Locus Awards anthology pulls together a lot of superlative short stories, some of which I already knew but almost all of which I really liked. You can get it here. Also Making Sense of the Troubles is dated but thorough; you can get it here. However, you can skip Destiny’s Shield, third in an alternative timeline series about Belisarius fighting an alien invasion; the hero never loses a battle or an argument and it gets boring fast. If you want, you can get it here.

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.

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.

I spent most of August 2004 on holiday, but this was also the moment that I set my long-laid plans to join the cabinet of one of the new members of the European Commission in motion. (Those plans failed.) I also set up and publicised my Interactive Language Quiz, based on the instructions from a McDonald’s toy. While on holiday we published reports on Macedonia and Georgia, and I had an op-ed on the Macedonian local government reform plans (rather a good one, if I say so myself). Once I got back to work, my new intern, K, a Slovenian, arrived. The month ended with me doing an RTÉ interview on the tenth anniversary of the IRA ceasefire with Albert Reynolds and John Hume – sadly, Hume was already showing his illness. (I saw him in person in Brussels a few days later in early September and drew the same conclusion.)

Cute picture: young F, recently turned 5, trying his hand at archery.

I read 18 books that month.

Non-fiction: 4 (YTD 30)
The Political Animal, by Jeremy Paxman
The Revolution of America, by Guillaume Thomas François Raynal
Empire: How Britain Made the Modern World, by Niall Ferguson
Mother Tongue, by Bill Bryson

Non-genre: 4 (YTD 11)
The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Don Quixote (part 1), by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Accusers, by Lindsey Davies
Scandal Takes a Holiday, by Lindsey Davies

Scripts: 1 (YTD 1)
Hard To Swallow, by John Dowie, illustrated by Hunt Emerson

Poetry: 1 (YTD 1)
Lucky Dip, by Ruth Ainsworth

SF: 8 (YTD 49)
The Year of Our War, by Steph Swainston
Felaheen, by John Courtenay Grimwood
Beyond Infinity, by Gregory Benford
After the King: Stories in Honour of J.R.R. Tolkien, ed. Martin H. Greenberg and Jane Yolen
Way Station, by Clifford D. Simak
The Demolished Man, by Alfred P. Bester
Year’s Best SF 21, ed. Gardner Dozois
The Dream Millennium, by James White

5,200 pages (YTD 32,100)
5/18 by women (YTD 24/97)
none by PoC (YTD 1/97)

Lots of good books this month, but I’m picking out two quirky ones that stick in my mind: the Abbé Raynal’s penetrating analysis of the newly founded United States, which you can get for free here, and Jon Courtenay Grimwood’s Felaheen, which you can get here. Least favourite book of the month: tremendously disappointed by Lindsay Davis’ The Accusers.

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.

July 2004 began and ended with travels for me – beginning with an epic journey by train to Paris, then flying to Berlin, and then Belgrade, then driving from Belgrade to Pristina and Skopje before flying home again via Budapest, a total of six countries in ten days. It was particularly significant because one of my co-speakers at the conference I attended while in Kosovo was to become my next boss two and a half years later; of course neither of us knew that at the time.

I also got to London for a day, and was appointed to the Advisory Board of the South East European Research Centre in Thessaloniki (the centre is still going strong, not sure about the board).

My intern A, half Slovene, half Geordie, left the Brussels office but went on to do some work for us in the Balkans later in the year. (Her replacement arrived only in August.)

And on the last two days of the month we did our usual summer holiday drive to Northern Ireland via Kidderminster.

F celebrated his fifth birthday with schoolfriends – the first time we had had a kids’ birthday party, which was nice. I don’t seem to have any pictures of the party, but here’s B (at 7) up a tree in our back garden, and F (turning 5) and U (19 months) with me on a visit to Mini-Europe.

I read 13 books that month, counting The Complete Maus as two.

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 26)
Saki: A Life of Hector Hugh Munro, with six short stories never before collected, by A. J. Langguth
A Narrative About War And Freedom: Dialog with the commander Ramush Haradinaj, by Bardh Hamzaj
J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, by Tom Shippey
The Politics of Serbia in the 1990s, by Robert Thomas
The Story of Alice, by Mavis Batey

SF 6 (YTD 41)
The Holy Machine, by Chris Beckett
Newton’s Wake, by Ken MacLeod
The Human Abstract, by George Mann
Cartomancy, by Mary Gentle
The Door into Summer, by Robert A. Heinlein
River of Gods, by Ian McDonald

Comics 2 (YTD 3)
The Complete Maus, by Art Spiegelman

3,700 pages (YTD 26,900)
2/13 by women (YTD 19/79)
none by PoC (YTD 1/79)

My two top books of the month are Spiegelman’s classic Holocaust comic Maus, which you can get here, and Tom Shippey’s brilliant book on Tolkien, which you can get here. At the other end, I am not a fan of George Mann’s writing anyway, and The Human Abstract, which you can get here, is my least favourite of his books.

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.

June 2004 was the month I switched from my old explorers@whyte.com email address, which I’d had since 1997, to my Gmail address, which I’ve had ever since. Ronald Reagan died; the new European Parliament was elected. Those were more innocent times. I also posted my Hugo finalists review.

This was the month of my one and only trip to Russia, a hasty 48 hours in Moscow (actually a bit less, two days and a night). We also published reports on Moldova and Bosnia, and I had an op-ed on Moldova published in European Voice which seems to have vanished from their archive but is preserved by my former employers.

I read 11 books that month.

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 21)
Roger Zelazny, by Jane Lindskold
Black Garden, by Thomas de Waal
A Turkey Travelogue, by Mark C. Leeper
Avonturen van een Nederbelg, by Derk Jan Eppink
Tolkien: A Look Behind The Lord Of The Rings, by Lin Carter, updated by Adam Roberts

Non-genre 3 (YTD 7)
Rebecca, by Daphne du Maurier
Beasts & Super-Beasts, by Saki
Reginald in Russia, by Saki

SF 3 (YTD 35)
Gather, Darkness!, by Fritz Leiber
Down and Out In The Magic Kingdom, by Cory Doctorow
On Basilisk Station, by David Weber

2,800 pages (YTD 23,200)
2/11 by women (YTD 17/66)
none by PoC (YTD 1/66)

Top book of the month was Thomas de Waal’s account of Nagorno-Karabakh, updated by his The Caucasus: An Introduction. I did not know anything much about him back in 2004; we are now friends. You can get it here. Second favourite is Saki’s eternal Beasts and Super-Beasts, which you can get here. Two to avoid: Carter on Tolkien, and On Basilisk Station.

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.

1 May 2004 was the day of the EU’s big bang enlargement, with ten new countries joining to take the total membership from 15 to 25. There was a big celebration in the Cinquantenaire and we all went into Brussels for it (including visitors).

A few days later, I travelled to Zagreb for a meeting with Norwegian diplomats, and then later in the month did a grand Caucasus tour of Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan, meeting all three presidents and both prime ministers (Georgia did not have a PM at the time), and changing planes in Prague on the way there and back, thus adding three countries to my lifetime list and bringing my total to 43 (I had been to Georgia before). Here President Aliyev, who is still in power today, tells us what he thought of our new report. (I’m at the far end of the table, on the left.)

We also did an op-ed on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

I read 14 books this month (including the first Doctor Who-related book in this sequence). That’s 22 years ago.

Non-fiction 1 (YTD 16)
Manifesto for a New World Order, by George Monbiot

Non-genre fiction 1 (YTD 4)
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, by Mark Haddon

SF (non-Who) 11 (YTD 32)
Tales of the Dying Earth, by Jack Vance
Wild Seed, by Octavia E. Butler
Shadows over Baker Street, eds. Michael Reaves and John Pelan
Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross
Blind Lake, by Robert Charles Wilson
Light, by M. John Harrison
Irresistible Forces, ed. Catherine Asaro
The Confusion, by Neal Stephenson
Too Long a Sacrifice, by Mildred Downey Broxon
Sacrifice of Fools, by Ian McDonald
Humans, by Robert J. Sawyer

Doctor Who, etc 1 (YTD 1)
Decalog 5: Wonders, eds. Paul Leonard and Jim Mortimore

5,400 pages (YTD 20,400)
3/14 by women (YTD 15/55)
1/14 by PoC YTD 1/55)

Top book of the month for me is Sacrifice of Fools by Ian McDonald, the best SF book ever set in Belfast. You can get it here. I noted at the time that I very much enjoyed Singularity Sky, by Charles Stross, which you can get here, but I can remember much less about it. I’m afraid I bounced off Light, by M.John Harrison, which a lot of people love; but the worst book of the month is Robert Sawyer’s execrable Humans. You can get them here and here.

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.

This was the month I turned 37. I went to Strasbourg for work, and also to the Hague with Anne, F, U and Anne’s sister H (who babysat the kids during the ceremony) for the wedding of my friend Mabel to Prince Friso of the Netherlands. Their marriage was tragically brief, as it turned out.

Romance was clearly in the air that month. A couple of days after the royal wedding, I had a birthday dinner in Brussels; a colleague visiting from out of town discovered that he really liked one of our Brussels team, and things developed from there. They stayed together for several years, though are no longer an item. Still, their little girl owes her existence to my 37th birthday celebrations.

Meanwhile at work, my Croatian intern S also left (as mentioned before, she was last heard of working for an international organisation back in Croatia), and was replaced by A, half Slovene, half Geordie. We published a report reacting to the previous month’s Kosovo violence. At this passage of time, I can also reveal that I wrote most of an op-ed on Cyprus published in the New York Times under the names of my boss and the chair of the board. The referendum, of course, went the wrong way. I had no idea that I would get more involved in that issue in the years to come.

It was a busy month when I completed reading only 5 books, all the same genre.

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 15)
What If? 2: Eminent Historians Imagine What Might Have Been, ed. Robert Cowley (presented as non-fiction)
The Salmon of Doubt: Hitch-hiking the Galaxy One Last Time, by Douglas Adams (edited by Peter Guzzardi) (includes some fiction, but the core is non-fiction)
Green Shadows, White Whale, by Ray Bradbury (also includes some fiction, but the core is non-fiction)
Essays and Lays of Ancient Rome, by Thomas Babington Macaulay
How Bosnia Armed, by Marko Attila Hoare

1,300 pages (YTD 15,000)
0/5 by women (YTD 12/40)
still none by PoC

To be honest, I hesitate to recommend any of them very strongly, but the Douglas Adams book is at least by Douglas Adams, and the Bosnia book is good for specialists. The Ray Bradbury was disappointing.

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.

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.

The big work news of February 2004 was the tragic death in a plane crash of Boris Trajkovski, the genial President of Macedonia who was very friendly with me and many others. This was the day after we published a report on pan-Albanianism (concluding that there was not much there there). I also went to London to shadow my boss at a Chatham House meeting where the other speaker was the late great Albert Rohan.

I read 12 books that month.

Non-fiction 3 (YTD 6)
How to Write Science Fiction & Fantasy, by Orson Scott Card
The Daily Telegraph Book of Military Obituaries, ed. David Twiston Davies
The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, ed. Edward James and Farah Mendlesohn

Non-genre fiction 3 (YTD 3)
The Woman Who Gave Birth To Rabbits, by Emma Donoghue (collection, including one story which has fantasy elements)
Memories of the Irish Israeli War, by Phil O’Brien
Molvania: A Land Untouched by Modern Dentistry, by Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner and Rob Sitch

SF 6 (YTD 11)
Pattern Recognition, by William Gibson
Ilium, by Dan Simmons
Worlds That Weren’t, by Harry Turtledove, S.M. Stirling, Mary Gentle, and Walter Jon Williams
The House on the Borderland and Other Stories, by William Hope Hodgson (could not finish The Night Land)
The Meeting of the Waters, by Caiseal Mór
Paths to Otherwhere, by James Patrick Hogan

4,400 pages (YTD 8,300)
3/21 by women (YTD 6/21)
none by PoC

The best of these was probably The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction, which won the Hugo the following year; you can get it here. Molvania has some good lines; you can get it here. The one to skip: The Meeting of the Waters.

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.

The most crucial event of January 2004 was that little U took her first steps, at 13 months.

My first work outing of the year was to the Liberals’ New Year reception in Brussels, after which I note that I had an awful lot of whisky with MEP Graham Watson. I was on a panel with the Bosnian and Croatian foreign ministers as well. (Fraser Cameron sitting between them.) This was shortly after returning from a conference on Moldova in Munich.

We also did a report for the new Independent Monitoring Commission in Northern Ireland, comparing its mission with Balkan equivalents. This was also the month that I started to seriously strategise about getting a job with the new European Commission due to take office at the end of the year. (Spoiler: I didn’t get a job there in the end.)

I read 9 books that month.

Non-fiction 3
Home Rule: An Irish History 1800-2000, by Alvin Jackson
Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, by Claire Tomalin
The Procrastinator’s Handbook: Mastering the Art of Doing It Now. by Rita Emmett

SF 5
1610: A Sundial in a Grave, by Mary Gentle
Looking Backward: from 2000 to 1887, by Edward Bellamy
The Lord of the Rings, by J.R.R. Tolkien
From the Dust Returned, by Ray Bradbury
The Best of Lester Del Rey

Comics 1
Death: The High Cost of Living, by Neil Gaiman

3,900 pages
3/9 by women
none by PoC

The Lord of the Rings is of course one of my favourite books ever, but that was a re-read (you can get it here if you still need to). My best new book this month was Claire Tomalin’s Samuel Pepys, which is superb and made me a real Pepys fanboy (and also a bit of a Claire Tomalin fan). You can get it here.

The one to skip: disappointed by 1610.

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.

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

This is the second last post in this series. Six days from now is the last day of this month, and the end of a four-year project to re-chronicle twenty years of reading. When I started, I was dredging up memories of sixteen years before; now it’s only a couple of weeks. It’s good to have a project with a defined end.

So what did I do and read last month? I had two trips to the UK, one for a Worldcon planning meeting at Heathrow, and one combining a family party in Northern Ireland with work meetings in London.

I wrote about the Post-industrial Pagodas, and about the consequences of the decline of X, formerly Twitter.

I managed to read 21 books:

Non-fiction 6 (YTD 64)
Dawn of the New Everything: A Journey Through Virtual Reality, by Jaron Lanier
The Night of the Doctor, by James Cooray Smith
Fanny Kemble’s Civil Wars, by Catherine Clinton
The Day of the Doctor, by Alasdair Stuart
Dispatches from Chengdu, by Abdel LeRoy
Charmed in Chengdu, by Michael O’Neal (did not finish)

Non-genre 4 (YTD 21)
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver
Keats and Chapman Wryed Again, by Steven A. Jent
Letters from Klara, by Tove Jansson
Death Notice, by Zhou Haohui

SF 7 (YTD 146)
The Bruising of Qilwa, by Naseem Jamnia
Ocean’s Echo, by Everina Maxwell
The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd
Foundryside, by Robert Jackson Bennett
Rupetta, by N.A. Sulway
Shorefall, by Robert Jackson Bennett
What Not: A Prophetic Comedy, by Rose Macaulay

Doctor Who 2 (YTD 27)
Extraction Point, by MG Harris
Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor, by Steven Moffat

Comics 2 (YTD 23)
War of the Gods, by Nick Abadzis et al
A Doctor in the House?, by Jody Houser et al

5,600 pages (YTD 70,500)
11/21 (YTD 126/288) by non-male writers  (Clinton, Kingsolver, Jansson, Jamnia, Maxwell, Shepherd, Sulway, Macaulay, Harris, illustrators of War of the Gods, author and illustrators of A Doctor in the House?)
3/21 (YTD 39/288) by a non-white writer (Zhou, Jamnia, Shepherd)

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

For the first time in four years, we made our family trip to Northern Ireland, this time by the direct ferry to Rosslare from Dunkirk.

We did many things on holiday, including local megaliths, Derry and nearby attractions, a quick trip to London for me to the Clarke Award ceremony, and an early wedding anniversary celebration.

And I finally put together my photos of the stucco ceilings of Jan Christiaan Hansche.

Unwinding from an intense period, I read 45 books that month.

Non-fiction 10 (YTD 58)
Representatives of the People?: Parliamentarians and Constituents in Modern Democracies, ed. Vernon Bogdanor
Falling to Earth, by Al Worden
Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays, by David Bratman
Autism Spectrum Disorders Through the Lifespan, by Digby Tantam 
The Stones of Blood, by Katrin Thier 
Arachnids in the UK, by Sam Maleski
Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road, by Kyle Buchanan (did not finish)
Will We Ever Speak Dolphin?, ed. Mick O’Hare
Still Just a Geek: An Annotated Memoir, by Wil Wheaton
The Return of Eva Perón with the Killings in Trinidad, by V. S. Naipaul

Non-genre 4 (YTD 18)
Love and Mr Lewisham, by H.G. Wells
The Man Who Died Twice, by Richard Osman
The Various Lives of Keats and Chapman: Including the Brother, by Flann O’Brien
Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver

SF 17 (YTD 139)
A Wind in the Door, by Madeleine L’Engle
Akata Woman, by Nnedi Okorafor
The Outcast, by Louise Cooper
Bloodmarked, by Tracy Deonn (did not finish)
Dreams Bigger Than Heartbreak, by Charlie Jane Anders
Collision Course, by Robert Silverberg / Nemesis from Terra, by Leigh Brackett
Nettle and Bone, by “T. Kingfisher”
Osmo Unknown and the Eightpenny Woods, by Catherynne M. Valente
What Moves the Dead, by “T. Kingfisher”
A Mirror Mended, by Alix E. Harrow
A Rumor of Angels, by Dale Bailey
Into the Riverlands, by Nghi Vo
Even Though I Knew the End, by C.L. Polk
Where the Drowned Girls Go, by Seanan McGuire
“Beggars in Spain”, by Nancy Kress
Nona the Ninth, by Tamsyn Muir

Doctor Who 4 (YTD 25)
The Shadow Man, by Sharon Bidwell
Doctor Who: The Zygon Invasion, by Peter Harness
Doctor Who and the Stones of Blood, by Terrance Dicks
Doctor Who – The Stones of Blood, by David Fisher

Comics 7 (YTD 21)
Sins of the Father, by Nick Abadzis et al
Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King, Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes
Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams, by Bartosz Sztybor, Filipe Andrade, Alessio Fioriniello, Roman Titov, and Krzysztof Ostrowski
Monstress vol. 7: Devourer, by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
Major Matt Mason: Moon Mission, by George S. Elrick
DUNE: The Official Movie Graphic Novel, by Lilah Sturges, Drew Johnson, and Zid
Daleks, ed. Marcus Hearn

10,000 pages (YTD 64,900)
21/42 (YTD 115/267) by non-male writers 
6/42 (YTD 36/267) by a non-white writer 

Several great books here. From the Hugo ballot, the two novellas Even Though I Knew the End by C.L. Polk, which you can get here, and What Moves the Dead, by “T. Kingfisher”, which you can get here; and the graphic novel Supergirl: Woman of Tomorrow, by Tom King, Bilquis Evely and Matheus Lopes, which you can get here. Also, newly published Gifted Amateurs and Other Essays, by David Bratman, which you can get here.

On the other hand, I found nothing to like about Hugo finalist Cyberpunk 2077: Big City Dreams, by Bartosz Sztybor, Filipe Andrade, Alessio Fioriniello, Roman Titov, and Krzysztof Ostrowski; you can get it here.

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

One of the rare months (apart from pandemic times) when I did not leave Belgium, or even venture far from my normal Brussels-home-Tienen axis. I wrote about Kurt Vonnegut’s muse, and the top and bottom rated Doctor Who episodes on IMDB.

I did not write it up properly at the time, but Anne and I went to the Musée Fin-de-Siècle in Brussels and were really impressed by a couple of the pieces on display:

Crucially, this was the month that I stopped shaving. Ten days in, it was looking promising, though one or two of my colleagues were more advanced than me.

I read 35 books that month.

Non-fiction 9 (YTD 48)
Amy Dillwyn, by David Painting
After the War: How to Keep Europe Safe, by Paul Taylor
The Popes and Sixty Years of European Integration
How to End Russia’s War on Ukraine, by Timothy Ash et al
Blackpool Remembered, by John Collier
Drawing Boundaries, eds John C. Courtney, Peter MacKinnon and David E. Smith (did not finish)
The Deadly Assassin, by Andrew Orton
The Awakening, by David Evans-Powell
One Bible, Many Voices: Different Approaches to Biblical Studies, by S.E. Gillingham

Non-genre 7 (YTD 14)
The Cider House Rules, by John Irving
A Burglary, or, Unconscious Influence, by Amy Dillwyn
Jill, by Amy Dillwyn
Jill and Jack, by Amy Dillwyn
Nant Olchfa, by Amy Dillwyn
The Murder on the Links, by Agatha Christie
Whose Body?, by Dorothy L. Sayers

Poetry 1 (YTD 4)
The Prophet, by Khalil Gibran

SF 12 (YTD 122)
The Memory Librarian, ed. Janelle Monáe
Atlantis Fallen, by C.E. Murphy
In the Serpent’s Wake, by Rachel Hartman
Ancient, Ancient, by Kiini Ibura Salaam
Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep, ed. Paula Guran
The Drowning Girl, by Caitlin R. Kiernan
Legends & Lattes, by Travis Baldree
Tofu Brains: Life on Zeeta 21, by Lars Koch
There Will Be War Volume X, ed. Jerry Pournelle (did not finish)
Breakfast of Champions, by Kurt Vonnegut
Knights of God, by Richard Cooper
The Golden Enclaves, by Naomi Novik

Doctor Who 2 (YTD 21)
Doctor Who and the Deadly Assassin, by Terrance Dicks
Doctor Who – The Awakening, by Eric Pringle

Comics 4 (YTD 14)
Arena of Fear, by Nick Abadzis et al
Saga, Vol. 10,  by Fiona Staples and Brian K. Vaughan
Partitions irlandaises, by Vincent Baily and Kris
Once & Future Vol 4: Monarchies in the UK, by Kieron Gillen, Dan Mora and Tamara Bonvillain

8,200 pages (YTD 54,900)
17/35 (YTD 94/225) by non-male writers (Gillingham, Dillwyn x 4, Christie, Sayers, Monáe, Murphy, Hartman, Salaam, Guran, Kiernan, Novik, illustrators of Arena of Fear, Staples, Bonvillain)
2/35 (YTD 30/225) by a non-white writer (Gibran, Salaam)

The best of these was The Cider House Rules by John Irving; you can get it here.

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

I had three trips outside Brussels this month, the first to Zagreb for a conference commemorating the tenth anniversary of their EU membership:

The middle of the month saw B’s birthday:

I then had a business trip to Paris, and a combined business / Clarke tip to London, taking the day in between to catch up with my cousin in Dover.

We ended the month with a work outing swinging from trees in Wavre, which I had done a couple of times before. My actual swinging was not so effective but I am good at waiting for my turn on an elevated platform.

Non-fiction 8 (YTD 40)
A Brief History of Stonehenge, by Aubrey Burl
Twelve Caesars: Images of Power from the Ancient World to the Modern, by Mary Beard
The Shape of Irish History, by A.T.Q. Stewart
The Robots of Death, by Fiona Moore
City of Soldiers, by Kate Fearon
The Pandorica Opens / The Big Bang, by Philip Bates
Franco-Irish Relations, 1500-1610: Politics, Migration and Trade, by Mary Ann Lyons
Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century, by Jessica Bruder 

Non-genre 3 (YTD 7)
Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin
The Rebecca Rioter, by Amy Dillwyn
Chloe Arguelle, by Amy Dillwyn

SF 10 (YTD 110)
The Revolution Trade, by Charles Stross
Plutoshine, by Lucy Kissick
Metronome, by Tom Watson
Venomous Lumpsucker, by Ned Beauman
The Red Scholar’s Wake, by Aliette de Bodard
The Anomaly, by Hervé le Tellier
World’s Fair 1992, by Robert Silverberg
“Bears Discover Fire”, by Terry Bisson
Aurora: Beyond Equality, eds Vonda N. McIntyre and Susan Anderson
The Hemingway Hoax, by Joe Haldeman

Doctor Who 3 (YTD 19)
K9 Megabytes, by Bob Baker
Doctor Who and the Robots of Death, by Terrance Dicks
Corpse Marker, by Chris Boucher

Comics 1 (YTD 10)
The Endless Song, by Nick Abadzis et al

7,200 pages (YTD 46,900)
12/26 (YTD 78/191) by non-male writers (Beard, Moore, Fearon, Lyons, Bruder, Zevin, Dillwyn x2, Kissick, de Bodard, McIntyre / Anderson, Endless Song illustrators)
2/26 (YTD 28/191) by a non-white writer (Zevin, de Bodard)

I really liked all five of the Clarke shortlistees that I reread this month – Plutoshine, by Lucy Kissick (get it here); Metronome, by Tom Watson (get it here); Venomous Lumpsucker, by Ned Beauman (get it here); The Red Scholar’s Wake, by Aliette de Bodard (get it here); and The Anomaly, by Hervé le Tellier (get it here).

I also really liked Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin, which was a Clarke submission but not actually sf (get it here); and Nomadland, by Jessica Bruder, on which the Oscar-winning film was based (get it here).

However you can skip World’s Fair 1992, by Robert Silverberg. (Or get it here.)

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

We started the month in France, for a lovely 24-hour trip to a neglected corner across the border for my birthday. We found many things there including the grave of Wilfred Owen.

I found myself at the British Ambassador’s residence twice in a week, once for the Coronation reception and once for Eurovision.

Closer to home, our mayor commemorated the RAF men killed in a wartime crash in the next village to ours, eighty years before.

Back home in Northern Ireland, the local government elections took place and for the first time Nationalist parties got more votes than Unionist parties; I managed to get this data out before anyone else did.

Anne and I had another trip at the end of the month, to Amsterdam:

And I blogged about the age of the Meuse valley, and my grandmother’s reading habits.

I read 23 books that month, relaxing a bit after the Clarke frenzy.

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 32)
Johnson at 10: the Inside Story, by Anthony Seldon and Raymond Newell
The John Nathan-Turner Doctor Who Production Diary, 1979-90, by Richard Molesworth
American Gridlock, eds. James Thurber and Antoine Yoshinaka
Vengeance on Varos, by Jonathan Dennis
The Rings of Akhaten, by William Shaw

Poetry 1 (YTD 3)
Deep Wheel Orcadia, by Harry Josephine Giles

SF 13 (YTD 100)
Creation Machine, by Andrew Bannister
Love And Other Human Errors, by Bethany Clift
The Hunt – For Allies, by David Geoffrey Adams (did not finish)
Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett
The Violence, by Delilah S. Dawson (did not finish)
Where it Rains in Color, by Denise Crittendon
The Race, by Nina Allan
A Marvellous Light, by Freya Marske
The Shape of Sex to Come, ed. Douglas Hill
The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell
The Animals in That Country, by Laura Jean McKay
The Coral Bones, by E.J. Swift
The Second ‘If’ Reader, ed. Fredrik Pohl

Doctor Who 3 (YTD 16)
Home Fires Burn, by Gareth Madgwick
Doctor Who – Vengeance on Varos, by Philip Martin
Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor, by Philip Martin

Comics 1 (YTD 9)
The Fountains of Forever, by Nick Abadzis et al

7,000 pages (YTD 39,700)
9/23 (YTD 66/165) by non-male writers (Giles, Clift, Dawson, Crittenden, Allan, Marske, Serpell, McKay, Swift, Casagrande/Florean)
3/23 (YTD 26/165) by a non-white writer (Yoshinaka, Crittenden, Serpell)

I had not previously read the three most recent Clarke Award winners, but I thought they were all fantastic: The Old Drift, by Namwali Serpell, which you can get here, The Animals in That Country, by Laura Jean McKay, which you can get here, and Deep Wheel Orcadia, by Harry Josephine Giles, which you can get here. As homework for this year’s award I also reread The Coral Bones, by E.J. Swift, which you can get here.

Even completist Doctor Who fans can skip Sil and the Devil Seeds of Arodor, by Philip Martin, but you can get it here.

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

Only a few more of these posts to go; I’ll need to find another topic for regular non-book-blogging, but it’s been fun.

Quite a lot of travel this month, starting with a work trip to Geneva along with my colleague R:

Then Eastercon in Birmingham with Anne, Cambridge for a couple of days, and the a WorldCon planning meeting in Glasgow. I have not mentioned it previously, but on the last night of Eastercon I was struck by a bad IBS attack, I think triggered by the very creamy risotto that I had for dinner at Zizzi, and was incapacitated for the whole of the Monday. The rest of the week was fine, though, with a glimpse of the elusive planet Mercury as I cross Clare Bridge in Cambridge:

And a great picture of the Armadillo that I’m very pleased with.

In Brussels the following weekend, the normally closed Pavilion of the Human Passions was opened up for a couple of days:

I also attended a conference at the Economy Ministry in Paris.

And Anne and I finished the month elsewhere in France, but more on that anon.

My most significant blog post was on a 1933 aeroplane bombing, but I also read 32 books, many of them at the tail end of the Clarke submissions pile and which I therefore didn’t persevere with I felt that they were not science fiction, or just not very good.

Non-fiction 5 (YTD 27)
The Cyprus Crisis and the Cold War, by Makarios Drousiotis
My Family And Other Animals, by Gerald Durrell
The Silurians, by Robert Smith?
When Christians Were Jews: The First Generation, by Paula Fredriksen
The Underwater Menace, by James Cooray Smith

SF 23 (YTD 87)
Scary Monsters, by Michelle de Kretser
Galactic Girl, by Fiona Richmond
Stars and Bones, by Gareth L. Powell
City of Last Chances, by Adrian Tchaikovsky (did not finish)
The Shadow Glass, by Josh Winning (did not finish)
Redwood and Wildfire, by Andrea Hairston
The Ends, by James Smythe
The Coral Bones, by E.J. Swift
The Mars Migration, by Wayne M. Bailey (did not finish)
New Brighton, by Helen Trevorrow (did not finish)
Beyond the Burn Line, by Paul McAuley
The Last Storm, by Tim Lebbon
The Quickening, by Talulah Riley (did not finish)
Hangdog Souls, by Marc Joan (did not finish)
A Fractured Infinity, by Nathan Tavares (did not finish)
Equinox, by David Towsey (did not finish)
Outcast, by Louise Carey (did not finish)
Stringers, by Chris Panatier (did not finish)
The Thousand Earths, by Stephen Baxter
36 Streets, by T.R. Napper (did not finish)
HellSans, by Ever Dundas (did not finish)
A Sh*tload of Crazy Powers, by Jackson Ford (did not finish)
Plutoshine, by Lucy Kissick

Doctor Who 3 (YTD 13)
Erasing Sherlock, by Kelly Hale
Doctor Who and the Cave-Monsters, by Malcolm Hulke
Doctor Who: The Underwater Menace, by Nigel Robinson

Comics 1 (YTD 8)
The Weeping Angels of Mons, by Robbie Morrison, Daniel Indro and Eleonora Carlini

6,500 pages (YTD 32,700)
11/32 (YTD 57/142) by non-male writers (Fredriksen, de Kretser, Richmond, Hairston, Swift, Trevorrow, Riley, Carey, Hale, Dundas, χ4)
2/32 (YTD 23/142) by a non-white writer (de Kretser, Hairston)

In among the less impressive Clarke submissions were two of the six excellent books that we ended up shortlisting, The Coral Bones by E.J. Swift, which you can get here, and Plutoshine by Lucy Kissick, which you can get here. I also particularly enjoyed Makarios Drousiotis’ book on Cyprus, which you can get here. I’ll draw a veil over the less good…

This is the latest post in a series I started in late 2019, anticipating the twentieth anniversary of my bookblogging at the end of October 2023. Every six-ish days, I’ve been revisiting a month from my recent past, noting work and family developments as well as the books I read in that month. I’ve found it a pleasantly cathartic process, especially in recent circumstances. If you want to look back at previous entries, they are all tagged under bookblog nostalgia.

I had two nights away from Belgium that month, a Clarke meeting in London and a work meeting in The Hague. I also enjoyed a massive St Patrick’s Day whammy of Irish Embassy Reception on the evening of the 16th, Northern Ireland representation breakfast on the 17th and the Irish College in Leuven, where it all started, on the evening of the 17th. A couple of days later I attended the screening of a film about Lyra McKee.

Here are two journalists, both with the same first name, at the Irish embassy reception.

With the Clarke deadline closing in, I read 37 books that month, though again I did not finish those that seemed insufficiently science fictional (or insufficiently good) to have a chance of winning.

Non-fiction 9 (YTD 22)
Madam Secretary, by Madeleine Albright
Management Lessons from Game of Thrones: Organization Theory and Strategy in Westeros, by Fiona Moore
Terry Pratchett: A Life with Footnotes, by Rob Wilkins
Wordsworth’s French Daughter, by George McLean Harper
Kerblam!, by Naomi Jacobs and Thomas L. Rodebaugh
William Wordsworth and Annette Vallon, by Émile Legouis
The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords, by James Mortimer
The Kosova Liberation Army, by James Pettifer
The Face of Britain, by Simon Schama

Non-genre 1 (YTD 4)
Ratlines, by Stuart Neville

SF 23 (YTD 64)
The Key to Fury, by Kristin Cast (did not finish)
Lost In Time, by A.G. Riddle (did not finish)
The Visitors, by Owen W Knight (did not finish)
Thrust, by Lidia Yuknavitch
Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel
Neom, by Lavie Tidhar
The Cartographers, by Peng Shepherd (did not finish)
Luca, by Or Luca
Of Charms, Ghosts and Grievances, by Aliette de Bodard
Sea of Tranquility, by Emily St. John Mandel
Ogres, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Pod by Laline Paull
The Best of Ian McDonald
Trouble the Waters: Tales from the Deep Blue, eds. Sheree Renée Thomas, Pan Morigan and Troy L. Wiggins
The Anomaly, by Hervé le Tellier
Glitterati, by Oliver K. Langmead
The Candy House, by Jennifer Egan
Off-Target, by Eve Smith
Children of Memory, by Adrian Tchaikovsky
Venomous Lumpsucker, by Ned Beauman
Last Exit, by Max Gladstone (did not finish)
Speaking Bones, by Ken Liu (did not finish)
Ricky’s Hand, by David Quantick
The Moonday Letters, by Emmi Itäranta

Doctor Who 2 (YTD 10)
Warring States, by Mags Halliday
The HAVOC Files: The Laughing Gnome, ed ???

Comics 2 (YTD 7)
Revolutions of Terror, by Nick Abadzis, Elena Casagrande and Arianna Florean
The Secret to Superhuman Strength, by Alison Bechdel

10,100 pages (YTD 26,200)
17/37 (YTD 46/110) by non-male writers (Albright, Moore, Jacobs, Cast, Yuknavitch, St. John Mandel, Shepherd, Luca, de Bodard, Paull, Thomas/Morigan, Egan, Smith, Itäranta, Halliday, Casagrande/Florean, Bechdel)
7/37 (YTD 21/110) by a non-white writer (Cast, Shepherd, Luca, de Bodard, Paull, Thomas/Wiggins, Liu)

Some really good books this month. From the Clarke submissions, Venomous Lumpsucker (get it here), The Anomaly (get it here), Off Target (get it here) and Children of Memory (get it here) were all excellent. Several good biographies too: Rob Wilkins on Terry Pratchett (get it here), Madeleine Albright on herself (get it here), Alison Bechdel on herself in graphic format (get it here). See also Simon Schama on British portraits (get it here) and the Best of Ian McDonald‘s short fiction (get it here). I don’t need to cover the less good ones, I think.