Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.
Only two books for me this week and both, unusually for me, relatively new releases. I have so many books both from my own collection and from previous library hauls waiting that it is probably for the best that I keep my loot small for the next little bit as I try to make a dent in that pile.
No One is Here Except All of Us by Ramona Ausubel – I adore this cover and, after reading NPR’s review, am intrigued by the story. It seems like the kind of book I’ll either love or will abandon after twenty pages. I’m eager to find out which it is.
In 1939, the families in a remote Jewish village in Romania feel the war close in on them. Their tribe has moved and escaped for thousands of years- across oceans, deserts, and mountains-but now, it seems, there is nowhere else to go. Danger is imminent in every direction, yet the territory of imagination and belief is limitless. At the suggestion of an eleven-year-old girl and a mysterious stranger who has washed up on the riverbank, the villagers decide to reinvent the world: deny any relationship with the known and start over from scratch. Destiny is unwritten. Time and history are forgotten. Jobs, husbands, a child, are reassigned. And for years, there is boundless hope. But the real world continues to unfold alongside the imagined one, eventually overtaking it, and soon our narrator-the girl, grown into a young mother-must flee her village, move from one world to the next, to find her husband and save her children, and propel them toward a real and hopeful future. A beguiling, imaginative, inspiring story about the bigness of being alive as an individual, as a member of a tribe, and as a participant in history…
The Astaires: Fred & Adele by Kathleen Riley – after reading Elaine’s review, I cannot wait to get started on this.
Before ‘Fred and Ginger’, there was ‘Fred and Adele’, a show business partnership and a cultural sensation like no other. It is difficult in our celebrity-sated era to comprehend what a genuine phenomenon the Astaires were. At the height of their success in the mid-1920s the siblings were seasoned transatlantic commuters, ambassadors of an art form they had helped to revolutionize, adored by audiences, feted by royalty, and courted socially by the elite in just about every field of endeavour. They seemed to define the Jazz Age, a fascinating pair who wove fascinating rhythms in song and dance. The story of Fred and Adele Astaire is extraordinary and it is told here in depth and within its historical and theatrical context. It is not merely the first part of Fred’s long and illustrious career; it holds a significance and a fascination of its own, as well as having implications for Astaire’s subsequent career, which have not been fully appreciated.
What did you pick up this week?
Ooooh, I want to read The Astaires! A few days ago I showed a clip of Fred Astaire tap dancing and singing to my Grade 1 students and they were fascinated and kept asking to see it again haha 😉
Now that would be a fun class!
I really like the sound of that first book 🙂 and, I love jazz! Sounds like your loot should be rather enjoyable 🙂
Thanks, I think so too!
The Astaires is definitely going on my TBR – I’ll be interested to see what you think about it. [bibliolathas]
I’m really excited about it! I’ll be sure to post a review once I’m done.
I love Fred Astaire! I will have to look for this book!
You certainly will!
I haven’t heard of the Astaire book, but it’s going straight on my list!
Doesn’t it sound great? I can’t wait to start reading.
Enjoy your new reads. My library subscription is on hold for a couple of weeks until my visiting sister returns to the USA. We are going to be on the road around Tasmania for the next week and then she goes back soon after. Will certainly be back at the library after that. Happy reading, Pam
Enjoy your time with your sister, Pam!
The Astaires looks interesting. I might have to pick that up. Enjoy your loot!
Thanks, Linda. I’m really excited to start reading it.
I think I would enjoy these books you mention as a gift, but I don’t think I’d rush out to buy either of them.
So what have I picked up this week? Well, for starters, I couldn’t get along with the small and rather feint print of The History Society imprint of the Norah Lofts’ modern paperback of The Town House, even though I was wearing my reading glasses. And I DID go to Specsavers! (a joke for those who can see UK TV adverts!)
And so I ordered a hardback copy (with dust jacket) from http://www.abebooks.com and a lovely Doubleday/Book Club edition arrived alyesterdayl the way from Wisconsin ! I also decided to buy the next two books in this ‘House’ trilogy and bought similar hardback/dust jacketed copies of The House at Old Vine and The House at Sunset via Abe.co.uk (I should perhaps add that this trilogy is the story of a house and its inhabitants from the 14th to the mid-20th century and was written by Norah Lofts in the late 1950s/early 1960s.)
While I’ve been drooling over these lovely original hardbacks with their beautiful dust jackets (I’m a sucker for lovely book art), what should arrive but the latest Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway crime novel, A Room Full of Bones, the fourth in this excellent series about a forensic archeologist. Not everyone enjoys apresent tense/3rd person narrative, but I think this brings an immediacy to the stories, and I’m really looking forward to this, having just finished The J M Barrie Ladies’ Swimming Society by Barbara J Zitwer which was a joy from beginning to end, a really delightful novel.
Sounds like you’ve lots of great books in your life right now, Margaret. Everything I’ve heard about The J.M. Barrie Ladies’ Swimming Society has made me eager to read it so I’m excited to hear that you loved it too!
Both look great, I especially like the look of The Astaires. Happy reading!
Thanks, Sam! I am definitely excited about The Astaires.
No One is Here But All of Us caught my attention not too long ago as well, but I didn’t put it on my list. I think I should! Hope you enjoy it.
I hope so too but, if nothing else, at least I get to look at that great cover!
Oops! Except, not ‘But’.
The Astaire book is fascinating and I am attending an evening at the NT hosted by the author in a week or two. Kathleen Riley got in touch with me when she came across my review (I get soooo excited when authors do that) and Fred’s daughter will also be there. Am taking along my book and am really excited about this. Other host is Matthew Bourne so should be a great evening
That sounds like it will be a great evening, Elaine. I’ll look forward to hearing your thoughts on it after. I completely relate to your excitement when authors get in touch – I never expect it but I am always thrilled to hear from them!
Enjoy your loot – both of the books sound really interesting.
Thanks, Cat! I like the sound of No One is Here Except All of Us so am intrigued to see what I think of it and am just plain excited to start reading The Astaires.
The Astaires book sounds so very very good.
I think so too!
That first book looks so good 🙂 And I love the title too. I think I may need to look out for it.
The title is great, isn’t it? I hope the book is too!
Nothing new to my shelves or bookbag this week, but I have been enjoying Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand and would love to read the Astaire book. I don’t know much at all about Adele Astaire, who keeps popping up in crossword puzzles.
That first book looks fascinating. I’ll have to come back and see what you thought of it.
I love the cover for No One is Here But All of Us. I would have picked it up for that alone. And learning that it takes place in Romania makes me want to read it even more.