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.
Marg has the Mr Linky this week!
I am on vacation this week and it is a rather wonderful feeling. My European trip at the end of the summer was very fun but very busy. This vacation is all about relaxing. I have flown south down to our family place in California and am surrounded by sunshine and palms trees. Ah, but it is nice. I only arrived Saturday afternoon but I’ve already read four books, spent many hours in the pool and had a wonderful time taking long walks each morning and admiring all the desert flowers. It is the perfect break from work and ‘normal’ life and I know I’ll go home feeling very refreshed – and well read!
The FitzOsbornes at War by Michelle Cooper – the final book in Cooper’s Montmaray Journals, a young adult trilogy set during the 1930s and 1940s about a group of siblings/cousins from the fictional island kingdom of Montmaray who, as the series continues, find themselves living in exile in England. I started this the very moment I got home from the library and did not put it down until I had finished a few hours later. I think the second book, The FitzOsbornes in Exile, is still the best – this one gets caught up in excessive detail about life on the home front – but I adore the narrator Sophie. How can you not adore a character who, when standing in line to buy sugar, ponders how Trollope’s Mrs Proudie would handle rationing (conclusion: “She’d probably have married Lord Woolton and seized control of the Ministry of Food by now”) or who falls back on Elizabeth Bennet’s words when rejecting an unwanted proposal?
The Blue Sapphire by D.E. Stevenson – more D.E. Stevenson for me and one of the better ones I’ve tried so far.
Indiscretion by Jude Morgan – this was Morgan’s first Regency-era novel and though it is not my favourite of the three that he has written so far (it has some rather laboured jokes and all the allusions to Austen wear thin after a while), it is still fun.
An Accomplished Woman by Jude Morgan – my favourite of Morgan’s novels:
As a young woman, clever, self-reliant Lydia Templeton scandalized Regency society by rejecting the county’s most eligible bachelor. Years later, although Lydia would prefer to avoid entanglements of the heart altogether, her godmother begs her to help her young ward make a suitable match. Though the prospect fills Lydia with horror, she can scarcely refuse, but things turn out even worse than she fears when her ward proves surprisingly tricky to manage and the confirmed spinster begins to suspect that her own heart may not be the closed book she thought it was.
What did you pick up this week?
As usual some gorgeous books!
I could have had my bags packed in no time, Claire!
Here on my dining room table sits ‘Toby’s Room’ by Pat Barker and ‘Pure’ by Andrew Miller. A week away from work and domestic duties would go a long way towards helping me to enjoy them! Enjoy your holiday.
I picked up Call the Midwife by Jennifer Worth. The PBS series just finished running here (out of Buffalo N.Y.) and I’m finding the book even more absorbing.
Also — oh joy, a new Kingsolver!! I was the very first person at my library to get my hands on Flight Behavior as it came in the door.
Jealous of your relaxing vacation. I could use one right now.
Enjoy your loot!
Darlene, above, has reminded me that I really do want to get Toby’s Room! But I’m still wading through (sorry, reading) Jennie Fields’ novel about Edith Wharton, The Age of Desire, and enjoying it although it’s a quite slow paced, a bit of a slow burn because, I think, it’s about a rather short period in Edith’s life which has been spread to fill more than 300 pages.
I have ordered Dorothy Hartley’s Food in England book after watching an excellent prog on TV about her last week and that should soon be with me.
Have a great vacation. We say “holiday” here in the UK, of course.
Enjoy your holiday and your loot! Sounds like it’s a reader paradise! 😀
Enjoy your vacation! I’m guessing you’re in Southern California, because it’s about to start raining up here in the north. 😉
It looks like a delightful loot! I just finished The FitzOsbornes at War last night and while I agree that the second one was probably a bit better, it was still a wonderful read. Sophie’s one of those characters I wish I had around in real life!
Sounds like a lovely holiday you’re on. I’m not familiar with these authors but your mention of rationing took me back to my earliest years and my grandmothers talking about life during those times. I’ve done a LL post after months of illness so I feel quite accomplished this week. Happy reading.