Library Loot: May 1 to 7

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

Things are comically busy here as May begins and I’ve barely read at all for the last couple of weeks.  Between chaos at work and a whirlwind of last minute details for the school reunion I’m organizing, there hasn’t been much time to read.  But there has, as you’ll see from my limited haul this week, been time to plan a trip.  I have a week booked off work later this month and was planning for some quiet time locally but really longing for a bigger adventure, as long as I didn’t need to get on a plane.  So instead of quietly pottering at home, I’ll be cruising off on a round trip to Alaska (Vancouver is a major point of departure for these cruises so no extra transportation needed).  I’ve spent years turning my nose up at cruises so it’s time to challenge some prejudices!  In comfort.  With excellent scenery.  Life is hard.

Spring Always Comes by Elizabeth Cambridge

One Basket by Edna Ferber

The Complete Guide to Alaska Cruises

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: April 24 to 30

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

Sharlene has the Mr Linky this week.

All fairly recent releases for me this week:

An Almost Impossible Thing by Fiona Davison – very much looking forward to this history about early female professional gardens.

Run to the Western Shore by Tim Pears – looking for shades of Rosemary Sutcliff in this historical novel set in Roman Britain.

Begin Again by Helly Acton – I thoroughly enjoyed Acton’s sharp first two novels (especially The Shelf) so am looking forward to this, though the premise seems more conventional than her earlier books.

The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes – a novel about the daughters of Thomas Gainsborough that has been getting rave reviews (including from Hilary Mantel before her death).

The Point of the Needle by Barbara Burman – I don’t really sew but am still intrigued to learn, as the subtitle has it, “why sewing matters”.

The Dictionary People by Sarah Ogilvie – after a long time in the hold queue, very excited to start this history/biography of some of the many varied and fascinating people who contributed to the Oxford English Dictionary.

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: April 17 to 23

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

The Waters Under the Earth by John Moore – many of you read this when it was reissued by Persephone in late 2022 but it largely passed me by until Ali included it in her Twelve Books for 2023 post.  Happily, it was easy to get from the university library

Tales from Ovid by Ted Hughes – another recommendation from Bound to Please (what would a Library Loot post be this year without at least one Dirda-influenced choice?)

Feet of Clay by Terry Pratchett – back to Discworld!

The Swann Family Saga by R.F. Delderfield – do I own all of these already?  Yes.  Do I in fact own them in both hardcover and paperback editions?  Again, yes.  But they are fragile and don’t stand up to being thrown around in my bag as commute reading so library copies to the rescue!  (A more pertinent question would be: do I have time to read anything else when checking out three doorstoppers like this?  Realistically, no.   But let’s find out)

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: April 10 to 16

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

Sharlene has the link this week.

Back to Istanbul by Bernard Ollivier and Bénédicte Flatet, translated by Dan Golembeski – I loved Ollivier’s three volume memoir of walking the Silk Road (starting with Out of Istanbul, one of my favourite books in 2020) and was delighted to hear about this later journey.  At age seventy-five, he set off with his new partner to walk from France to Istanbul.

Falling into Place by Thomas Swick – I’m always excited for memoirs about Central Europe so obviously had to pick up this one, about a man who fell in love with a Polish girl in the 1970s and ended up moving to Warsaw: the personal story of a young man’s discovery of the world and his development as a travel writer. It is also a love story, as he and Hania overcome cultural differences, communist bureaucracy, and unhealthy separations. Intertwined with both is the story of the revolution that altered history.

Table for Two by Amor Towles – I’ve been looking forward to this collection of short stories and a novella by Towles.

An Open Book by Michael Dirda – Dirda refers to his childhood regularly in his writing so I’ve had some teasers before starting this memoir but am looking forward to getting the full story.

The Larach by Alexandra Raife – reread of my favourite book by this author.

Kolymsky Heights by Lionel Davidson – I’ve read two thrillers by Davidson so far and they’ve both been entertaining but the treatment of women was fairly off-putting.  I thought I’d given up on Davidson but Elle’s comment on my review of The Night of Wenceslas that she was really impressed by this one had me ready to give him another chance.

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: April 3 to 9

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

Gap Year Girl by Marianne C. Bohr – a travel memoir about taking a gap year – in your mid-fifties.  I enjoyed Bohr’s recent book about hiking the G20 in Corsica so was excited to track this down.

Men at Arms by Terry Pratchett – I’m having great fun with Pratchett this year.

The Leopard by Giuseppe di Lampedusa – the classic novel of societal changes in Sicily during the risorgimento.

A Commonplace Book by Alec Guinness – Alec Guinness’ diaries (A Positively Final Appearance, My Name Escapes Me) are wonderful and revealed him as a passionate reader so it’s fascinating to see what passages he jotted down in his commonplace books.

George Lyttelton’s Commonplace Book – while grabbing Guinness’ commonplace book, it seemed only right to grab another.  I’ve learned to love Lyttelton through his letters with Rupert Hard-Davis and I particularly enjoy his thoughts on whatever he was reading, so look forward to this.

Readings by Michael Dirda – as if Dirda hadn’t inspired enough of my reading this year through Bound to Please (including 2 of the books this week – it’s because of him I’m reading Pratchett again and have finally picked up The Leopard), I’ve gone back for more.  This is a collection of personal essays rather than criticism though so less devastating for my TBR list.

My awareness of Alec Guinness and the Lyttelton Hart-Davis letters are also thanks to Dirda (after reading Browsings) so this is really a Dirda-driven post, with Bohr as the one exception.

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: March 20 to 26

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

I did a whirlwind tour across three different library systems recently, picking up plenty of interesting things.  And then didn’t read any of them on the weekend because a) the weather was spectacular and I spent most of my time outside and b) what time I did spend reading was (wisely) devoted to A Stranger in the Family by Jane Casey, the newest book in the Maeve Kerrigan series.  It was only released on Thursday (just as an eBook in North America.  Print copies come out in June) and for once I didn’t have the patience to wait for the library to buy it.  It was predictably great and, like all of Casey’s fans, I can’t wait for the next book.

The Twenty by Marianne C. Bohr – a memoir about hiking the GR20 trail across Corsica when the author and her husband turned sixty.

Blue Mystery by Margot Benary-Isbert – continuing my exploration of Benary-Isbert’s children’s books with this mystery about a missing plant.

Buttered Side Down by Edna Ferber – after enjoying Mother Knows Best, I’m back for more of Ferber’s short stories with this early collection.

In Allied London by Count Edward Raczynski – after putting this collection of WWII diaries on my to-read list back in 2018, I’ve finally tracked it down!

The Smoking Mountain by Kay Boyle – I only recently read the Neglected Books review of this collection of stories about post-WWII Germany but it sounds very much like my sort of book.

Mrs Lorimer’s Quiet Summer by Molly Clavering – how exciting to have tracked down a Dean Street Press book!  My experiences with Clavering have been very mixed (having read Near Neighbours, Dear Hugo, Susan Settles Down and Touch Not the Nettle) so I’m interested to see what I make of this.

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: March 13 to 19

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

Sharlene has the link this week.

Susan and Joanna by Elizabeth Cambridge – like all right-thinking people, I love Hostages to Fortune but have found Cambridge’s other books impossibly hard to track down.  Finally, I’ve had success with this story about two young women and the early years of their very different marriages.

The General and Julia by Jon Clinch – with perfect timing, this recently released novel about a dying Ulysses Grant reflecting back on his life as he writes his memoirs arrived just as I finished Ronald C. White’s biography, American Ulysses.  In a few short weeks I will have gone from knowing almost nothing about the man to being abnormally well-informed.

Ready or Not by Cara Bastone – a romance about a pregnant heroine falling for an old friend isn’t the easiest thing to pull off but Bastone has done it beautifully.

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: March 6 to 12

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

I’m deeply impressed by the speed of the interlibrary loan system recently.  After getting used to months and months of waiting for books during Covid, they are now suddenly coming in with lightening speed.  The best sort of surprise!  And I always have fun when I see where the books came from: this week, I have a historical romance from the University of Saskatoon and a crime novel from the Bibliothèque nationale du Québec in Montreal.

The Lieutenant’s Lady by Bess Streeter Aldrich – I’ve only discovered Bess Streeter Aldrich over the last couple of years and am enjoying working my way through her novels and short stories.  I sped through this one over the weekend and while it’s not as good as her other books, I still found the story of a young woman who ends up in a marriage of convenience to the soldier her cousin jilted very readable.

American Ulysses by Ronald C. White – Such an entertaining biography!  If you are anywhere near me this week, you are going to be overwhelmed by random trivia about Ulysses S. Grant and America during his lifetime.

Grievance by K.C. Constantine – Of all the books that Michael Dirda was passionate about in Bound to Please, this Pennsylvania-set crime novel was one of the first I tried to track down.  It’s wonderful and it’s shocking that such a praised and well-written series is now out of print (possibly to be rediscovered soon?  I see a posthumous novel in this series is set to be released in April).

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: February 28 to March 5

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

Sharlene has the link this week.

Very happy recent library news: months after a crippling cyber attack, the Toronto Public Library (one of the busiest library systems in the world), is restarting their holds system and putting one million items back into circulation.  The library has been checking books out using paper forms but all returns went into storage.  Now, they are making their way back on to shelves.  Very exciting for those of you in Toronto!  And for those of us in Vancouver who are waiting on inter-library loans from Toronto.

How Green Was My Valley by Richard Llewellyn – one of the saddest things in the Lyttelton-Hart-Davis letters (which I was reminded of while reading volume five) is how much George Lyttelton loves this book and longs for Hart-Davis to read it and share his thoughts.  Hart-Davis has a copy in his Yorkshire cottage and spends years vowing to read it but, inevitably, returns from holiday without having touched it.  There is one volume of letters left to read and I’m hopeful that Hart-Davis will come through before his friend’s death, but Lyttelton’s passion for this classic has me convinced to try it far more promptly.

And No Birds Sang by Farley Mowat – there aren’t a lot of classic Canadian memoirs of WWII but this is certainly one of them.  Mowat was a hugely popular writer and environmentalist, writing for children and adults, with many of his books still in print.

Simply the Best by Susan Elizabeth Phillips – new release in Phillips’ classic Chicago Stars romance series.  I sped through this on the weekend and thoroughly enjoyed it – a relief after finding her last few books disappointing.

What did you pick up this week?

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Library Loot: February 21 to 27

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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.

Love from Sandy by Elwynne Berger – I cannot for the life of me remember where I came across this epistolary novel from 1953 about a young American studying in England but it has now arrived via inter-library loan.

Dreams of My Russian Summers by Andreï Makine – I read this autobiographical novel about a Russian boy growing up under communism listening to the stories of his French grandmother when I was probably far too young to understand most of it, but I have fond memories and want to see what I think of it as an adult.

Cordelia’s Honor by Lois McMaster Bujold – two for the price of one!  This omnibus edition includes both Shards of Honor and Barrayar.  Time to finally start the Vorkosigan Saga.

What did you pick up this week?

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