Thanks, as always, to Elle for posting about her recent library reading!
Libraries are havens, whatever the circumstances. Coinciding with me on my volunteering days are an unhoused man who sits outside using the wifi on a laptop until opening time, a blind flower arranger, bus drivers on loo breaks, and an intellectually disabled man who repeats excellent catch phrases, all to do with Christmas. It’s a space available to all.
My library use over the last month:
(links to books not already reviewed on the blog)
READ
- Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster
- Baumgartner by Paul Auster
- The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
- Myself & Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
- Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love by Sophie Elmhirst
- The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
(& the children’s books pictured below)
CURRENTLY READING
- The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness
- Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Pádraig Ó Tuama
- Long Island by Colm Tóibín (for book club)
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Keep Love: 21 Truths for a Long-Lasting Relationship by Paul Brunson
- Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (to skim back through for Literary Wives)
- The Forgotten Sense: The Nose and the Perception of Smell by Jonas Olofsson
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
- Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
- I Want to Talk to You: And Other Conversations by Diana Evans
- We Do Not Part by Han Kang
- I Am Not a Tourist by Daisy J. Hung
- Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan
- When the Stammer Came to Stay by Maggie O’Farrell
- The Leopard in My House: One Man’s Adventures in Cancerland by Mark Steel
- Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
- Time of the Child by Niall Williams
ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP
- Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum
- Old Soul by Susan Barker
- Day by Michael Cunningham
- The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time by Helen Gordon
- Rebel Bodies: A Guide to the Gender Health Gap Revolution by Sarah Graham
- Period Power by Maisie Hill
- The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- Confessions by Catherine Airey – I actually read the first 160 pages and enjoyed the first section about Cora in New York City in the wake of 9/11, but once the focus moved to her aunts in Ireland in the 1970s I failed to see a point.
- Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets by Kyo Maclear – I made it 50 or so pages into this last year but found it repetitive and elliptical. Dani Shapiro’s Inheritance, which tells quite a similar story (of finding out that the person the author always considered her father was not genetically related to her and that she was conceived by a sperm donor instead), was more engaging.
RETURNED UNREAD
- Newborn: Running Away, Breaking from the Past, Building a New Family by Kerry Hudson – I’m not sure why I requested this given I wasn’t impressed with Lowborn.
- Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey – Requested off me; will try another time.
- The Coast Road by Alan Murrin – I don’t have time to focus on it now but might get it back out later in the year.
- No Filters: A Mother and Teenage Daughter Love Story by Christie Watson – The premise appealed to me but when I actually opened it up it looked scattered and lite.
What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?
Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 
I’d requested Three Days in June by Anne Tyler from the library too and it came through on Friday. I’ve read it now, and may be the only person in the entire reading world who didn’t like it. I’ll look for your review in due course.
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Her recent work has been patchy but I thought French Braid was excellent and a return to form. We shall see!
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I love this post! What a great selection of books. 🙂 I have borrowed Atlas the Story of Pa Salt.
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Thank you 🙂 I’ve not read any Lucinda Riley but she’s very popular in my library system!
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🙂 I hope you enjoy your books.
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I have read one book from the library this month (excluding stuff I read for work) – The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin. It was irritatingly just long enough that I felt I needed a print copy rather than finding a pdf online which I’m sure would’ve been possible with this text.
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I have a vintage Penguin paperback, very slender indeed. I’ll need to read more by Baldwin after this and Giovanni’s Room.
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The cartoon! Love it!
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I have Sarah Turley to thank for posting it on Facebook.
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I enjoyed this challenge so much last month. It was totally fun checking out everyone’s blogs. I wanted to do it again this month. You can read it here. https://inspirationalskai.blogspot.com/2025/02/love-your-library-jan-27-feb-24-2025.html
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Thanks so much for joining in again, and reminding me that it’s National Library Lovers Month! My library has a display up for it, but it somehow slipped my mind.
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Oh that is a shame about Confessions, I thought it was great! I actually found the end a bit strange, but up to that point I really enjoyed it all…
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Another time I might have succeeded, but with the novel in high demand and me not reading as much after losing my cat I was content to let it go.
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Oh I am so sorry to hear that about your cat… 😦
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That cartoon was fun! As always I appreciate a fellow cheerleader for libraries.
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I have been very unsure whether my resolution to stay home during the winter (rather than risk the regular hour-long walk each way on unplowed roadsides/sidewalks) would hold, but I have been enjoying the reading from my own shelves a great deal (probably because I also knew it was temporary). Lots here look good though. I’ll be back to regular habits in another month or so, I suspect.
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Do you not have a bus service in your area? Your hardiness in walking to the library is to be much admired!! Covid lockdown and, before that, charges for reservations were effective at getting me to cut down on my library use and read more from my own shelves. But the library has remained a primary way that I read new releases, along with some review copies and NetGalley or Edelweiss downloads.
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