Thanks, as always, to Eleanor and Skai for posting about their recent library reading. And thanks to Margaret for joining in for the first time!
Last month I was lamenting my disengagement from the Booker Prize shortlist. Luckily, I loved the eventual winner, Flesh by David Szalay, which I finished reading about an hour and a half before the prize announcement! In other news, I’m judging the McKitterick Prize again this year. When, mid-month, it hit me that my first shipment of submissions was going to be arriving soon, I had to clear the decks by returning some library books I knew I wasn’t going to get to any time soon. This included a few 2025 releases that I’d hoped to prioritise but that didn’t, at least within the first few pages, leap out at me as must-reads.
The new categorisation system at my library doesn’t seem to be as disruptive as predicted, though it does look untidy having two different types of stickers in any one section. The self-service reservations have been moved from one wall to the opposite one, as if just to confuse patrons. (None of these changes are ever run by the staff and volunteers who will actually live with them day to day.)
I’m there for the books, but there’s an amazing range of other services that people access. One young woman comes for one-on-one English tutoring and picks up free period products. A man with aphasia after a stroke has literacy training. Older people book IT sessions. The NHS runs a free clinic for health checks. Our £1 coffee machine is very popular. There are also recycling points for bras and batteries. Truly a community hub.
My library use over the last month:
(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog; some reviews are still to come)
READ
- Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner
- Heart the Lover by Lily King
- Misery by Stephen King
- Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
- The Eights by Joanna Miller
- Super-Frog Saves Tokyo by Haruki Murakami
- Rainforest by Michelle Paver
- Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry
- The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
- Flesh by David Szalay
- Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth
CURRENTLY READING
- The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
- Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
- Night Life: Walking Britain’s Wild Landscapes after Dark by John Lewis-Stempel
SKIMMED
- The Perimenopause Survival Guide: A Feel-Like-Yourself-Again Roadmap for Every Woman over 35 by Heather Hirsch
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- It’s Not a Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult by Kat Brown
- A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED
- The Parallel Path: Love, Grit and Walking the North by Jenn Ashworth
- Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
- Look Closer: How to Get More out of Reading by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
- Winter by Val McDermid
- We Live Here Now by C.D. Rose
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
- Snegurochka by Judith Heneghan
- Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me by Mimi Pond
- Weirdo Goes Wild by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird
- Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens
RETURNED UNREAD
- The Shetland Way: Community and Climate Crisis on My Father’s Islands by Marianne Brown
- Fulfillment by Lee Cole
- Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan
- The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by Sally Magnusson
- Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor
- Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe by Adam Weymouth
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
- Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
- Red Pockets: An Offering by Alice Mah
- Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann
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 
Next year, I’m going to join in. I’ve been a Six Degrees participant for several years, but I’m running out of steam on that one. This format looks as if it will work, especially as what I’ve been very bad at is noting books I’ve started, but not finished. Much less books I get out, perhaps even having reserved them, and then think ‘ Nah …’ Being a library volunteer makes you totter home with all kinds of things in your bag, doesn’t it?
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Oh yes, I bring home a full backpack almost every week! That would be lovely to have you join in — thank you 🙂
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Ooh, I wish ours had a £1 coffee machine and recycling points for bras and batteries! Maybe I’ll suggest it. (Though my last suggestion – that the library organise a sale of dead stock to raise some money, instead of immediately pulping what they didn’t want – was met with resistance.) My post is up now here: https://ellethinks.wordpress.com/2025/11/24/loveyourlibrary-november-2025/
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PS: Massive congratulations on returning to McKitterick Prize judging this year! What a thrill.
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Huh, I’m surprised they weren’t open to selling withdrawn stock. We recently had a big sale at my library where most items were £1, including some antiquarian local interest material. I didn’t end up buying anything, but good bargains could be had!
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I really can’t fathom it. Their excuse was that they didn’t have enough space in the building to run a sale. (Forget that there’s a GIANT, largely unused landing with a bunch of exhibition vitrines that could be pushed to the side…)
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That’s so interesting: living in a tiny village or a massive city, there have always been ‘free’ or ‘sale’ piles/shelves in all the different libraries I’ve known. However, I can also see where ‘space’ is a more complicated issue than it seems, as landings (if you mean between flights of stairs? not sure if the term is different in England?) would be a no-go for safety code reasons.
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I guess it’s not really a landing; there’s a staircase from the entrance to the main library floor, and then when you get to the main floor, there’s a large, well-lit area behind you (the staircase emerges in what’s essentially the centre of a room) that goes largely unused save for the aforementioned vitrines. You have to intentionally walk around the staircase space to get to it, it isn’t in the way of traffic but it’s clearly visible. So weird that it hasn’t occurred to anyone!
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That’s cool: I can think of another library with what sounds like a very similar floor plan. I always feel as though those first floors are a little disorienting, as though they’re hiding the books upstairs!
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I’m sorry about the arbitary changes. They sound very annoying. Slightly bemused by the bra recycling!
I’m looking forward to reading Slags, Death of an Ordinary Man and Heart the Lover although forewarned by your three-star rating.
Good luck with the McKitterick judging!
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Your reaction to Heart the Lover may depend on whether you’ve read her previous novel…
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I loved Writers and Lovers…
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Ah, see, my issue was mostly one of comparison between the two. But I won’t spoil anything for you, and you may well love both!
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I just checked out The Winter of our Discontent in paper, but I alwayds check out a lot of ebooks and e-audiobooks
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I’ve never used my library’s e-services, but my husband regularly does. I have a copy of The Winter of our Discontent and keep meaning to read it one of these winters (though I know the title is a Shakespeare quote and it’s not necessarily about winter).
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Correct, not about winter really
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It is so neat to read about some of the community offerings your library has. My library partners with a non-profit organization to offer period supplies for free. Since it gets very hot during the summer where I live, city council has approved a budget for us to offer free water bottles and other heat stroke prevention items free during the summer months.
Here is my library reading for November and some of my writing for November as well: https://inspirationalskai.blogspot.com/2025/11/love-your-library-november-2025-october.html
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Thanks for joining in again! That’s great that your library offers items that can have a direct, positive effect on people’s health.
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Glad you enjoyed The Eights as well! I’ve heard really mixed things about Flesh.
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I guess I’ve only registered the positive responses to Flesh, but I can see why people would be repelled by the unlikable characters or rather depressing plot.
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I agree that being a Library volunteer means that you can try books that you might not normally already have on your radar. I’ve read two books about David Bowie recently (Bowieland and From Ibiza to the Norfolk Broads), both VERY good and I’m not the slightest bit a Bowie fan.
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I think I picked up more new-to-me books at random when I was just a customer. These days I almost always reserve new releases I know about from the alerts I set up on the catalogue and just borrow those as they come in for me.
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It is amazing how many services your library offers! Period products! Bra recycling! Inconceivable! (I feel like the guy in Princess Bride, ha ha.)
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We’re the flagship branch in our (small) county and we have a couple of meeting rooms we rent out to community groups, so there’s a lot going on.
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My draft is still lingering in my file, unfortunately, but I did borrow a few books from a branch we normally don’t visit the other week, and I arrived just when there was a Climate Justice event underway. The most people I have ever seen in that branch, and the parking lot was literally full. We had to park in the lot of the school next door, which has a massive mural of Alex Trebek (where he attended). You’re welcome. hee hee Regardless, I always enjoy reading about your library experiences and enthusiasms. The bra exchange!
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Alex Trebek, what a legend! I saw Sudbury mentioned in the Atwood memoir this morning — your neck of the woods?
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Woods, indeed: yup. Apparently she celebrated her birthday in Sudbury for many years, attending a particular annual event locally (it also features in one of her early stories in “Dancing Girls” about a young writer doing a reading in this northern city, when she was relatively unknown). Her and Jane Goodall: soft spots for Sudbury.
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Awesome!
It’s notable how many of her short stories draw on her own experiences.
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How far are you into Book of Lives at this point? Do you feel it reads quickly?
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Just p. 50 so far. I have to read it within 3 weeks before the library due date, so I’m aiming for 25+ pages a day. I’ll try to share a few thoughts before the end of the month. It’s dense with information and anecdotes, but all of it so interesting!
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[…] of Bookish Beck fame has a monthly challenge – Love your Library. She uses her own post to tell us what she has read, what she is reading, what she gave up on or […]
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Well, I’ve joined in at last! I’ve just re-read your post and realised I haven’t mentioned the socially useful things our library does – though it doesn’t have a bra-recycling-point it did a Hallowe’en costume exchange this year in the children’s library though…). That can be for another time! https://margaret21.com/2025/12/06/love-your-library/. I see that Penny Hull has commented . She voluteers in a tiny volunteer-run library near here and is in sole charge for her stint. Wouldn’t be for me!
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No worries — you can save that for another month’s post 🙂
No, I wouldn’t like to have that much responsibility either. I help out on the counter occasionally, but I have limited privileges with my volunteer log-in and I also like being able to disappear to do my reservations treasure hunt plus some shelving.
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Ooh, we seems to get to do quite a range. My worst thing is taking money for photocopying etc). Numbers and me …
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Ugh, yes, I hate using the till (but worse is how you have to add on the charge in the computer system).
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