Thanks to Eleanor, Marcie and Skai for posting about their recent library reads!

I went to a very different sort of library early this month: Liquid Library, a cocktail bar and restaurant in Westminster, Maryland. Their cocktail menu is extensive and the prices reasonable – heaven! I had two gin-based drinks – a Lychee Fizz and a 1920s classic, Aviation (violet and maraschino liqueurs) – and my sister, for whose 50th birthday it was a belated celebration, had two vodka ones. The Prohibition theme was stronger than the library motif, but it was still fun. We’ll have to go back next time I’m visiting so I can try more!

My local library system was the key to my being able to follow the Jhalak Poetry Prize (for writers of colour) and the Women’s Prize for Fiction this year. I heartily agree with the judges’ selections of I Sing to the Greenhearts and The Correspondent! I’ve also read the Queen’s Knickers Prize nominees (that’s the Society of Authors’ prize for picture books!) that happened to be available in my library and liked the runner-up, The Tour at School, but not as much as the Bently (below).

My library use over the last month:

(links are to any book reviews not already featured on the blog)

READ

• Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
• The Correspondent by Virginia Evans (Women’s Prize for Fiction winner)
• I Sing to the Greenhearts by Maggie Harris (Jhalak Prize winner)
• Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly (Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist)
• A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides by Gisèle Pelicot
• Saving Graces: Images of Women in European Cemeteries by David Robinson

Also a few children’s picture books (which don’t count towards my year totals) from the Queen’s Knickers shortlist:

• The Tour at School by Katie Clapham; illus. by Nadia Shireen – About being the new kid in school. Good diversity rep.
• Ava and the Acorn by Paddy Donnelly – About the changing of seasons and the ageing and inevitable death of all things human and natural – though there’s hope of new life yet. Mawkish but well-meaning.
• Bessie’s Bees by George Kirk; illus. by Ana Gómez – About making the most of ADHD rather than seeing it as a problem. Cute.

Plus my brief thoughts on a few queer books I happened to experience during Pride Month:

The Princes and the Pea by Peter Bently; illus. by Claire Powell (Queen’s Knickers Prize shortlist) – A perfect kids’ book for Pride Month! Prince Fredwin is about to turn 21 and knows he’s supposed to find a princess to marry, even though he prefers spending his time with his BFF Prince Zac. When Princess Ardwenna stumbles in sopping wet from a hike, she overhears the pair about to set up the old pea test for her and decides to play a trick back on them. The message about following your heart comes through loud and clear in this fabulous rainbow-hued page-turner.

Queer as Folklore: The Hidden Queer History of Myths and Monsters by Sacha Coward – We saw Coward give a talk at the second annual Queer Folk Festival at Cecil Sharp House at the end of May. (Also enjoyed fantastic music by Amit Chadda, Bailey and Keely, and Belinda O’Hooley.) His whistlestop rundown of mermaids (starting with his childhood fascination with Disney’s The Little Mermaid, especially Ursula the drag queen-esque Sea Witch), werewolves, witches and vampires and their historical overlap with ‘aberrant’ sexualities was very engaging, but I failed to get into his book-length account and just gave it a quick skim. He comes to the material as a museum professional. The simplified highlights for the lecture were as much as I needed. I appreciated his theory that queer people have always felt like Others or in-betweeners, buoyed by magic, storytelling, and weirdness. 

The Cecil Sharp House Library

My Dearest Friend by Lady Red Ego (Jhalak Prize shortlist) – This is the pseudonym of a Chinese Scottish lesbian writer. She wrote these poems for her mother, who had cancer for six years before her death in 2025. It’s a dual-language edition, with her mother Xiaoyu Luo’s translations following each poem plus an introductory letter from mother to daughter and a closing one from daughter to mother. Childhood, adjusting to a new country, mourning … there’s nothing ground-breaking here, but the poems are very readable. Lines I liked: “Grief is so clean, it rearranges / the parts of me I can’t see / like surgery.”

Holy Boys by Andrés N. Ordorica (Jhalak Prize shortlist) – His poetry is SO much better than his fiction (How We Named the Stars was a massive disappointment).  He writes about his Mexican upbringing, visions of masculinity, his growing awareness of his sexuality, and his travels. Often, he incorporates Spanish phrases and biblical language and imagery.

SKIMMED

• The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris

CURRENTLY READING

• Dominion by Addie E. Citchens (Women’s Prize for Fiction shortlist)
• Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller
• Kakigori Summer by Emily Itami
• The New Carthaginians by Nick Makoha (Jhalak Prize shortlist)
• A Long Game: How to Write Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken
• Night, Neon and Other Stories of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
• Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy (Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction shortlist)
• The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
• The Queen’s Gambit by Walter S. Tevis

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Come What May: Life-Changing Lessons for Coping with Crisis by Lucy Easthope
• Crossing the Water by Sylvia Plath

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED

• Receipts from the Bookshop: A Bookseller’s Year by Katie Clapham
• The Typing Lady and Other Fictions by Ruth Ozeki
• Hum by Helen Phillips
• The Saltwater: A Midsummer Ghost Story by E.S. Thomson

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
• The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall
• Why I Am Not a Bus Driver by Ashley Hickson-Lovence
• Country People by Daniel Mason
• Land by Maggie O’Farrell
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (to reread)
• Original by Nell Stevens

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom by Kerri Andrews – Requested off of me before I could get further than the introduction. I’ll borrow it again another time.
• Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett – Even the first couple of pages were so twee I knew this wasn’t going to happen for me.
• Greenwild by Pari Thomson – I was enjoying this well enough but felt no need to keep going after 30-some pages. I’m not in a middle grade phase at the moment.

RETURNED UNREAD

• Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke – I’d read too many middling responses to bother with this buzzy novel.
• Alice with a Why by Anna James – I read one of her series but it really tapered off in quality towards the end, so I’ve decided against reading more from her.
• Dogs, Boys and Other Things I’ve Cried About by Isabel Klee – I guess I requested this for the title? It looks kinda dumb.

What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?

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