Love Your Library: October 2026

My thanks, as always, go to Eleanor and Skai for posting about their recent library reads.

I’ve been catching up with most of the rest of the Booker Prize shortlist and reading lots of other delicious new releases thanks to the library. For Novellas in November and Nonfiction November, I’m also getting together a small stack of novellas and short nonfiction to supplement all the options from my own shelves.

 

My library use over the last month:

 

READ

  • Hail Mary by Funmi Fetto
  • Autumn by Kate Mosse
  • Sheets by Brenna Thummler (a reread)

 

SKIMMED

  • The Green Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer
  • The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing

CURRENTLY READING

  • The Strangers by Naomi Alderman
  • Stop All the Clocks: Poems of Love and Loss by W.H. Auden
  • The Leveret by Anna Goldreich
  • Black Bag by Luke Kennard
  • Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel
  • May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
  • The Salt King by Natasha Pulley
  • The Original by Nell Stevens
  • The Queen’s Gambit by Walter S. Tevis
  • Lights by Brenna Thummler
  • The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • Every Last Fish by Rose George
  • Eat the Planet Well: How to Fix Our Toxic Food System – One Meal at a Time by Dave Goulson
  • Hollywood, Ending by John Green
  • Neurodivergent, by Nature by Joe Harkness
  • End the Struggle and Dance with Life: How to Build Yourself Up when the World Gets You Down by Susan Jeffers
  • Paradises Lost by Ursula Le Guin
  • Suspicion by Seichō Matsumoto
  • Godfather Death by Sally Nicholls
  • Green Crime by Julia Shaw
  • When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World by Suzanne Simard
  • Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth Von Arnim
  • The Return of the Soldier by Rebecca West
  • If Anyone Builds It, Everyone Dies: The Case against Superintelligent AI by Eliezer Yudkowsky

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED                                                                   

  • Dodge City by Patrick deWitt
  • I Found Myself … The Last Dreams by Naguib Mahfouz

 

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • The Good Russian: In Search of a Nation’s Soul by Jana Bakunina
  • The Man Who Read Books by Rachid Benzine
  • Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
  • The Mushroom Tapes by Helen Garner et al.
  • Stations by Louise Kennedy
  • End Times Fascism: And the Fight for the Living World by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor
  • Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang
  • Are You with Me Now? by Hanif Kureishi
  • Solace in Winter by Mary Lawson
  • Look What the Cat Dragged In by Jason Rekulak
  • Dead and Alive by Zadie Smith
  • A Very British Christmas by Rob Temple
  • O Now! by Niall Williams

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • The Most of Nora Ephron – I read a few pieces, but it turns out rereading her two essay collections was enough for now.
  • Everest by Ashani Lewis
  • Confessions of a Mask by Yukio Mishima – I didn’t have the heart for a tragic queer story at this time.
  • How to Be Hopeful by Caitlin Moran – I read the first 16 pages or so. I used to find her Times columns amusing and read her first couple of books, but this felt limp.
  • Night, Neon and Other Stories of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates

 

RETURNED UNREAD

  • Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold by Daisy Johnson et al. – I lost interest; I think I’m a bit burnt out on short stories after Short Story September!
  • Fiesta: A Journey through Festivity by Daniel Stables – Again, a loss of immediate interest, plus I needed to make space on my card.

 

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

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