Category Archives: Reading habits

Love Your Library: July 2026

By Rebecca Foster on | 31 Comments

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

My library hosted a talk with Claire Fuller early in the month and I volunteered as a steward. It was a very hot evening, but I was still disappointed that there wasn’t a larger turnout for an author of her stature (though two members of my book club came). I hope she got a good impression of Newbury and its readers nonetheless. Her new novel, Hunger and Thirst, arose from a short story she wrote about Ursula’s first time at a restaurant. It’s about loneliness and belonging; necessity and desire – hunger being literal here but also figurative for everything missing in the protagonist’s life. Ursula lost her mother young and grew up in care. Fuller said she had to interview lots of people who were involved in the care system to get this right. (She disagrees with the view that you can’t write about things outside your own experience; you just have to be careful to represent them properly. For instance, she talked with her own daughter, who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, before giving a character that condition.)

At 16, Ursula is working in the post room of an art college and living in a squat that has some properties of a haunted house. Her friend Sue is obsessed with horror films and they have a go at filming their own – until real life takes a horrific turn. A true crime documentary is used as a framing device in the novel, with snippets of interviews interspersed. Fuller said she had to take care not to reveal too much via these in terms of who was still alive. (No spoilers here or in the talk!) I was interested to hear that the author makes a cameo appearance in the novel, as a 19-year-old student rolling a cigarette, and that her spin-off story imagining Sue’s twin siblings several decades in the future, “A Land Beneath,” is in the anthology Unquiet Guests, which has just won a Shirley Jackson Award. Hunger and Thirst has also been a Radio 4 Book at Bedtime – an odd choice for that given the spookiness! – and she was impressed that they abridged the story by 80% but it still managed to hang together.

This was my least favourite of Fuller’s novels, unfortunately – for once I don’t think her flirtation with genre fiction really works – so I was more interested in her general thoughts about the writing and publishing process. She doesn’t plan at all, instead finding the plot as she goes along. If she’s not actively publicizing a book, she’ll be at her desk 9 to 6. (Though she does sometimes have to scramble to write a few words before her husband gets home from his library job.) She’s never had multi-book deals because she doesn’t want to deal with deadlines or publisher demands. Instead, her books are sold ad hoc. She said her agent is a useful go-between if there’s ever an issue, e.g. she didn’t like the original proposed cover for Bitter Orange; her agent conveyed that message and it got changed quietly without anyone falling out. There is film news about several of her books: filming is to begin in June for Our Endless Numbered Days, and both Bitter Orange and Unsettled Ground have also been optioned.

 

My library use over the last month:

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

READ

And the picture book Simon Gets Sneezed by Adam Kay, which is a little gross (as per usual for Kay’s sense of humour) but also actually taught me some things about the purpose of mucus.

I love snapping up appealing picture books during my library shelving sessions and reading them at home between other things. I encountered this apt quote in the Clapham:

“do you know what happens when you read a picture book as an adult? Your mood almost instantly, vastly improves because there’s a brief window of time in which you are being cared for so completely – stimulated by beautiful images, engaged by a thoughtful text; perhaps you’re being momentarily transported to a younger version of yourself who remembers reading books like this”

A cute idea, that: reading to feel comforted by words and pictures alike.

 

CURRENTLY READING

  • The Years by Annie Ernaux
  • Kakigori Summer by Emily Itami
  • The New Carthaginians by Nick Makoha
  • Night, Neon and Other Stories of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
  • Heartstopper: Volume 6 by Alice Oseman
  • Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi (a reread)
  • The Land and Its People by David Sedaris
  • The Original by Nell Stevens
  • The Queen’s Gambit by Walter S. Tevis

SKIMMED

  • The Walking Cure by Annabel Streets

 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns (for Classics book club)
  • Hum by Helen Phillips
  • Crossing the Water by Sylvia Plath

 

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED

  • Fasting, Feasting by Anita Desai
  • The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall
  • Country People by Daniel Mason

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Second Self by Chloë Ashby
  • Life of M by Rachel Cusk
  • Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
  • The Given World by Melissa Harrison
  • Why I Am Not a Bus Driver by Ashley Hickson-Lovence
  • Sophie, Standing There by Meg Mason
  • Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens

 

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy – I read the first few chapters and liked the portrait of her mother but wasn’t interested enough in their lives to read more than the equivalent of a long magazine essay.
  • Land by Maggie O’Farrell – Even less interesting than Hamnet (one of my most controversial literary opinions is that that’s her weakest novel), drowning in descriptive language and lacking momentum. Why does she persist with historical fiction? The Marriage Portrait was good; these others, not so much. I guess no one dares edit her anymore; look at these sample lines: “The wind vanishes, as does the relentless rain. He is enclosed and enfolded, as if he has stepped inside the secret green house of a giant.” Overwritten! Too many, and stretched, metaphors; unnecessary doubling of similar verbs. I read about 30 pages, skimmed another 100 or so, and then gave it back so the other 38 people in the queue can (hopefully) enjoy it much more than I did.

 

RETURNED UNREAD

  • Come What May: Life-Changing Lessons for Coping with Crisis by Lucy Easthope – Requested off me before I could have a look.
  • The Giant, O’Brien by Hilary Mantel – I borrowed this as an example of something our Classics book club could consider reading in the future. I’ll get it back out when we schedule it in.

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.

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Reporting Back on My Most Anticipated Reads

By Rebecca Foster on | 31 Comments

In January, I picked the 25 new releases I was most looking forward to in the first half (or so) of the year. I’m going to add another 12 tomorrow, but first, a quick look back at the first batch and how I’ve fared with them – links are to my reviews:

Read and enjoyed: 9

Read and found disappointing (i.e., 3 stars or below): 2

  • Departure(s) by Julian Barnes
  • The Great Wherever by Shannon Sanders (Shelf Awareness review pending)

Currently reading / have read part of: 3

  • Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller
  • Moveable Feasts: A Story of Paris in Twenty Meals by Chris Newens [I’ll return to it and finish for Paris in July]
  • The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

DNF: 1

  • Our Better Natures by Sophie Ward

I’m really proud of myself for getting to 3/5 of my selections already!! Some of them have been real corkers. I feel like I’m on track for a strong reading year.

On my e-reader but haven’t gotten to yet: 9

  • Exit Party by Emily St. John Mandel* (I’m reading The Singer’s Gun now and will read this after – it’s supposed to be a sequel of sorts)
  • Country People by Daniel Mason (I’ll read it from the library instead)
  • Said the Dead by Doireann Ní Ghríofa
  • Land by Maggie O’Farrell (I’ll read it from the library instead)
  • Patient, Female: Stories by Julie Schumacher
  • The Beginning Comes after the End: Notes on a World of Change by Rebecca Solnit
  • The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain*
  • Jan Morris: A Life by Sara Wheeler
  • Returns and Exchanges by Kayla Rae Whitaker

*These two are still pre-release.

Haven’t managed to get hold of yet: 1

  • Little Vanities by Sarah Gilmartin

 

Do you choose Most Anticipated books each year? (Or do you prefer to be surprised?) And if you do, do they generally meet your expectations?

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Love Your Library: June 2026

By Rebecca Foster on | 20 Comments

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?

Share a link to your own post in the comments. Feel free to use the above image. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.

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Book Serendipity, March to May

By Rebecca Foster on | 29 Comments

I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away! Feel free to join in with your own.

The following are in roughly chronological order.

  • A sister named Fiona in The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright and Leaving Home by Mark Haddon.

 

  • A parent burns a dirty magazine in Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell and The Blood Year Daughter by G.G. Silverman.
  • Sabbath chains, Gaelic sermons, and psalm singing on the very pious Isle of Lewis in John of John by Douglas Stuart (set in the 1990s), then Findings by Kathleen Jamie (essay from the early 2000s). I doubt any of the above can still be found there, though we did note “Respect the Sabbath” signs on playground equipment on our 2022 trip.

 

  • A single mother who won’t answer the phone because she’s afraid of who/what it might be in Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates and The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker.

 

  • An orphaned narrator named (Eva) Luna in Eva Luna by Isabel Allende and Fountainville by Tishani Doshi. Then I came across a dog named Luna in Transcription by Ben Lerner! And the main character in one story of Baby in a Box by Sarah Braunstein starts going by her nickname, Luna.
  • There’s a Muriel Rukeyser poem in the anthology Night Feeds and Morning Songs (ed. Ana Sampson) and Rukeyser is a character in Sophie Ward’s Our Better Natures, which I was also reading at the time.

 

  • Eating boiled ham in Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith (and boiled turkey in The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker).

 

  • Checking a hotel room for bedbugs in Transcription by Ben Lerner and Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy.

 

  • A young person writing in shorthand in I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith and First Class Murder by Robin Stevens.

 

  • A character named Emmie in Transcription by Ben Lerner and (no surprise here) Emmie Arbel: The Colour of Memory by Barbara Yelin.

 

  • Noting that roses are not suited to a particular climate in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson and Late Migrations by Margaret Renkl.
  • A Welsh character named Owain in Fountainville by Tishani Doshi and Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd.

 

  • The Secret Garden is discussed/mentioned in Reading My Mother Back by Timothy C. Baker and Mare by Emily Haworth-Booth, and mentioned in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson.

 

  • The protagonist is emotionless at their mother’s deathbed in Like Mother by Jenny Diski and Leaving Home by Mark Haddon.
  • (Apologies: this one is grim.) A young woman is sexually assaulted with a bottle in The Benefactors by Wendy Erskine and The Truth about Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent (both Irish novelists).

 

  • A husband is involved in a deliberate (suicidal) crash in Show Me Where It Hurts by Claire Gleeson and one story of I Am the Ghost Here by Kim Samek.

 

  • Ali Baba’s cave is used as a metaphor in The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla Barnes and Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption by Stephen King.
  • A brother- and sister-in-law have an affair in the two Portuguese novels I read on my Portugal holiday, The Migrant Painter of Birds by Lídia Jorge and The Piano Cemetery by José Luís Peixoto.

 

  • A woman describes her discovery of orgasm in The Half Life by Rachel Beanland and The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel.

 

  • ‘There are two kinds of people…’ thinking in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and one story of It Will Come Back to You by Sigrid Nunez.
  • Money is hidden behind a boiler in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius.

 

  • The surname Callaway in The Half Life by Rachel Beanland and Calloway in The Watersmith by Yance Wyatt.

 

  • Louise Erdrich, whose The Mighty Red I was reading at the time, is mentioned in The Madman’s Guide to Stamp Collecting by Robert Irwin.

 

  • A minor character named Genevieve appears in Our Numbered Bones by Katya Balen and The Watersmith by Yance Wyatt.
  • The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich is the second novel I’ve read within eight months (after The Wedding People by Alison Espach) in which a reluctant bride is saddled with a groom named Gary.

 

  • A mountain lion sighting in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and Learning from Silence by Pico Iyer.

 

  • A character has a love of Agatha Christie novels in The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel and Buckeye by Patrick Ryan.
  • A character with the nickname Kitten in Nonesuch by Francis Spufford (particularly funny because it’s for a thug) and Kitten by Stacey Yu.

 

  • Reading two queer novels with an academic writing course setting at the same time: Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.

 

  • A remark about the rare beauty of black hair with blue eyes in Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly and My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy.
  • An STD is evidence of a husband’s infidelity in The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain and A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello.

 

  • Bottles being used to hold picnic meals / foraged blackberries (noted because these days it would be plastic pots for everything) in Zami by Audre Lorde (the 1940s) and The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain (the 1960s).

 

  • Kismet is a character name in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich, so I was primed to notice the word being used in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave (it’s a synonym for fate).

 

  • A writer who faces the wall to work in The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain (Ted Hughes, that is) and The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas by Gertrude Stein (referring to Alice B. Toklas!).

 

  • A painting of an Arctic tern features in The Migrant Painter of Birds by Lídia Jorge (on the cover) and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.

 

  • Hot milk is drunk in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson, Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly (with Ovaltine), Nonesuch by Francis Spufford, and Kitten by Stacey Yu.
  • William James is mentioned in My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy and Wise by Frank Tallis.

 

  • Algerian Muslim men appear in A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello and Moveable Feasts by Chris Newens.

 

  • A pet cat was found on the shore in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson and Kitten by Stacey Yu.

 

  • Bringing cherries to an invalid in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.

 

  • Sex with a woman who has a mastectomy scar in Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly and Zami by Audre Lorde.

  • A sighting of a kingfisher as auspicious in Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly and Transcription by Ben Lerner.

 

  • The idea that former lovers leave a mark on people in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave and Zami by Audre Lorde.

 

  • Pet cat(s) do themselves a mischief by getting into paint supplies in Zami by Audre Lorde and Kitten by Stacey Yu.

 

  • A Sandymount, Dublin setting in A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello and Hood by Emma Donoghue.
  • An Irish family where the mother and one daughter move to the USA and the father and other daughter stay behind in Hood by Emma Donoghue and The Truth about Ruby Cooper by Liz Nugent (both Irish novelists).

 

  • The concept of a “funeral cake” in The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.

 

  • A character regrets wearing eye makeup on an emotional occasion in The Memory of Borrowed Books by Meg Anderson and Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly.

 

  • My second Irish novel of the year that takes place over one week: Hood by Emma Donoghue (after One by One in the Dark by Deirdre Madden).

 

  • A cat of confusing gender: Grace is male in Hood by Emma Donoghue and Bob is always referred to as “it” in My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein by Deborah Levy.

 

  • The idea that it’s rare for a woman to a) be a good storyteller (in The Torrents of Spring by Ivan Turgenev) or b) tell a punchline with a straight face (in The Correspondent by Virginia Evans – at least the man gets called out on his sexist opinion in this case). I also noticed the use of the word “caprice” in both books (and also in Turgenev’s First Love) because it’s unusual and I like it.

 

  • Another grim, grim one: reading two books at the same time in which a woman is / women are drugged and raped while unconscious (A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot and Women Talking by Miriam Toews).
  • I read two short stories in quick succession about a peasant porter who carries a broom: “A Real Durwan” by Jhumpa Lahiri (from Interpreter of Maladies) followed by “Mumu” by Ivan Turgenev.

 

  • An older woman insists that she still is/has a little girl inside in The Correspondent by Virginia Evans and A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot.

 

  • The number 7 has magical significance for the author in Ghost Stories by Siri Hustvedt and A Hymn to Life by Gisèle Pelicot.

 

  • A couple meets when they see each other reading the same book in an outdoor location: A Lover’s Discourse by Roland Barthes in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave; and The Great Gatsby in Sunset Park by Paul Auster.

 

  • Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For is mentioned in Hood by Emma Donoghue; I was reading a Bechdel book, The Secret of Superhuman Strength, at the same time.

 

  • Gnats are irksome in Sunset Park by Paul Auster and Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash.

What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?

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Love Your Library: May 2026

By Rebecca Foster on | 21 Comments

I hope everyone is having a good Memorial Day / Bank Holiday weekend. It’s far too hot here in southern England!

Thanks so much to Eleanor, Marcie, and Skai for posting about their recent library reading!

Here’s Audre Lorde on the importance libraries had in her life (from Zami): “I learned how to read from Mrs. Augusta Baker, the children’s librarian at the old 135th Street branch library. … If that was the only good deed that lady ever did in her life, may she rest in peace. Because that deed saved my life, if not sooner, then later, when sometimes the only thing I had to hold on to was knowing I could read, and that that could get me through.” In a neat echo of her early life, the Epilogue then has Lorde graduating from library school.

 

My library use over the last month:

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

 

My library system has bought the whole Jhalak Prize for Poetry shortlist, so I’ll be working my way through that. (The Howe was the first.)

I’m also proceeding through the Women’s Prize shortlist; I’m only awaiting one more title that’s on order. I predict The Correspondent will win, and that would suit me just fine as I am loving it.

 

READ

  • A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello
  • The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (a reread)
  • Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
  • Foretokens by Sarah Howe
  • My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: A Fiction by Deborah Levy
  • Zami by Audre Lorde
  • Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
  • The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius (a reread)

SKIMMED

  • Wise: Finding Purpose, Meaning and Wisdom Beyond the Midpoint of Life by Frank Tallis

 

CURRENTLY READING

  • Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom by Kerri Andrews
  • The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg (a reread)
  • The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
  • Kingfisher by Rozie Kelly
  • Carrie by Stephen King
  • The Spirituality Gap by Abi Millar
  • A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides by Gisèle Pelicot
  • Greenwild by Pari Thomson
  • Women Talking by Miriam Toews

 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • My Dearest Friend by Lady Red Ego
  • Poems that Make Grown Women Cry: 100 Women on the Words that Move Them, ed. Anthony and Ben Holden
  • The New Carthaginians by Nick Makoha
  • Crossing the Water by Sylvia Plath
  • Saving Graces: Images of Women in European Cemeteries by David Robinson
  • The Queen’s Gambit by Walter Tevis

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED                                                            

  • Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
  • I Sing to the Greenhearts by Maggie Harris
  • Holy Boys by Andrés N. Ordorica

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
  • Dominion by Addie E. Citchens
  • Come What May: Life-Changing Lessons for Coping with Crisis by Lucy Easthope
  • Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett
  • Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller
  • 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
  • Alice with a Why by Anna James
  • Dogs, Boys and Other Things I’ve Cried About by Isabel Klee
  • The Book of Birds by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris
  • Mother Mary Comes to Me by Arundhati Roy
  • The Original by Nell Stevens
  • The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout

 

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • Service by John Tottenham – I read the first 25 pages and found the grumpy bookseller narrator’s perspective amusing (but potentially quite tiresome after another 300). I loved this skewering of the trend for publishing short stories in individual volumes: “At sixty-three pages this recently published book was no more than a short story, but it was presented in the form of a novel; it was the sort of book that people who wanted to be thought of as ‘well-read’ felt they were supposed to like, and it was presented with a classic red-on-black design with bold lettering.”
  • Nowhere Burning by Catriona Ward – This wasn’t gripping me in the first few pages, but I might try it again one day.

RETURNED UNREAD

  • The Swell by Kat Gordon – Will borrow another time.
  • The Careful Surgeon: Finding Light, Courage and Compassion in the Face of Life and Death by Shehan Hettiaratchy – Seemed twee and not notably well written.
  • Skylark by Paula McLain – I’ve enjoyed her other novels and this seems like it should be perfect for Tracy Chevalier fans, but it’s so long and with such small type that I have attempted it twice and made no headway.
  • Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange – Will borrow another time.
  • Carrion Crow by Heather Parry – Will borrow another time.

 

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.

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20 Books of Summer 2026 Plan

By Rebecca Foster on | 46 Comments

It’s my ninth year participating in the 20 Books of Summer challenge, hosted this year by Annabel. #20BOS26 starts on 1 June and runs through 31 August.

Some years I have chosen a theme (colours, foodie, flora or fauna) or other criterion (all hardbacks by women), but the danger in limiting my options, let alone pre-selecting particular books, is that I tend to lose interest as soon as I list them. Most times I only read 7–10 of the 20 books I earmark, so what’s the point! My only firm rule this year is that all 20 books must be from my own shelves. Beyond that? I’d love to make progress towards various low-key goals:

  • My long-neglected Four in a Row and Journey through the Day projects
  • Review catch-up books or part-read books, many dating back to 2022 or earlier
  • My ongoing quest to read books published in my birth year of 1983
  • Chipping away at the list of authors I own two or more (Michael Crummey, Sigrid Nunez, Jeet Thayil) or even three or more (Jenny Diski, Wendy Perriam, Jane Urquhart) unread books by

I also like to achieve a good balance between new acquisitions and long-term shelf sitters; doorstoppers and slim volumes (novellas or poetry collections). Ideally at least 5 of my choices would be by BIPOC. Overlapping with other summer challenges such as June’s Reading the Meow, Paris in July and August’s Women in Translation, would be handy.

And then there’s this year’s Bingo card to consider. I’m pondering the 4-book diagonal consisting of:

  • Summer in the title
  • A classic you’ve been meaning to read
  • Features a family holiday
  • Published in summer (any year)

Or column 4, which is:

  • With a vacation setting
  • With a journey by air/sea/rail
  • Features ice cream or cocktails
  • Published in summer (any year)

I tend to skew towards fiction in the summers, so I’m guessing I’ll manage 15 works of fiction (one short story collection would be good), a few memoirs or other nonfiction, and a couple of poetry collections.

Unread poetry books from my bedside table

Here are a few specific books I currently have my eye on…

 

Ongoing project:

Blonde by Joyce Carol Oates – Marcie (Buried in Print) and I are doing a mini Oates buddy reading project and I made the mistake of starting with Blonde, which is over 700 pages, all of them crammed full of tiny type. So it may well take me the entire summer.

 

Review copies:

Homework by Geoff Dyer – The paperback has just arrived for me and I’m eager to get stuck in, having sampled it on my Kindle earlier in the year. Dyer is an annoyingly versatile author whose writing always feels effortless. This is his memoir of growing up in typical English suburbia in the 1960s and 70s.

 

George by Frieda Hughes – Having recently read a novel about Sylvia Plath (the excellent The Daffodil Days by Helen Bain), I fancy picking up this memoir by her daughter about raising a fledgling magpie as a pet.

 

The Great Believers by Rebecca Makkai – This is a proof copy from (gulp) 2018! I only got about 60 pages into it at that time, but I love Makkai and would like to try again. It’s the story of a group of arty friends in Chicago at the start of the AIDS crisis.

 

Recent acquisitions:

(Elkin for Paris in July; Powers for 1983 challenge)

The new Emily St. John Mandel novel coming out in September, Exit Party, is a sequel of sorts to The Singer’s Gun, I’ve heard, so I will definitely read it ahead.

 

Tying into other challenges:

Reading the Meow; Paris in July; Women in Translation options

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov would be for Reading the Meow but would also cross off “A classic you’ve been meaning to read.”

 

Left over from last year:

I fancy a reread of Prodigal Summer by Barbara Kingsolver – “From her outpost in an isolated mountain cabin, Deanna Wolfe, a reclusive wildlife biologist, watches a den of coyotes that have recently migrated into the region. She is caught off-guard by a young hunter who invades her most private spaces and confounds her self-assured, solitary life.”

 

How I Won a Nobel Prize by Julius Taranto – I believe it was Susan’s review that put this on my radar, though the title and the fact that it’s an academic satire would have been enough to get it onto my TBR.

 

Just because…

What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell – Small Rain was my book of 2024, and I keep meaning to read something else by him. It’s his debut’s 10th anniversary, so why not now?

 

Miracle Creek by Angie Kim – I got this from my wish list for Christmas. I loved her second novel, Happiness Falls, and this one looks right up my street, too, with its theme of experimental treatment for autistic children and gentle thriller plot.

 

All Over Creation by Ruth Ozeki – Her only novel I’ve not yet read. An environmentalist novel set in the northwestern USA sounds like a good follow-up to our latest book club read, the so-so The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich.

 

I’m not committing to a particular set of 20, but you can see from this and my recent library reorganization photos that I have plenty on the shelves to choose from!

See anything here that I should prioritize?

Posted in: Book lists, memes, Reading habits | Tagged: ,

Love Your Library: April 2026

By Rebecca Foster on | 18 Comments

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

We spotted Porto’s library bus at the Foz do Douro on our recent trip to Portugal.

From My Autobiography of Carson McCullers by Jenn Shapland:

“Library books, especially annotated ones, or ones with page corners creased, or with notes or bookmarks or other ephemera tucked into them, have given me this same feeling, this reprieve from loneliness, since I was a kid. Someone else was here.”

This sentiment feels more applicable to university or specialist library books. If, during my volunteering, I come across books with dogeared pages, I unfold them; I also remove any items used as page markers and put them in our basket for lost bookmarks. Secondhand book purchases, I find, tend to have more of an aura of their previous owners.

 

My library use over the last month:

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

READ

  • Tender: 100 Poems for the First 100 Days of Life by Harry Baker
  • Our Numbered Bones by Katya Balen
  • Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
  • The Migrant Painter of Birds by Lídia Jorge
  • The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel
  • First Class Murder by Robin Stevens

 

SKIMMED

  • Eva Luna by Isabel Allende (for April book club)
  • Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health by Daisy Fancourt

CURRENTLY READING

  • The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg (a reread)
  • A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello
  • The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich (for May book club)
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (a reread)
  • Carrie by Stephen King
  • The Spirituality Gap by Abi Millar
  • Nonesuch by Francis Spufford
  • The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius (a reread)

 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom by Kerri Andrews
  • The Swell by Kat Gordon
  • Skylark by Paula McLain
  • Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
  • Carrion Crow by Heather Parry
  • Wise: Finding Purpose, Meaning and Wisdom Beyond the Midpoint of Life by Frank Tallis
  • Greenwild by Pari Thomson
  • Women Talking by Miriam Toews

 

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED

  • Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
  • The Careful Surgeon: Finding Light, Courage and Compassion in the Face of Life and Death by Shehan Hettiaratchy

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Yesteryear by Caro Claire Burke
  • Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
  • Dominion by Addie E. Citchens
  • The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
  • Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett
  • Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
  • The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall
  • Alice with a Why by Anna James
  • My Year in Paris with Gertrude Stein: A Fiction by Deborah Levy
  • A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides by Gisèle Pelicot
  • The Original by Nell Stevens

 

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • Our Better Natures by Sophie Ward – I managed the first 76 pages but found none of the three storylines compelling and gave up hope of them feeling significant in conjunction with each other. Disappointing as I loved her first book and named this one of my Most Anticipated titles of 2026.

 

RETURNED UNREAD

  • The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer – Silly me; I don’t read crime. (I was attracted by the setting of Bempton Cliffs and the plot element of stealing seabird eggs.)
  • Katherine by Anya Seton – Sarah Perry thinks this is one of the best examples of historical fiction out there, but I can’t get over my antipathy for the time period.
  • Sempre: Finding Home by Raymond Silverthorne – Requested because it came up on a search for Portugal in the library catalogue; I didn’t realize it was self-published.
  • A Far-Flung Life by M.L. Stedman – The first few pages didn’t draw me in, so I’ll let the many others in the reservation queue have a go.
  • Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (audiobook) – I didn’t end up having an opportunity to listen to an audiobook. Perhaps one day I will get to Stuart’s back catalogue!

 

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.

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Love Your Library: March 2026

By Rebecca Foster on | 22 Comments

Thanks, as always, to Eleanor and Skai for posting about their recent library borrowing.

I’ve ordered my first interlibrary loan from another library in the SELMS (South East Library Management Systems) consortium: The Migrant Painter of Birds by Lídia Jorge. This is a novel I discovered through the Rough Guide to Portugal (Rough Guides always have a great section at the back for related reading, including not just travel books but also varied fiction). There is a £4 charge for the ILL service, but I decided it’s worth it because the Kindle book is £7.99 – more than I’d pay for an e-book, plus I read so much electronically for work that I prefer to read in print when I can – and secondhand copies are much more.

I’ll take it on our trip to Portugal next month, along with a couple more Portugal-set novels I found through a catalogue search, some doorstoppers for getting stuck into on the 20-hour ferry rides, and the audiobook of Shuggie Bain in case the waves are so bad I can only lie on my bunk, close my eyes and wait for death. (We had a beautifully smooth sailing to Spain in 2022 and hope that history repeats itself, but can’t count on it. I’ll have the Kwells, acupressure bracelets, ginger ales and ginger biscuits all to hand!)

Spotted with delight in the Acknowledgements of two recent reads:

  • Wendy Erskine: “If I’ve not written The Benefactors sitting at my kitchen table, it’s been in one of these beloved spots: Belfast Central Library, the Linen Hall Library, Woodstock Library, Zentralbibliothek Zürich, the Mitchell Library, Glasgow, the Central Library, Liverpool and Central Library, Dublin. Thank you. Nowhere finer than a public library.”
  • Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin (Ordinary Saints): “My heartfelt thanks to literally everyone in the world who does anything to support the continued existence of public libraries. In particular, to the staff, volunteers and taxpayers who sustain the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh Libraries and Leith Library.”

My library use over the last month:

READ

  • Strangers: The Story of a Marriage by Belle Burden
  • Like Mother by Jenny Diski
  • Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour by Mark Haddon
  • Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
  • Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
  • The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker

 

CURRENTLY READING

  • Eva Luna by Isabel Allende (for book club)
  • The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg (a reread)
  • Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd
  • The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon (a reread)
  • Carrie by Stephen King
  • The Spirituality Gap by Abi Millar
  • First Class Murder by Robin Stevens
  • Our Better Natures by Sophie Ward

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom by Kerri Andrews
  • The Swell by Kat Gordon
  • Skylark by Paula McLain
  • Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
  • Carrion Crow by Heather Parry
  • Women Talking by Miriam Toews

I was amused by the found poem (below) that a subset of my borrowed books created on my bedside shelf. I imagined a group of women walking along a coastal path, being overcome by a malevolent wave, and perishing.

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED

  • Tender: 100 Poems for the First 100 Days of Life by Harry Baker
  • Our Numbered Bones by Katya Balen
  • The Impossible Thing by Belinda Bauer
  • The Mighty Red by Louise Erdrich (for May book club)
  • The Migrant Painter of Birds by Lídia Jorge
  • The High Mountains of Portugal by Yann Martel
  • Katherine by Anya Seton
  • Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stuart (audiobook)
  • Wise: Finding Purpose, Meaning and Wisdom Beyond the Midpoint of Life by Frank Tallis

 

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Lost Lambs by Madeline Cash
  • A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello
  • The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
  • Art Cure: The Science of How the Arts Transform Our Health by Daisy Fancourt
  • Agnes Aubert’s Mystical Cat Shelter by Heather Fawcett
  • Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
  • The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall
  • Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
  • The Careful Surgeon: Finding Light, Courage and Compassion in the Face of Life and Death by Shehan Hettiaratchy
  • Alice with a Why by Anna James
  • The Wilds by Sarah Pearse
  • A Hymn to Life: Shame Has to Change Sides by Gisèle Pelicot
  • Sempre: Finding Home by Raymond Silverthorne
  • A Far-Flung Life by M.L. Stedman
  • The Original by Nell Stevens
  • Greenwild by Pari Thomson

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • The Parallel Path: Love, Grit and Walking the North by Jenn Ashworth – I have to admit to myself that I don’t enjoy long-distance walking travelogues, even when written by authors I generally like.
  • Seven by Joanna Kavenna – I hadn’t the patience for something so experimental.
  • People Like Us by Jason Mott – I read about 50 pages and it was so satirical, like Paul Beatty on steroids, that there was no reason to care.
  • Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa – I read 60-some pages and was unspeakably bored. Such a shame as her short story collection was great.

 

RETURNED UNREAD

  • The Brain at Rest: Why Doing Nothing Can Change Your Life by Joseph Jebelli – Requested off me before I had time to even skim it.
  • Jolly Foul Play by Robin Stevens – Ditto, but that’s okay because I think I’m tiring of the series and it’s time for a break.

 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 image below. The hashtag is #LoveYourLibrary.

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Rearranging and Culling My Library

By Rebecca Foster on | 49 Comments

I’m a thrill-seeker, me; when life gets boring, it’s time to engage in the extreme sport of rearranging my home library. My goal this month has been to shake things up and trick myself into being lured by my own books. After all, I was attracted enough to acquire them all. But at some point it’s as if I stop seeing the individual books and they collectively become a sort of wallpaper.

And as I’ve mentioned to some of you, I’ve been disappointed that attempts to highlight segments of my collection – e.g. shelves devoted to BIPOC authors and Women’s Prize nominees – failed: these books seemed more likely to sit unread for years. It must be something to do with creating a feeling of obligation. Even my piles of foodie reads and medical memoirs, two of my favourite subgenres, have gotten ignored.

Signed copies shelves: fiction; nonfiction

Setting up special-interest sections backfired, so what next? First, I switched up locations in the upstairs; second, I adjusted the classifications. The one hard and fast rule in my collection is that I separate read from unread books. I don’t currently have room to display read paperbacks, which are in boxes upstairs awaiting built-in shelving in our lounge. I only have one bookcase for read hardbacks, and it’s at capacity; I’ll soon have to reconsider how I display them (and double-stack in the meantime).

Nonfiction priority; hardback fiction; upcoming challenges and miscellaneous

For my fiction TBR, I interfiled everything into one sequence. Previously, I had kept story collections and novellas separate, but the latter are easy to spot. I’m a librarian at heart and could never eradicate alphabetical order. But, as Jan Morris observed in A Writer’s House in Wales, “I am … stymied in my methodical ordering of this library by the matter of size. Books can be maddeningly un-uniform, meaning that some … which should be side by side with their fellows, are too tall to get on the proper shelves.” Thus a separate shelf for hardbacks and oversize paperbacks.

Upcoming and seasonal reads; first half of Fiction A-Z

Then, on a whim, I decided to mix it up by creating a rainbow bookcase on the landing. (To make it more of a challenge, I told myself I could use no Penguins for orange. And I put all the green Viragos together on a different shelf for visual impact.) This made me appreciate just how many books have blue spines, and dull white or black ones! I’m rather pleased with the result, but I will have to be loose about the contents: books will come and go as I read and pass them on, and add others in. In fact, I slotted three in yesterday – two green and a pink – after a trip to our local indie bookstore for my friend’s belated 70th birthday treat.

Other areas I’ve created:

  • Priority shelves for time-sensitive books (to be reviewed at publication or for challenges)
  • Nonfiction priority – two shelves, one in approximated Dewey order; another that includes review copies and some part-read

Fiction A-Z, part II

Plus some I’ve maintained:

  • Priority to reread
  • Seasonal books, in a box
  • Signed copies – fiction and nonfiction separate; the handful of unread ones are offset

All through this process, I kept an eye out for books I was no longer keen to read. I ended up jettisoning another 81 (after the 90–100 I culled last year during our hallway redecoration), 17 of which I’ll sell; the rest will be donated to charity or the Little Free Library or given to book club friends as part of the book swap game we do for our holiday social each year.

To reread (top shelf and bottom left stack); nonfiction priority

My criteria for getting rid of books were, as I’ve expounded in several posts before:

  • Is it a duplicate copy? I used to keep two copies of certain books, thinking I’d do buddy reads with my husband. I have to face facts, though: buddy reads don’t work for us. He tends to read one book at a time and races ahead, while I falter or give up entirely (ahem, Cloud Atlas). I’ve only kept multiple copies where I think it’s a book we might consider setting for book club.
  • Is the condition too poor? I’m not usually overly picky about this, but I did ditch four books whose spines were so faded that the title was no longer legible.
  • Am I really going to read it? This is a difficult one. I like the idea of certain books but forget that I have random pet peeves, and only so much space – and time. If unsure, I checked the Goodreads page. Ratings and reviews from my friends, but also from randoms whose taste I’ve come to know, can be very helpful in telling me if something is likely to be for me. Some examples of books I decided against keeping, and the reasons:
    • Peculiar Ground by Lucy Hughes-Hallett: A doorstopper of a saga that starts in the 17th century, one of my last choices of historical period to read about.
    • The Mammoth Cheese by Sheri Holman: Shortlisted for the Orange Prize, but it’s over 400 pages and has great potential to be hokey.
    • Eothen by Alexander Kinglake: I had two copies and rid myself of both, even though Jan Morris called it one of the best travel books of all time, because I can’t bear straight travelogues, especially antiquated ones.
    • The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner: I DNFed her previous novel and decided against reading her latest; why would the one in between suit me any better?
    • The Men Who Stare at Goats and Them by Jon Ronson: I enjoyed two of his books pre-pandemic, but when I look at these now, they just seem dated.
    • Pharmakon by Dirk Wittenborn: Bought at The Works in Whitby in 2016 and kept all these years because I was amused by the sales stickers layering up from £2 to £1 to 50p to 25p to 10p. Yes, I bought it for 10 pence. But after a decade, I accepted that I was never going to read this 400+-page novel about an invented drug that induces happiness but then leads to a murder.

As I was going through my groaning set-aside shelf, especially, I had to be honest with myself. Sometimes I misjudge and request a review copy, then for years feel guilty about not reading something that turned out not to be for me. Or I might have liked something enough to get 50–100 pages, or more, into it but then ran out of steam. My choices for these (80+) books were: resume it right away; shelve it with the TBR, either with my progress marked with a slip of paper, or with the intention of starting over at the beginning; or call it unfinished and get rid of it.

The rainbow bookcase! Have you ever made one of these?

This will be an ongoing task and an evolving system, especially if I ship the remainder of my books over from the USA in June. They’ve been in boxes in my sister’s basement – before that, my dad’s storage unit; before that, my parents’ garage – for far too long. It’s time for a final prune and a reunion with the rest of their family across the pond.

Whether all this honing and rearranging of my collection has been successful, time will tell: my end-of-year stats will reveal whether I’ve managed to read more from my own shelves. I reckon I’ll enjoy the mental athletics of remembering where I’ve moved a book and finding something to fit a seasonal challenge or personal goal. Now that the books have new neighbours, I might be tempted by my long-neglected Four in a Row project again. And for 20 Books of Summer, the only parameter will be that they must be from my own shelves.

How have you kept your TBR under control recently? Do you also have to ‘trick’ yourself into reading your own books?

Posted in: Reading habits, Something Different | Tagged: , , , , ,

Book Serendipity, January to February

By Rebecca Foster on | 25 Comments

I call it “Book Serendipity” when two or more books that I read at the same time or in quick succession have something in common – the more bizarre, the better. This is a regular feature of mine every couple of months. Because I usually have 20–30 books on the go at once, I suppose I’m more prone to such incidents. People frequently ask how I remember all of these coincidences. The answer is: I jot them down on scraps of paper or input them immediately into a file on my PC desktop; otherwise, they would flit away! Feel free to join in with your own.

The following are in roughly chronological order.

  • An old woman with purple feet (due to illness or injury) in one story of Brawler by Lauren Groff and John of John by Douglas Stuart.
  • Someone is pushed backward and dies of the head injury in Zofia Nowak’s Book of Superior Detecting by Piotr Cieplak and one story of Brawler by Lauren Groff.

 

  • The Hindenburg disaster is mentioned in A Long Game by Elizabeth McCracken and Evensong by Stewart O’Nan.
  • Reluctance to cut into a corpse during medical school and the dictum ‘see one, do one, teach one’ in the graphic novel See One, Do One, Teach One: The Art of Becoming a Doctor by Grace Farris and Separate by C. Boyhan Irvine.

 

  • A remote Scottish island setting and a harsh father in Muckle Flugga by Michael Pedersen [Shetland] and John of John by Douglas Stuart [Harris]. (And another Scottish island setting in A Calendar of Love by George Mackay Brown [Orkney].)

 

  • A mention of genuine Harris tweed in Alone in the Classroom by Elizabeth Hay and John of John by Douglas Stuart.

 

  • The Katharine Hepburn film The Philadelphia Story is mentioned in The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank and Woman House by Lauren W. Westerfield.

  • A mention of Icelandic poppies in Nighthawks by Lisa Martin and Boundless by Kathleen Winter.

 

  • Vita Sackville-West is mentioned in the Orlando graphic novel adaptation by Susanne Kuhlendahl and Boundless by Kathleen Winter.
  • Fear of bear attacks in Black Bear by Trina Moyles and Boundless by Kathleen Winter. Bears also feature in A Rough Guide to the Heart by Pam Houston and No Paradise with Wolves by Katie Stacey. [Looking through children’s picture books at the library the other week, I was struck by how many have bears in the title. Dozens!]

 

  • I was reading books called Memory House (by Elaine Kraf) and Woman House (by Lauren W. Westerfield) at the same time, both of them pre-release books for Shelf Awareness reviews.
  • An adolescent girl is completely ignorant of the facts of menstruation in I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman and Carrie by Stephen King.

 

  • Camembert is eaten in The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier and Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin.

 

  • A herbal tonic is sought to induce a miscarriage in The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley and Bog Queen by Anna North.
  • Vicks VapoRub is mentioned in Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom, Kin by Tayari Jones, and Dirt Rich by Graeme Richardson.

 

  • An adolescent girl only admits to her distant mother that she’s gotten her first period because she needs help dealing with a stain (on her bedding / school uniform) in Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom, An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel, and Ordinary Saints by Niamh Ni Mhaoileoin. (I had to laugh at the mother asking the narrator of the Mantel: “Have you got jam on your underskirt?”) Basically, first periods occurred a lot in this set! They are also mentioned in A Little Feral by Maria Giesbrecht and one story of The Blood Year Daughter by G.G. Silverman. [I also had three abortion scenes in this cycle, but I think it would constitute spoilers to say which novels they appeared in.)

 

  • A casual job cleaning pub/bar toilets in Kin by Tayari Jones and John of John by Douglas Stuart.

  • Kansas City is a location mentioned in Strangers by Belle Burden, Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell, and Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human by Hannah Soyer. (Not actually sure if that refers to Kansas or Missouri in two of them.)

 

  • The notion of “flirting with God” is mentioned in Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom and A Little Feral by Maria Giesbrecht.
  • A signature New Orleans cocktail, the Sazerac (a variation on the whisky old-fashioned containing absinthe), appears in Kin by Tayari Jones and Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater.

 

  • An older person’s smell brings back childhood memories in Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom and Whistler by Ann Patchett.

  • The fact that complaining of chest pain will get you seen right away in an emergency room is mentioned in Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom and The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley.

 

  • Thickly buttered toast is a favoured snack in The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier and An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel.

 

  • A scene of trying on fur coats in Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom and An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel.

 

  • Lime and soda is drunk in Our Numbered Bones by Katya Balen, Kin by Tayari Jones, and Whistler by Ann Patchett.

  • A husband 17 years older than his wife in Kin by Tayari Jones and Whistler by Ann Patchett.

 

  • The protagonist seems to hold a special attraction for old men in Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom and Whistler by Ann Patchett.

 

  • A tattoo of a pottery shard (her ex-husband’s) in Strangers by Belle Burden and one of an arrowhead (her own) in Dreams in Which I’m Almost Human by Hannah Soyer.
  • A relationship with an older editor at a publishing house: The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing by Melissa Bank (romantic) and Whistler by Ann Patchett (stepfather–stepdaughter).

 

  • Repeated vomiting and a fever of 103–104°F leads to a diagnosis of appendicitis in My Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt and Whistler by Ann Patchett.

 

  • Multiple pet pugs in Strangers by Belle Burden and My Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt.

 

  • Palm crosses are mentioned in My Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt and Kin by Tayari Jones.

 

  • A Miss Jemison in Kin by Tayari Jones and a Miss Jamieson in Elizabeth and Ruth by Livi Michael.

  • Pasley as a surname in Elizabeth and Ruth by Livi Michael and a place name (Pasley Bay) in Boundless by Kathleen Winter.

 

  • A remark on a character’s unwashed hair in My Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt and Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater.

 

  • A mention of a monkey’s paw in Museum Visits by Éric Chevillard and Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater.

 

  • A character gets 26 (22) stitches in her face (head) after a car accident, a young person who’s vehemently anti-smoking, and a mention of being dusted orange from eating Cheetos, in Whistler by Ann Patchett and Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater.

 

  • Pre-eclampsia occurs in Strangers by Belle Burden and The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley.

 

  • There’s a chapter on searching for corncrakes on the Isle of Coll (the Inner Hebrides of Scotland) in The Edge of Silence by Neil Ansell, which I read last year; this year I reread the essay on the same topic in Findings by Kathleen Jamie.
  • Worry over women with long hair being accidentally scalped – if a horse steps on her ponytail in Mare by Emily Haworth-Booth; if trapped in a London Underground escalator in Leaving Home by Mark Haddon.

 

  • A pet ferret in My Grandmothers and I by Diana Holman-Hunt and Shooting Up by Jonathan Tepper.

 

  • A dodgy doctor who molests a young female patient in Leaving Home by Mark Haddon and Elizabeth and Ruth by Livi Michael.

 

  • A high school girl’s inappropriate relationship with her English teacher is the basis for Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom, and then Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy, which I started soon after.

  • College roommates who become same-sex lovers, one of whom goes on to have a heterosexual marriage, in Kin by Tayari Jones and Whistler by Ann Patchett.

 

  • A mention of Sephora (the cosmetics shop) in Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy and Whistler by Ann Patchett.

 

  • A discussion of the Greek mythology character Leda in Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell and Whistler by Ann Patchett (where it’s also a character name).

  • A workaholic husband who rarely sees his children and leaves their care to his wife in Strangers by Belle Burden and Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell.

 

  • An apparently wealthy man who yet steals food in Strangers by Belle Burden and Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater.

 

  • Characters named Lulubelle in Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell and Lulabelle in Kin by Tayari Jones.

 

  • Characters named Ruth in Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell, Kin by Tayari Jones, and Elizabeth and Ruth by Livi Michael.

 

  • A mention of Mary McLeod Bethune in Negroland by Margo Jefferson and Kin by Tayari Jones.

 

  • Doing laundry at a whorehouse in Kin by Tayari Jones and Elizabeth and Ruth by Livi Michael.

 

  • A male character nicknamed Doll in John of John by Douglas Stuart and then Elizabeth and Ruth by Livi Michael.

 

  • A mention of tuberculosis of the stomach in Findings by Kathleen Jamie and Shooting Up by Jonathan Tepper. I was also reading a whole book on tuberculosis, Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green, at the same time.

  • Mention of Doberman dogs in Mrs. Bridge by Evan S. Connell and one story of The Blood Year Daughter by G.G. Silverman.

 

  • Extreme fear of flying in Leaving Home by Mark Haddon and Whistler by Ann Patchett.

What’s the weirdest reading coincidence you’ve had lately?

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