Love Your Library: August 2026
This month marks six years that I’ve been volunteering in my local public library. I’m perversely nostalgic for those early days in summer 2020, when we were closed to the public and staff and volunteers socially distanced around an otherwise empty library.
In a normal year, I always forget just how busy the library gets during the school holidays. The children’s shelves, especially, look ransacked and the number of reservation requests shoots up as kids (and some adults) work towards the Summer Reading Challenge. I look forward to things quieting down again.
My library recently acquired the Wainwright Prize shortlists, so I’m taking advantage of the opportunity to read most of the Conservation titles (whereas the Nature writing titles mostly struck me as samey). I’m hoping it will also buy more from the Booker Prize longlist – besides the Harrison and Perry, which I’m waiting for. You can see I’ve also been stocking up on short story collections for Short Story September, which starts tomorrow!
My library use over the last month:
(links are to any book reviews not already featured on the blog)
READ
- Our Spoons Came from Woolworths by Barbara Comyns (for Classics book club)
- I Feel Bad about My Neck by Nora Ephron
- One Ukrainian Summer by Viv Groskop
- The Shock of the Light by Lori Inglis Hall
- Kakigori Summer by Emily Itami
- The New Carthaginians by Nick Makoha
- Country People by Daniel Mason
- The Heartstopper Yearbook by Alice Oseman
- Heartstopper: Volume 6 by Alice Oseman
- The Land and Its People by David Sedaris
+
Women in Translation Month reads:
(All originally published in French, though Valckx is Dutch?)
The Years by Annie Ernaux [transl. Alison L. Strayer]: This was a buddy read with Marcie of Buried in Print, though she quickly zoomed ahead! I preferred it to some of Ernaux’s other short memoirs (Happening, I Remain in Darkness, A Woman’s Story) precisely because it is not a memoir but a portrait of her life and times, mostly delivered in the first-person plural with some third person – in the late pages she herself calls it an “impersonal autobiography.” I was most wowed by the opening and closing litanies of the random memories lost whenever any individual ceases to exist. Elsewhere, when not used to depict her actual experiences (via scenes or photographs), the approach does tend toward the generic, yet it gives a good sense of social fads and political trends all the same. Education and consumerism seem like routes out of poverty, whereas novelty and technology offer false promise. Reading something like this would be a good way for younger generations to summon up some sympathy for Boomers.
Favourite lines: “Our parents and the middle-aged were from another time” / “She does not feel any particular age, though certainly feels a young woman’s arrogance vis-a-vis older women, a condescension towards the post-menopausal. It is unlikely she will ever be one of them herself.”
Edith: The Girl Who Was 100 Years Old by Catharina Valckx [transl. Antony Shugaar]: Speaking of never growing old… This is a charming middle-grade fantasy about a girl given two blessings by fairies: the ability to animate objects, and the gift of eternal childhood. The former is good fun, allowing her to have a sentient grandfather clock and a pet lemon named Squirt; the latter comes to seem like more of a curse, though. Edith has long outlived her parents and starts to think her condition is “eternal boredom.” She, Squirt and Bolster the dog set out to find the original fairy, now herself an old lady, and see if the spell can be reversed so Edith can experience life in all its stages. Somehow I can’t see this message catching on in the USA! I loved the illustrations and the whimsy but wanted it to go further, Moomins-like, into Edith’s losses and longing.
Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi [transl. L’Association / Anjali Singh]: This was one of the first graphic memoirs I ever read (along with Fun Home), a classic of the genre. I wanted to reread it because it has, unfortunately, taken on renewed relevance because of war in Iran and the author’s death earlier this year. Her memoir of growing up in the 1980s and 1990s illuminates what it’s like to live under an authoritarian religious regime in a time of war, and likely planted the seeds for novels such as Martyr! and The Persians.
Satrapi’s parents had secular values but, after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, everyone had to fall in line: she wore the veil whenever she left her house, and though her family made wine they were ready to dump it down the toilet at a minute’s notice. On the one hand, she and her friends were normal Westernized adolescents interested in pop music and trendy clothing; on the other, there were shortages, bombings, and rumours of relatives and neighbours being disappeared for voicing revolutionary ideas. A missile exploded in her neighbourhood, narrowly missing her building but killing their Jewish acquaintances.
Volume 2, “The Story of a Return,” has Satrapi attending school in Austria and encountering a whole new world of drugs and sex. “The harder I tried to assimilate, the more I had the feeling that I was distancing myself from my culture, betraying my parents and my origins”. She returned to Iran four years later to find a country that was still repressive but beginning to be rebuilt after war. Art school (with fully clothed life models) and a brief marriage in her early twenties followed, but she had to leave Iran for good to find a life of creative fulfilment.
Her father’s wise words: “As long as there is oil in the Middle East we will never have peace”; “We Iranians, we’re crushed not only by the government but by the weight of our traditions.”
CURRENTLY READING
- Taking Pictures by Anne Enright
- I Remember Nothing and Other Reflections by Nora Ephron
- The Given World by Melissa Harrison
- Night, Neon and Other Stories of Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates
- Natural Disaster by Lisa Owens
- Hum by Helen Phillips (a buddy read with Marcie of Buried in Print)
- Crossing the Water by Sylvia Plath (from university library)
- The Original by Nell Stevens
- The Queen’s Gambit by Walter S. Tevis
SKIMMED
- Come What May: Life-Changing Lessons for Coping with Crisis by Lucy Easthope
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Ever Land by Amy Abdelnoor
- Through the Window by Julian Barnes (to reread)
- A Day in the Life of a Smiling Woman: The Collected Stories by Margaret Drabble
- The Most of Nora Ephron – I’m on an Ephron kick at the moment!
- Hail Mary by Funmi Fetto
- Gentleman’s Relish by Patrick Gale
- From Far Around They Saw Us Burn by Alice Jolly
- The Good Terrorist by Doris Lessing (from university library, for Classics book club)
- Everest by Ashani Lewis
- The News from Dublin by Colm Tóibín
ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED
- In Meadowlight by Sussie Anie
- The Savage Landscape by Cal Flyn
- The Leveret by Anna Goldreich
- Eat the Planet Well: How to Fix Our Toxic Food System – One Meal at a Time by Dave Goulson
- The End of Everything by M. John Harrison
- When the Forest Breathes: Renewal and Resilience in the Natural World by Suzanne Simard
- Fiesta: A Journey through Festivity by Daniel Stables
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- The Strangers by Naomi Alderman
- Stop All the Clocks: Poems of Love and Loss by W.H. Auden
- Dodge City by Patrick deWitt
- Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
- Every Last Fish by Rose George
- Neurodivergent by Nature by Joe Harkness
- Hag: Forgotten Folktales Retold by Daisy Johnson et al.
- How to Be Hopeful by Caitlin Moran
- The Winter Guest by Sarah Moss
- Autumn by Kate Mosse
- Sunrise by Téa Obreht
- May We Feed the King by Rebecca Perry
- Green Crime by Julia Shaw
- The Housekeeper by Rose Tremain
RETURNED UNREAD
- Every One Still Here by Liadan Ní Chuinn – It takes a lot for me to overcome my groundless antipathy to stories about The Troubles.
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.
Making Plans for a Return to Hay-on-Wye & A Book “Overhaul”
In mid-September we’ll make our TENTH trip to Hay-on-Wye, the Book Town of Wales; it’s obviously one of our favourite places. We’ve concluded that 18 months is an ideal interval between visits for there to be adequate turnover in the bookshops and (hopefully) pleasant changes around the town. Last time we spent four nights in a holiday cottage in Cusop. This time we found an Airbnb flat in the town centre, where we’ve never stayed before. Towards the end of a wretched summer, we fear we’ll see the effects of drought even in Wales, where we usually enjoy walks through green sheep-dotted fields. Our Thursday to Sunday trip will cover market day and, incidentally, the annual music festival. We’ve booked tickets for a Saturday morning classical concert (with coffee and cake) at The Globe and will also go there on Thursday evening for burger and board game night after cocktails at Hay Distillery. There will be plenty of book shopping in between!
An Overhaul of Last Trip’s Book Purchases
Simon of Stuck in a Book has a regular blog feature he calls “The Overhaul,” where he revisits a book haul from some time ago and takes stock of what he’s read, what he still owns, etc. (here’s the most recent one). With his permission, I occasionally borrow the title and format to look back at what I’ve bought. Previous overhaul posts have covered pre-2020 Hay-on-Wye purchases, birthdays, the much-lamented Bookbarn International, and Northumberland. It’s been a good way of holding myself accountable for what I’ve purchased and reminding myself to read more from my shelves.
Here’s a look back at the 13 new (remainder) and secondhand books I bought in April 2025. I’ve done remarkably well on this haul in that I’ll soon have read 9! I’d call that a triumph.
Had already read (but wanted to own and eventually reread): 2
- Small Victories by Anne Lamott
- The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Read (links to reviews): 6
- My Animals and Other Family by Julia Blackburn [passed on to a book club friend]
- Mittens for Kittens and Other Rhymes about Cats, ed. Lenore Blegvad
- Fountainville by Tishani Doshi [resold]
- Au Revoir, Tristesse by Viv Groskop
- A Rough Guide to the Heart by Pam Houston
- Tsi-Tsa by George Mikes
Currently reading: 1
- Kiss in the Hotel Joseph Conrad by Howard Norman
Still unread: 4
- What I Don’t Know about Animals by Jenny Diski
- Electricity by Victoria Glendinning
- Chaotic Angels by Gwyneth Lewis
- Charming Billy by Alice McDermott
Total still owned: 11
I’ll take the four unread books above – two novels, a collection by a Welsh poet, and autobiographical essays – with me to read in the car and while I’m in Hay. I also plan to purchase James Hanning’s recent biography, The Bookseller of Hay (about Richard Booth, Book Town founder and self-proclaimed “King of Hay”) in paperback to take with me. And I don’t think I’ll be able to resist yet another reread of Sixpence House, Paul Collins’s memoir about finding a temporary home and work among the bookshops of Hay, which is one of my favourite and most-read books of all time.
Now, if I go back a step and look again at the 16 books I bought in October 2023, the picture is not as encouraging. I’ve barely made any progress since my previous overhaul post except for reading one more poetry collection, The Return of the Cranes by John Heath-Stubbs. So I’ve also added the novels The Last Hope of Girls by Susie Boyt, The Tie that Binds by Kent Haruf, and How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto; and the poetry volume From the Virgil Caverns by Peter Redgrove to the stack to take with me. “Taking books to Hay” could well be a saying epitomizing superfluity, just like “coals to Newcastle” and “tea to China,” but no matter. I always read a lot while I’m in such a bookish place.
(Going back even further, to our September 2020 trip, I note that I still have 13 of my 26 purchases to read. Yikes! I think I’ll ignore those for now…)
#ShortStorySeptember Reading Options
It’s a little over a week now until Short Story September begins. I’ve been gathering potential reads, mostly from my own shelves. I used to have a dedicated short story shelf, but earlier this year interfiled everything into an alphabetical fiction sequence. When I went hunting through to pick out the story collections, they were more numerous than I expected! I recreated a temporary short story shelf (below), but it ended up overflowing…
I also earmarked a few books I wouldn’t mind rereading (left-hand stack). In the few cases where I have more than one option by the same author, I’ve pulled out the extras (middle stack). And I have a couple that would do double duty for R.I.P. (right-hand stack), which technically starts in September, though I usually don’t feel like reading for that challenge until closer to Halloween.
Here’s a library pile I assembled last week, another R.I.P.-suitable read that I’m partway through, and two late additions from a secondhand book haul.
But wait, there’s more! Here are some of the options on my e-readers:
My overall aim will be to cover a variety of time periods and styles, as well as author nationalities and genders.
Particularly for the classics and longer Collected/Selected volumes (Barnes, de Maupassant, Forster, Frame, Lawrence, Mansfield, Maugham, Porter, Williamson), I will probably choose just one renowned story to review.
I wanted to get ahead, so I’m now stuck into six collections already!
Spy anything that you have read and can recommend?
What have you got lined up for next month?
Love Your Library: July 2026
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
- Dominion by Addie E. Citchens
- Receipts from the Bookshop: A Bookseller’s Year by Katie Clapham
- Hunger and Thirst by Claire Fuller
- A Long Game: How to Write Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken
- The Typing Lady and Other Fictions by Ruth Ozeki
- The Things We Never Say by Elizabeth Strout
- Saltwater: A Midsummer Ghost Story by Elaine Thomson
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.
Reporting Back on My Most Anticipated Reads
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
- Frog: And Other Essays by Anne Fadiman
- Brawler: Stories by Lauren Groff
- Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave [review upcoming for Paris in July!]
- Kin by Tayari Jones
- Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
- Black Bear by Trina Moyles
- It Will Come Back to You: Collected Stories by Sigrid Nunez
- Whistler by Ann Patchett
- John of John by Douglas Stuart
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?
Love Your Library: June 2026
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.
Book Serendipity, March to May
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?
Love Your Library: May 2026
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.
20 Books of Summer 2026 Plan
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?
Love Your Library: April 2026
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.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 