I’ve mostly been reading my own books, review books, and stuff on Kindle during and since my America trip, so I haven’t actually completed any library books in June. However, I have several on the go at the moment, so next month should look a bit more impressive!

CURRENTLY READING

• Hidden Nature: A Voyage of Discovery by Alys Fowler
• Bee Quest: In Search of Rare Bees by Dave Goulson
• A Horse Walks into a Bar by David Grossman

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Human Acts by Han Kang
• White Tears by Hari Kunzru
• Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Between the World and Me, Ta-Nehisi Coates [AMERICA]

RETURNED UNREAD

Requested by someone else:

• Island Home: A Landscape Memoir by Tim Winton

Lost interest:

• Multitudes: Eleven Stories by Lucy Caldwell
• What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
• Gerontius by James Hamilton-Paterson
• Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Strayed [AMERICA]

(Hosted by Charleen of It’s a Portable Magic.)

Have you been taking advantage of your local libraries? What appeals from my lists?

Worst. News. Ever. As of the start of this month, my library system charges 50 pence for each reservation. I can see my library use going downhill quickly. Now that I can’t reserve anything that’s on loan, on order, or at a smaller branch library unless I pay that fee, I’ll largely be limited to what’s on shelf at my local library, including the bestseller shelf (two-week loans; no renewals). I’m lucky this wasn’t introduced until after I’d gotten hold of all the Wellcome Prize shortlist books. It’s probably for the best, as it may force me to read more of the books I actually own (such as all those books we bought in Hay-on-Wye), as well as my dozens of advanced review copies from NetGalley and Edelweiss.

I’ve added in ratings and links to any reviews for books I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• The Universal Home Doctor by Simon Armitage [poetry] 
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova 
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi [a reread] 
• The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss 
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami 
• Jackself by Jacob Polley [poetry] 
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders 

SKIMMED ONLY

• The Rebecca Rioter: A Story of Killay Life by Amy Dillwyn
• How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France 
• Moranifesto by Caitlin Moran 
• The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee 

CURRENTLY READING

• The Otters’ Tale by Simon Cooper
• A Smell of Burning: The Story of Epilepsy by Colin Grant
• Sculptor’s Daughter: A Childhood Memoir by Tove Jansson

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

• Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, the Great War by John Lewis-Stempel

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Ashland & Vine by John Burnside
• Glad of These Times by Helen Dunmore [poetry]
• What Belongs to You by Garth Greenwell
• The Valentine House by Emma Henderson
• Human Acts by Han Kang
• White Tears by Hari Kunzru
• Bodies of Light by Sarah Moss
• Signs for Lost Children by Sarah Moss
• Gerontius by James Hamilton-Paterson – My husband’s currently reading this one, so it’s not in the photo
• In the Bonesetter’s Waiting-Room: Travels through Indian Medicine by Aarathi Prasad
• The Rough Guide to Amsterdam – My husband’s been accepted to speak at a conference in Ghent, Belgium in September; we fancy stopping in Amsterdam on the way. (I’ve never been.)
• Mothering Sunday by Graham Swift

ON HOLD, TO BE CHECKED OUT

(By chance I snuck in a few requests at the end of March, before the charge came into effect.)

• Gizelle’s Bucket List: My Life with a Very Large Dog by Lauren Fern Watt

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Hidden Nature by Alys Fowler
• Augustown by Kei Miller

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Outline by Rachel Cusk (I read the first 66 pages but felt no impetus to continue. Her style just doesn’t connect with me.)

RETURNED UNREAD

• The Owl at the Window: A Memoir of Loss and Hope by Carl Gorham
• Finn Family Moomintroll by Tove Jansson (both requested by other borrowers)

Hosted by Charleen of It’s a Portable Magic.

Have you been taking advantage of your local libraries? What appeals from my lists?

A dangerous thing happened a few weeks ago. I lost track of the number of library books I had on my account and happened to accidentally borrow a 16th book via the self-service machine (I always thought that 15 was the maximum). So the next time I visited I tested this limit and successfully borrowed enough books to get me up to a total of 21! Whoopsie. Of course, I have so many review books and Kindle titles on hand that a suggested limit of 15 should be more than enough, so I will try not to abuse the privilege too often.

A lot of the books I have on loan are hangovers from last month, and they’re likely to stick around for a while yet given the reading I still have to do for the Wellcome Book Prize shadow panel. However, I managed to get through nine library reads in March so far, and will hopefully finish the Murakami as this month’s doorstopper as well. I’ve added in ratings and links to any reviews for books I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Days Without End by Sebastian Barry [to review for BookBrowse] 
• The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books by John Carey 
• Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller 
• Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley 
• The Good People by Hannah Kent 
• Nonsense by Christopher Reid [poetry] 
• This One Summer by Mariko and Jillian Tamaki [graphic novel] 
• Let Them Eat Chaos by Kate Tempest [poetry] 
• Fragile Lives: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table by Stephen Westaby 

SKIMMED ONLY

• Go Lean Vegan: The Revolutionary 30-Day Diet Plan to Lose Weight and Feel Great by Christine Bailey
• The No Spend Year: How I Spent Less and Lived More by Michelle McGagh 
• Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library by Chris Paling 

CURRENTLY READING

• The Tidal Zone by Sarah Moss
• The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami
• Jackself by Jacob Polley [poetry]

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Ashland & Vine by John Burnside
• Outline by Rachel Cusk
• The Rebecca Rioter: A Story of Killay Life by Amy Dillwyn
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova
• The Owl at the Window: A Memoir of Loss and Hope by Carl Gorham
• A Smell of Burning: The Story of Epilepsy by Colin Grant
• Finn Family Moomintroll & Sculptor’s Daughter by Tove Jansson
• Human Acts by Han Kang
• In the Bonesetter’s Waiting-Room: Travels through Indian Medicine by Aarathi Prasad
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

CHECKED OUT, TO SKIM AGAIN FOR WELLCOME PRIZE SHADOW PANEL

• Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal
• When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• The Otters’ Tale by Simon Cooper
• How to Survive a Plague: The Story of How Activists and Scientists Tamed AIDS by David France [for Wellcome prize shadow panel]
• Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, the Great War by John Lewis-Stempel
• Augustown by Kei Miller
• The Gene by Siddhartha Mukherjee [for Wellcome prize shadow panel]

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Pondlife: A Swimmer’s Journal by Al Alvarez – I read the first 57 pages but found the entries fairly repetitive.
• The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion – Compared to the Rosie books, this felt like it had no spark.

RETURNED UNREAD

• The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford (I’ll have a little break before reading another one of hers)
• A Beginner’s Guide to Losing Your Mind: Survival Techniques for Staying Sane by Emily Reynolds (did not seem at all relevant to me)

Hosted by Charleen of It’s a Portable Magic.

Have you been taking advantage of your local libraries? What appeals from my lists?

I managed to get through six library reads in February. I’ve added in ratings and links to any reviews for books I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way. Currently I have a lovely quartet of books on the go; given that I got a bit carried away with the free reservations, it looks like I’ll be reading a whole bunch of library books in March.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Short and Sweet: 101 Very Short Poems, edited by Simon Armitage 
• The Tell-Tale Heart by Jill Dawson 
• From Me to You: Love Poems by U.A. Fanthorpe and R.V. Bailey 
• Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi 
• Family Life by Akhil Sharma 
• The January Man: A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville 

The current library reads. I hadn’t noticed until I took the photo that they all feature black, white and red on their covers…

CURRENTLY READING

• Pondlife: A Swimmer’s Journal by Al Alvarez
• The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books by John Carey
• Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley
• Let Them Eat Chaos [poetry] by Kate Tempest

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Ashland & Vine by John Burnside
• Outline by Rachel Cusk
• Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
• Still Alice by Lisa Genova
• A Smell of Burning: The Story of Epilepsy by Colin Grant
• Finn Family Moomintroll & Sculptor’s Daughter by Tove Jansson
• Human Acts by Han Kang
• The No Spend Year: How I Spent Less and Lived More by Michelle McGagh [to skim only, I think]
• Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library by Chris Paling
• Nonsense by Christopher Reid [poetry]

ON HOLD, TO BE CHECKED OUT

• The Good People by Hannah Kent
• The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Go Lean Vegan: The Revolutionary 30-Day Diet Plan to Lose Weight and Feel Great by Christine Bailey
• Days Without End by Sebastian Barry
• The Owl at the Window: A Memoir of Loss and Hope by Carl Gorham
• Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, the Great War by John Lewis-Stempel
• Augustown by Kei Miller
• A Beginner’s Guide to Losing Your Mind: Survival Techniques for Staying Sane by Emily Reynolds
• Lincoln in the Bardo by George Saunders

Have you been taking advantage of your local libraries? What appeals from my lists?

I’ve been doing pretty well with my goal of reading mostly books that I own, but have also managed to squeeze in a handful from public and university libraries. Next month may well be full of library reads, though – I went a little wild with the free reservations! I’ve added in ratings and links to any reviews for books I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey by Madeleine Bunting 
• Safest by Michael Donaghy [poetry] 
• Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola 
• The Church Mice at Christmas by Graham Oakley 
• Falling Awake by Alice Oswald [poetry] 
• Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym 
• Say Something Back by Denise Riley [poetry] 
• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis 
  

  ---

LIBRARY BOOKS SKIMMED

• Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: The New Science of Optimism and Pessimism by Elaine Fox
• Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day by Meera Sodha
  

  ---

CURRENTLY READING

• From Me to You: Love Poems by U.A. Fanthorpe and R.V. Bailey
• Family Life by Akhil Sharma
• The January Man: A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Pondlife: A Swimmer’s Journal by Al Alvarez
• Short and Sweet: 101 Very Short Poems, edited by Simon Armitage
• The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books by John Carey
• The Tell-Tale Heart by Jill Dawson
• Nonsense by Christopher Reid [poetry]
  

  ---

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Go Lean Vegan: The Revolutionary 30-Day Diet Plan to Lose Weight and Feel Great by Christine Bailey
• Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
• Quick and Easy Thai Recipes by Jean-Pierre Gabriel
• The Owl at the Window: A Memoir of Loss and Hope by Carl Gorham
• A Smell of Burning: The Story of Epilepsy by Colin Grant
• Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley
• The Good People by Hannah Kent
• Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, the Great War by John Lewis-Stempel
• The No Spend Year: How I Spent Less and Lived More by Michelle McGagh
• Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library by Chris Paling
• A Beginner’s Guide to Losing Your Mind: Survival Techniques for Staying Sane by Emily Reynolds
• The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion

RETURNED UNREAD

• Talk to the Tail: Adventures in Cat Ownership and Beyond by Tom Cox: A glance at the table of contents revealed that most of the essays were not about cats. Rip-off!
• Sunshine by Melissa Lee-Houghton: This was also on the Costa Poetry Award shortlist, so I picked it up from a display at the same time I got the Oswald and Riley. I flicked through and it didn’t seem like it would be for me.
• Woods etc by Alice Oswald: I tried this just before Falling Awake (see above) and didn’t make it past the first few pages.

Have you been taking advantage of your local libraries? What appeals from my lists?

I’m winding down with public and university library books for the year and hope to get to the end of the stacks before 2016 is out. I read some terrific books this month! Some of them I’ve already talked about here, and others I may feature in a future post or two. (I’ve given ratings for all the books I finished, and added links to Goodreads for those I managed to review.)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold by Margaret Atwood 
• Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes 
• Open City by Teju Cole 
• Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal 
• The Yellow House on the Corner by Rita Dove (poetry) 
• Squirrel Pie (and other stories): Adventures in Food across the Globe by Elisabeth Luard 
• Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann 
• Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich (poetry) 
• As We Are Now by May Sarton 
• The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler 
• Autumn by Ali Smith 
• The Pursuit of Happiness: Why Are We Driving Ourselves Crazy and How Can We Stop? by Ruth Whippman 

CURRENTLY READING

• Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Cat Sense by John Bradshaw [to skim only, I think]
• Poetry Notebook, 2006–2014 by Clive James [to skim only, I think]
• A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold
• All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
• What Nature Does for Britain by Tony Juniper [to skim only, I think]

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

• The Cat Who Came for Christmas, Cleveland Amory
• The Cat Who Stayed for Christmas, Cleveland Amory

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble
• Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body by Jo Marchant
• Family Life by Akhil Sharma
• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

RETURNED UNREAD

• The Course of Love by Alain de Botton – requested; I’ll read it on my Kindle instead.
• The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge – I scanned the first few pages and wasn’t in the mood; I may try it again another time.
• Dear Mr. M by Herman Koch – I read the first 20 pages, but it wasn’t gripping me at all.
• The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace – same as for the Hardinge.

(Thanks, as always, go to Shannon of River City Reading for the great blog idea and template!)

I’ve been powering through the public library books, even as I keep amassing owned books – including from local charity shops and the bargain shelves at Poundland and Waterstones.

I’ve given ratings for all the books I finished, and added links to Goodreads reviews for those I managed to write about. A few of these books were truly remarkable, so I’ll probably pull them out to highlight in a future post.

The stack I currently have on loan, plus the ones on reserve, should easily see me through the autumn and into winter! (* = poetry books)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned” by Lena Dunham 
• The Malarkey by Helen Dunmore* 
• Late Fragments: Everything I Want to Tell You (about This Magnificent Life) by Kate Gross 
• The Reason I Jump: One Boy’s Voice from the Silence of Autism by Naoki Higashida 
• Hot Milk by Deborah Levy 
• Keeping Mum by Gwyneth Lewis* 
• Winter by Christopher Nicholson 
• Letter Composed during a Lull in the Fighting by Kevin Powers* 
• How Snow Falls by Craig Raine* 
• The Last Act of Love: The Story of My Brother and His Sister by Cathy Rentzenbrink 
• The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman 
• Golden Hill by Francis Spufford 
• The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Ozone Journal by Peter Balakian*
• Open City by Teju Cole
• The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
• Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal
• The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry
• Let Me Tell You about a Man I Knew by Susan Fletcher
• The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
• Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss
• The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

• Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes
• The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg by Tim Birkhead
• Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d by Alan Bradley
• Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann
• Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
• The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson
• The Man Who Wouldn’t Get Up and Other Stories by David Lodge
• Nutshell by Ian McEwan
• The Many by Wyl Menmuir
• Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham
• The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
• Autumn by Ali Smith

RETURNED UNREAD

• Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation by Rachel Cusk [I sampled the first few pages and found it flat and affectless; perhaps I’ll try her fiction instead.]
• Kid Gloves: A Voyage round My Father by Adam Mars-Jones [I decided an interest in the subject matter couldn’t overcome my frustration with the author’s style.]

(Thanks, as always, go to Shannon of River City Reading for the great blog idea and template!)