The next week and a half will be my last chance to read library books before we head off on our European vacation. Apart from the Rough Guide to Vienna and one novella I plan on taking with us, everything else needs to go back to the library before we leave on June 9th. Luckily several of the books I have out at the moment are quite thin.

I’ve vowed not to borrow any library books for the rest of the summer so I can concentrate on books I actually own and cull some before our move in mid-August. Depending on where we move, I may be using a different library system come autumn.

So, much as I enjoy putting these together, I will be taking a break from Library Checkout posts until September.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
• But You Did Not Come Back by Marceline Loridan-Ivens

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

• Sweet Home (short stories) by Carys Bray
• Parfums: A Catalogue of Remembered Smells by Philippe Claudel
• Summer Requiem (poems) by Vikram Seth
• Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, edited by Thomas Travisano

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• The Running Hare: The Secret Life of Farmland by John Lewis-Stempel
• A Whole Life by Robert Seethaler (for reading on our European holiday)

RETURNED UNREAD

• In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
• The Great Soul of Siberia by Sooyong Park

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

You’ll notice a lot of familiar titles: some I’ve reviewed here recently; others have been hanging around since last month. It’s high time I actually read some of these – especially the Elizabeth Gilbert, for which I have high hopes. It’s a long Bank Holiday weekend coming up here in the UK, so maybe I’ll use that as the excuse to sink into a nice long library book…

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman
• The Zimzum of Love: A New Way of Understanding Marriage by Rob and Kristen Bell
• To the River by Olivia Laing
• The Observances by Kate Miller (poetry)
• Dream Work by Mary Oliver (poetry)
• One of Us: The Story of a Massacre and Its Aftermath by Åsne Seierstad
• Golden Age by Jane Smiley

Skimmed only:

• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
• The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

• Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, edited by Thomas Travisano [It’s over 800 pages, so I’ll probably be reading it all year!]

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
• The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Great Soul of Siberia by Sooyong Park (about tigers)

RETURNED UNREAD

• The Land Ballot by Fleur Adcock
• Song of the Sea Maid by Rebecca Mascull

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

I went a little overboard on library books this month because we visited a great branch we don’t often get to. Luckily I get four renewals! April will finally be the month when I try Elena Ferrante, after being on the waiting list for the first of the Neapolitan novels for ages.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• The Remains by Annie Freud (poetry)
• History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky
• Look We Have Coming to Dover! by Daljit Nagra (poetry)
• The Blind Roadmaker by Ian Duhig (poetry)
• Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place by Philip Marsden

Skimmed only:

• Daring Greatly by Brené Brown (mostly repeats what I’d already read in her latest book, Rising Strong)

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

• The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman
• The Towers of Trebizond by Rose Macaulay
• One of Us: The Story of a Massacre and Its Aftermath, by Åsne Seierstad
• Golden Age by Jane Smiley
• Words in Air: The Complete Correspondence between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, edited by Thomas Travisano

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• The Land Ballot by Fleur Adcock (poetry)
• In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume
• The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving by Jonathan Evison
• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
• To the River by Olivia Laing
• Song of the Sea Maid by Rebecca Mascull
• The Observances by Kate Miller (poetry)
• Dream Work by Mary Oliver (poetry)
• The Great Soul of Siberia by Sooyong Park (about tigers)

RETURNED UNREAD

• Of Love and Desire by Louis de Bernières (unfinished)
• A Lesson in Love by Gervase Phinn
• The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard (unfinished)

(Thanks to Shannon at River City Reading for the great blog idea and template! Check out her blog for other link-ups.)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Early Warning by Jane Smiley
• The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi
• Walking Away by Simon Armitage

Skimmed only:

• Bibliotherapy with Bereaved Children by Eileen H. Jones
• The Black Mirror: Fragments of an Obituary for Life by Raymond Tallis

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

• History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky
• Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place by Philip Marsden

 Consulting for travel planning purposes:

• Lonely Planet guides to Germany and Switzerland
• Time Out guide to Vienna

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman
• The Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard
• Golden Age by Jane Smiley

 ON REQUEST

• My Brilliant Friend by Elena Ferrante [I’m now first in the queue – my library system wisely ordered several more copies!]

(Thanks to Shannon at River City Reading for the great blog idea and template! Check out her blog for other link-ups.)

I’ve been back in the UK for a few weeks now and in my leisure reading have been trying to focus on the books I already own (especially giveaway books I feel obligated to review) plus a priority list of library reads.

(Thanks to Shannon at River City Reading for the great blog idea and template! Check out her blog for other link-ups.)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Can’t We Talk about Something More Pleasant? by Roz Chast [one-week loan from University of Reading library; already returned]
• Glitter and Glue: A memoir by Kelly Corrigan
• How to Connect with Nature by Tristan Gooley [from the School of Life series]
• Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
• Swithering by Robin Robertson [poetry]

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

• The Zookeeper’s Wife by Diane Ackerman
• Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi [graphic novel]
• Early Warning by Jane Smiley

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• The Human Age: The World Shaped by Us by Diane Ackerman
• Walking Away by Simon Armitage
• History of a Suicide: My Sister’s Unfinished Life by Jill Bialosky
• Bibliotherapy with Bereaved Children by Eileen H. Jones [will probably only skim]
• Rising Ground: A Search for the Spirit of Place by Philip Marsden
• The Book of Aron by Jim Shepard

Plus, it’s time to redouble our efforts at planning a Europe trip for early summer:

• Travellers Sweden
• Lonely Planet guide to Germany

ON REQUEST

My Brilliant Friend, Elena Ferrante [I’m 8th in the queue, so I’ll be waiting a while!]

Have you been taking advantage of your local libraries? What were some of your best recent reads?

I used to be a library fiend. At one point we belonged to about six different library systems thanks to our jobs at universities and our frequent back-and-forths to a couple of towns where we used to live. Back when reservations were still free through Reading Borough Libraries I would regularly have 20 or more new books on request at any one time, and every trip to the library required backpacks, tote bags and my husband’s help to get everything to the car.

Now that holds cost 50 pence each, however, I’ve cut back to basically zero. Most of what I used to read via libraries has now been replaced by e-books downloaded from NetGalley and Edelweiss. This is rather a shame, as I still love the feeling of stocking up with piles of physical books. I’ll still make an exception and pay 40 pence to reserve a book through our (more strictly local) Wokingham Borough Libraries when it’s something I’m hugely keen to read, like the new Jonathan Franzen novel or a book I need to review and can’t find online.

Nowadays I mostly peruse my local library for poetry collections and new nonfiction, though I can occasionally be tempted by recent fiction I haven’t gotten my hands on by other means.

(Thanks to Shannon at River City Reading for the great idea and the template! Check out her blog for other link-ups.)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• The Cartographer Tries to Map a Way to Zion, Kei Miller [I also saw the author speak at Reading Poetry Festival.]
• Purity, Jonathan Franzen

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• DK Eyewitness Guides to Sweden, Austria, and Switzerland; Rough Guides to Scandinavia and the Czech Republic; Lonely Planet Guides to Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and “Europe on a Shoestring” [we’re contemplating a big trip around Europe by train next spring; the next few months will be for dreaming and planning]
• When I Die: Lessons from the Death Zone, Philip Gould
• Dept. of Speculation, Jenny Offill
• Weathering, Lucy Wood [for BookBrowse review]
• Meadowland: The Private Life of an English Field, John Lewis-Stempel

Poetry books:

• As Far as I Know, Roger McGough
• Two Cures for Love: Selected Poems 1979–2006, Wendy Cope
• The Night Trotsky Came to Stay, Allison McVety
• 40 Sonnets, Don Patterson
• Fair’s Fair, Susan Utting
• Striptease, Susan Utting
• Loop of Jade, Sarah Howe
• Water Sessions, James Lasdun
• Standard Midland, Roy Fisher

Do you take advantage of your local libraries?

What were some of your best recent library reads?