Tag Archives: libraries

An Inventory of My Bookmark Collection

By Rebecca Foster on | 36 Comments

In March, I worked on rearranging my home library. Last month, I followed up by taking stock of all my bookmarks. I’ve written about subsets of my bookmark collection before: ones I found in books, and ones from bookshops that have since closed. When I wrote the latter post, I estimated that I had 120–150 bookmarks. I always use a bookmark and take simple joy in finding the one that seems most appropriate to a book’s setting or subject matter when possible. Now I know, having categorized and counted them all, that my collection has grown to 228. This exercise was really for my own record and amusement, but perhaps you’ll recognize some familiar objects – or at least the hoarding impulse. Here’s a look at them all:

And here they are by category:

Bookseller-specific bookmarks. I’ve been to all of these establishments / used the online ones. Note the strong representation for Hay-on-Wye and Wigtown! (35)

Gifted. From left to right they are roughly from my mother, my aunt, my sister, my in-laws, and friends. Special mention must be made of certain ones: the puffin cross-stitch bookmark my mother made for me, and the daffodil she bought me from Sandham Memorial Chapel; the two blue-patterned ones my aunt wove on her loom (the bottom one is probably my single favourite bookmark in the whole collection and is so precious to me I once ran back to collect it from an out-of-service bus where I’d nodded off on the top deck); and a set of four paisley paper bookmarks given to me by one of my flatmates from my Master’s year at Leeds. A clever gift to bring over from India as they’re flat and extremely lightweight! (35)

Literary prizes – I generally get these from the library. It’s fun to look back at previous years’ shortlists. (25)

More bookshop and festival bookmarks, this time ones I’ve not frequented myself, which probably means I found the bookmark in a book or at a library. I’ve added five more, at bottom right, to my sad stack of bookmarks from defunct bookshops. I looked up what they’ve all become since.

  • Bookends, Hay-on-Wye (two branches) is now the Oil & Oak gift shop (Castle Street) and The Pavement Palace hotel (The Pavement)
  • Daunt Books, Fulham Road is now Sloane Street Auctions
  • George’s is now the Bristol and Bath Rum Distillery
  • Travel Books in Washington, DC is now a Mattress Warehouse
  • Shoemakers, a Christian bookstore we used to have in Newbury, is now an antique shop, or vacant; I haven’t been down this alleyway in a while.

I was pleased to find that Alabaster Bookshop in New York City is still going, and the Dubray chain in Ireland is not only still around but has expanded. (22)

 

Other places I’ve been, events I’ve attended, or organizations I’m associated with (21)

Library-specific bookmarks, all from libraries I’ve visited and/or services I’ve used (16)

Found in secondhand or library books (15)

I collect leather bookmarks from places I’ve been. The four at bottom right I actually found abandoned in library books – although I have been to Buckfast and Westminster Abbeys! Cathy sent me the one from Seamus Heaney HomePlace and my mother bought me the one from Highclere Castle. (14)

Book-specific bookmarks that came with the book or that I picked up at Waterstones or at an event with the author. I’ve read all but the four at top right (at far right is one I found that originally came from The Persephone Book of Short Stories). (13)

Special ones: came with albums by The Bookshop Band and Anne-Marie Sanderson; I acquired for the in-your-face message (I found “Bonjour, Je veux mon livre” in the Little Free Library; it reads “Hello, I want my book” on the reverse side); are actually other objects – Target gift card, Paris botanical garden ticket, Hay Distillery business card – but I have always used as bookmarks; magnets and metal bookmarks. I’ve gotten rid of other wood/bamboo and metal bookmarks in the past as being so thick as to leave an imprint in the text block or slice page tops. (12)

Publisher-specific bookmarks; all are ones I’ve read from (10)

Do you have Opinions on bookmarks, too? Do you collect them? Where do you tend to get them from, and which are your favourites?

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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: January 2026

By Rebecca Foster on | 28 Comments

Thanks to Eleanor, Laura and Skai for posting about their recent reading from the library! Margaret has also contributed a profile of a library she visited in Spain.

It’s been a lighter library month for me because I’ve been focusing on my own shelves. You can tell I’ve been looking for comfort reads during a damp, dark and illness-marred month, as there have been a lot of children’s books on my stacks, including Redwall, part of a series I loved when I was a kid. Rereading it 33 years or so later, it’s hard to recapture the magic, but I’m enjoying it well enough.

This Independent subheading was served up to me on Facebook early in the month: “Library use in the UK is dwindling with less than a third of the population using a library service in the last year.” To me, that’s a sad and shocking statistic. A staff member at the library where I volunteer said that loans are down at the moment and it’s important to increase them. Well, I’m doing my best (see reservation list below)!

 

My library use over the last month:

READ

  • The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith
  • The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer

An attempt at a meta passage reveals the stark truth about this one!

  • Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens
  • Sam Francisco, King of the Disco by Sarah Tagholm, illus. Binny Talib
  • The Best Nest Contest by Luke Western

 

SKIMMED

  • It’s Not a Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult by Kat Brown

 

CURRENTLY READING

  • The Parallel Path: Love, Grit and Walking the North by Jenn Ashworth
  • Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen (for February book club – classics subgroup)
  • The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
  • Redwall by Brian Jacques (reread)
  • Carrie by Stephen King
  • Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
  • A Long Game: How to Write Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken
  • People Like Us by Jason Mott
  • Ultra-Processed People: Why Do We All Eat Stuff that Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop? by Chris van Tulleken (for February book club)

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

A rare university library book haul…

  • Eva Luna by Isabel Allende (for April book club)
  • Like Mother by Jenny Diski
  • Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Strangers: The Story of a Marriage by Belle Burden
  • Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
  • The Swell by Kat Gordon
  • Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour by Mark Haddon
  • Snegurochka by Judith Heneghan
  • The Brain at Rest: Why Doing Nothing Can Change Your Life by Joseph Jebelli
  • Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
  • Skylark by Paula McLain
  • Frostlines: An Epic Exploration of the Transforming Arctic by Neil Shea
  • First Class Murder by Robin Stevens
  • Our Better Natures by Sophie Ward

Also … I took a cue from Eleanor and, even though I felt a little sheepish about it, sent an e-mail to the stock librarian back in November asking if the library system could acquire certain books for me. I thought maybe they’d purchase a few of my requests, but they bought all 13! So I’ve placed holds on all but one (I’ll wait until summer to borrow and read Kakigori Summer by Emily Itami). I hope other patrons will get much enjoyment out of these, too!

Fiction:

    • I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
    • The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley
    • Bog Queen by Anna North
    • Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
    • Carrion Crow by Heather Parry
    • Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater
    • The Original by Nell Stevens
    • Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa
    • The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker

Nonfiction:

    • Pathfinding by Kerri Andrews
    • Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
    • The Spirituality Gap by Abi Millar

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • We Live Here Now by C.D. Rose – Requested off of me, but I’ll get it back out 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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Last Love Your Library of 2025 & Another for #DoorstoppersInDecember

By Rebecca Foster on | 19 Comments

Thanks to Eleanor, Margaret and Skai for writing about their recent library reading! Marcie also joined in with a post about completing Toronto Public Library’s 2025 Reading Challenge with books by Indigenous authors.

I managed to fit in a few more 2025 releases before Christmas. My plan for January is to focus on reading from my own shelves (which includes McKitterick Prize submissions and perhaps also review copies to catch up on), so expect next month to be a lighter one.

My recent reading has featured many mentions of how much libraries mean, particularly to young women.

In her autobiographical poetry collection Visitations (coming out in April), Julia Alvarez writes of how her family’s world changed when they moved to New York City from the Dominican Republic in the 1960s. “Waiting for My Father to Pick Me Up at the Library” adopts the tropes of Alice in Wonderland: as her future expands, her father’s life shrinks.

In The Mercy Step by Marcia Hutchinson, the public library is a haven for Mercy, growing up in Bradford in the 1960s. She can hardly believe it’s free for everyone to use, even Black people. Greek mythology is her escape from an upbringing that involves domestic violence and molestation. “It’s peaceful and quiet in the Library. No one shouts or throws things or hits anyone. If anyone talks, the Librarian puts a finger to her mouth and tells them to shush.”

The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer affirms the social benefits of libraries: “I love bookstores for many reasons but revere both the idea and the practice of public libraries. To me, they embody the civic-scale practice of a gift economy and the notion of common property. … We don’t each have to own everything. The books at the library belong to everyone, serving the public with free books”.

After Rebecca Knuth retired from an academic career in library and information science, she moved to London for a master’s degree in creative nonfiction and joined the London Library as well as the public library. But in her memoir London Sojourn (coming out in January), she recalls that she caught the library bug early: “Each weekday, I bused to school and, afterward, trudged to the library and then rode home with my geologist father. … Mostly, I read.”

And in Joyride, Susan Orlean recounts the writing of each of her books, including The Library Book, which is about the 1986 arson at the Los Angeles Central Library but also, more widely, about what libraries have to offer and the oddballs often connected with them.

 

My library use over the last month:

(links are to any reviews of books not already covered on the blog)

 

READ

  • Mum’s Busy Work by Jacinda Ardern; illus. Ruby Jones
  • Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
  • Storm-Cat by Magenta Fox
  • The Robin & the Fir Tree by Jason Jameson
  • I Love You Just the Same by Keira Knightley – Proof that celebrities should not be writing children’s books. I would say the story and drawings were pretty good … if she were a college student.
  • Winter by Val McDermid
  • The Search for the Giant Arctic Jellyfish, The Search for Carmella, & The Search for Our Cosmic Neighbours by Chloe Savage
  • Weirdo Goes Wild by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird; illustrated by Magenta Fox
  • Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens

 + A final contribution to #DoorstoppersInDecember

 

Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me by Mimi Pond

Truth really is stranger than fiction. Of the six Mitford sisters, two were fascists (Diana and Unity) and one was a communist (Jessica). Two became popular authors (Nancy and Jessica). One (Unity) was pals with Hitler and shot herself in the head when Britain went to war with Germany; she didn’t die then but nine years later of an infection from the bullet still stuck in her brain. This is all rich fodder for a biographer – the batshit lives of the rich and famous are always going to fascinate us peons – and Pond’s comics treatment is a great way of keeping history from being one boring event after another. Although she uses the same Prussian blue tones throughout, she mixes up the format, sometimes employing 3–5 panes but often choosing to create one- or two-page spreads focusing on a face, a particular setting or a montage. No two pages are exactly alike and information is conveyed through dialogue, documents and quotations. If just straight narrative, there are different typefaces or text colours and it is interspersed with the pictures in a novel way. Whether or not you know a thing about the Mitfords, the book intrigues with its themes of family dynamics, grief, political divisions, wealth and class. My only misgiving, really, was about the “and Me” part of the title; Pond appears in maybe 5% of the book, and the only personal connections I gleaned were that she wished she had sisters, wanted to escape, and envied privilege and pageantry. [444 pages]

 

CURRENTLY READING

  • The Parallel Path: Love, Grit and Walking the North by Jenn Ashworth
  • The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
  • Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
  • The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer (for book club in January; I’m grumpy about it because I didn’t vote for this one, had no idea who the author [a TV comedian in the UK] was, and the writing is shaky at best)
  • We Live Here Now by C.D. Rose

SKIMMED

  • Look Closer: How to Get More out of Reading by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • It’s Not a Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult by Kat Brown
  • We Came by Sea by Horatio Clare

 

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED

  • The Two Faces of January by Patricia Highsmith
  • Arsenic for Tea by Robin Stevens

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
  • Snegurochka by Judith Heneghan
  • Ultra-Processed People by Dr. Chris van Tulleken (for book club in February)

 

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • Night Life: Walking Britain’s Wild Landscapes after Dark by John Lewis-Stempel

 

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, November 2025

By Rebecca Foster on | 39 Comments

Thanks, as always, to Eleanor and Skai for posting about their recent library reading. And thanks to Margaret for joining in for the first time!

Last month I was lamenting my disengagement from the Booker Prize shortlist. Luckily, I loved the eventual winner, Flesh by David Szalay, which I finished reading about an hour and a half before the prize announcement! In other news, I’m judging the McKitterick Prize again this year. When, mid-month, it hit me that my first shipment of submissions was going to be arriving soon, I had to clear the decks by returning some library books I knew I wasn’t going to get to any time soon. This included a few 2025 releases that I’d hoped to prioritise but that didn’t, at least within the first few pages, leap out at me as must-reads.

The new categorisation system at my library doesn’t seem to be as disruptive as predicted, though it does look untidy having two different types of stickers in any one section. The self-service reservations have been moved from one wall to the opposite one, as if just to confuse patrons. (None of these changes are ever run by the staff and volunteers who will actually live with them day to day.)

I’m there for the books, but there’s an amazing range of other services that people access. One young woman comes for one-on-one English tutoring and picks up free period products. A man with aphasia after a stroke has literacy training. Older people book IT sessions. The NHS runs a free clinic for health checks. Our £1 coffee machine is very popular. There are also recycling points for bras and batteries. Truly a community hub.

 

My library use over the last month:

(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog; some reviews are still to come)

 

READ

  • Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner
  • Heart the Lover by Lily King
  • Misery by Stephen King
  • Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
  • The Eights by Joanna Miller
  • Super-Frog Saves Tokyo by Haruki Murakami
  • Rainforest by Michelle Paver
  • Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry
  • The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
  • Flesh by David Szalay
  • Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth

CURRENTLY READING

  • The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
  • Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
  • Night Life: Walking Britain’s Wild Landscapes after Dark by John Lewis-Stempel

 

SKIMMED

  • The Perimenopause Survival Guide: A Feel-Like-Yourself-Again Roadmap for Every Woman over 35 by Heather Hirsch

 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • It’s Not a Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult by Kat Brown
  • A Certain Smile by Françoise Sagan
  • The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED

  • The Parallel Path: Love, Grit and Walking the North by Jenn Ashworth
  • Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
  • Look Closer: How to Get More out of Reading by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
  • Winter by Val McDermid
  • We Live Here Now by C.D. Rose

 

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
  • Snegurochka by Judith Heneghan
  • Do Admit: The Mitford Sisters and Me by Mimi Pond
  • Weirdo Goes Wild by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird
  • Murder Most Unladylike by Robin Stevens

RETURNED UNREAD

  • The Shetland Way: Community and Climate Crisis on My Father’s Islands by Marianne Brown
  • Fulfillment by Lee Cole
  • Disappoint Me by Nicola Dinan
  • The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by Sally Magnusson
  • Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor
  • Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe by Adam Weymouth

 

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
  • Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
  • Red Pockets: An Offering by Alice Mah
  • Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann

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, July 2025

By Rebecca Foster on | 25 Comments

Thank you to Eleanor (here and here) and Skai for posting about their recent library reading.

On a brief trip to Tilehurst last week for a podiatry consultation, I popped into its library (part of Reading Borough, where I’ve lived at various points) and liked how they designated subgenres with 3D paper letter names above the bays along with a suitable spine sticker on the books themselves. Action is to the right of romance here; they also give Family Sagas and Historical Fiction their own sections.

My library system recently made a slight change to our classifications. Now, instead of a monolithic Crime designation (red circular sticker on spine) there will be a white square spine label with either a magnifying glass and CRI or a gun target with THR for thriller; both will be shelved in the Crime section. Likewise, the SFF section (previously, green circular sticker) will have two subdivisions, FAN with a unicorn and SCI with a ringed planet. I can see why the new subgenres were perceived to be more helpful for readers, but I predict that the shelving, which is almost exclusively done by volunteers, will go haywire. Even with the very clear coloured stickers, books are frequently mis-shelved. (During each of my sessions, I probably reshelve 10 to 15 books.) Now there will be a mixture of coloured and white labels, the latter of which must be read carefully to not end up on the wrong trolley or shelf…

 

My library use over the last month:

(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog)

 

READ

  • Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion by Lamorna Ash
  • To the Edge of the Sea: Schooldays of a Crofter’s Child by Christina Hall
  • Shattered by Hanif Kureishi
  • Ripeness by Sarah Moss
  • Three Weeks in July: 7/7, The Aftermath, and the Deadly Manhunt by Adam Wishart & James Nally

CURRENTLY READING

  • The Most by Jessica Anthony
  • The Interpretation of Cats: And Their Owners by Claude Béata; translated by David Watson
  • The Honesty Box by Luzy Brazier
  • Bellies by Nicola Dinan
  • The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
  • The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
  • The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by James Patterson & Matt Eversmann

 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • I Think I Like Girls by Rosie Day
  • Fragile Minds by Bella Jackson
  • Enchanted Ground: Growing Roots in a Broken World by Steven Lovatt
  • Wife by Charlotte Mendelson
  • The Forgotten Sense: The Nose and the Perception of Smell by Jonas Olofsson

+ various children’s books

(the other books pictured are for my husband’s stack)

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Helm by Sarah Hall
  • An Eye on the Hebrides by Mairi Hedderwick
  • Albion by Anna Hope
  • The Names by Florence Knapp
  • The Eights by Joanna Miller
  • The Dig by John Preston
  • Birding by Rose Ruane
  • Opt Out by Carolina Setterwall

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • The Husbands by Holly Gramazio – I read the first 28 pages or so. A fun premise, but I felt I’d gotten the gist already and couldn’t imagine another 300 pages of the same.
  • The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han – This was requested off me before I could get halfway. So annoying! I’ve placed a hold but don’t know if it will come back into my hands in time to actually finish it during the summer. Harrumph.
  • Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid – I read about 18 pages. I always like the idea of her novels, but since Daisy Jones haven’t gotten far in one.
  • Boiled Owls by Azad Ashim Sharma – This poetry collection was not for me.

 

RETURNED UNREAD

  • Fulfillment by Lee Cole – Requested off me before I could start it. I’m back in the queue.
  • Adam by Gboyega Odubanjo – This poetry collection was not for me.
  • The Artist by Lucy Steeds – Requested off me before I could start it. I’m back in the queue.
  • The Sleepwalkers by Scarlett Thomas – Ditto!

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, June 2025

By Rebecca Foster on | 11 Comments

Thank you, as always, to Eleanor, who has put up multiple posts about her recent library reading. My thanks also go to Skai for participating again. Marcie has been taking part in the Toronto Public Library reading challenge Bingo card. I enjoyed seeing in Molly Wizenberg’s latest Substack that she and her child are both doing the Seattle Public Library Summer Book Bingo. I’ve never joined my library system’s adult summer reading challenge because surely it’s meant for non-regular readers. You can sign up to win a prize if you read five or more books – awwww! – and it just wouldn’t seem fair for me to participate.

It’s Pride Month and my library has displays up for it, of course. I got to attend the first annual Queer Folk Festival in London as an ally earlier this month and it was great fun!

Two current initiatives in my library system are pop-up libraries in outlying villages, and a quiet first hour of opening each weekday, meant to benefit those with sensory needs. I volunteer in the first two hours on Tuesdays but haven’t yet noticed lower lighting or it being any quieter than usual.

At the Society of Authors Awards ceremony, Joseph Coelho mentioned that during his time as Waterstones Children’s Laureate, he joined 217 libraries around the country to support their work! (He also built a bicycle out of bamboo and rode it around the south coast.)

I enjoyed this satirical article on The Rumpus about ridding libraries of diversity and inclusion practices. My favourite line: “The ‘Diverse Discussions’ book club will be renamed ‘Not Woke Folk (Tales).’”

And finally, I discovered evidence of my first bout of library volunteering (in Bowie, Maryland, for a middle school requirement) in my mother’s journal entry from 20 April 1996: “Rebecca started her Community Service this a.m., 10 – 12 noon, at the Library. She learned to put children’s books on the cart by sorting them.”

 

My library use over the last month:

(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog)

READ

 

SKIMMED

  • Period Power: Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working for You by Maisie Hill
  • Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane

CURRENTLY READING

  • Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion by Lamorna Ash
  • The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
  • Bellies by Nicola Dinan
  • To the Edge of the Sea: Schooldays of a Crofter’s Child by Christina Hall
  • The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by James Patterson & Matt Eversmann
  • Ripeness by Sarah Moss

 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • Fulfillment by Lee Cole
  • Adam by Gboyega Odubanjo
  • The Forgotten Sense: The Nose and the Perception of Smell by Jonas Olofsson
  • Enchanted Ground: Growing Roots in a Broken World by Steven Lovatt
  • Boiled Owls by Azad Ashim Sharma
  • The Artist by Lucy Steeds

+ various Berlin and Germany guides to plan a September trip

 

ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED

  • The Most by Jessica Anthony
  • Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • Three Weeks in July by Adam Wishart & James Nally

 

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Terrible Horses by Raymond Antrobus
  • The Interpretation of Cats: And Their Owners by Claude Béata; translated by David Watson
  • The Boy, the Troll and the Chalk by Anne Booth (whom I met at the SoA Awards ceremony)
  • The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
  • Albion by Anna Hope
  • Fragile Minds by Bella Jackson
  • The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
  • The Names by Florence Knapp
  • Shattered by Hanif Kureishi
  • Wife by Charlotte Mendelson
  • The Eights by Joanna Miller

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity by Robin Ince – His rambling stories work better in person (I really enjoyed seeing him in Hungerford on the tour promoting this book) than in print. I read about 66 pages.
  • The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji – I only read the first few pages of this Women’s Prize shortlistee and it seemed flippant and unnecessary.

 

RETURNED UNREAD

  • Day by Michael Cunningham – I’ll get it back out another time.
  • Looking After: A Portrait of My Autistic Brother by Caroline Elton – This was requested off of me; I might get it back out another time.
  • Rebel Bodies: A Guide to the Gender Health Gap Revolution by Sarah Graham – I lost interest and needed to make space on my card.
  • The Kingdoms by Natasha Pulley – I thought I’d try this because it has an Outer Hebrides setting, but I couldn’t get into the first few pages and didn’t want to pack a chunky paperback that might not work out for me.
  • Horse by Rushika Wick – I needed to make space on my card plus this didn’t really look like my sort of poetry.

 

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, May 2025

By Rebecca Foster on | 21 Comments

Thanks to Eleanor and Skai for posting about their recent library reading! Marina Sofia also recently posted about public libraries in China.

My library had a display coinciding with Dying Matters Awareness Week (5–11 May), an initiative of Hospice UK. I read a lot around illness, death and dying and am pleased to see books on these topics featured. I hadn’t heard of this weeklong celebration before, but I hope that it and the library display will get people talking.

I appreciated this quote from Women by Chloe Caldwell, whose narrator works in a library: “Books are like doctors and I am lucky to have unlimited access to them during this time. A perk of the library.” Bibliotherapy works!

 

 

My library use over the last month:

(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog)

 

READ

  • Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (for book club)
  • Women by Chloe Caldwell
  • All Fours by Miranda July
  • The Cafe at the Edge of the Woods by Mikey Please
  • Stoner by John Williams (a reread for book club)

 

SKIMMED

  • Spring Is the Only Season: How It Works, What It Does and Why It Matters by Simon Barnes

CURRENTLY READING

  • Good Girl by Aria Aber
  • Bellies by Nicola Dinan
  • May Day by Jackie Kay
  • Spring: The Story of a Season by Michael Morpurgo
  • The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by James Patterson & Matt Eversmann

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
  • Day by Michael Cunningham
  • Looking After: A Portrait of My Autistic Brother by Caroline Elton
  • Rebel Bodies: A Guide to the Gender Health Gap Revolution by Sarah Graham
  • Period Power: Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working for You by Maisie Hill
  • Self-Portrait with Family by Amaan Hyder
  • Adam by Gboyega Odubanjo
  • The Forgotten Sense: The Nose and the Perception of Smell by Jonas Olofsson
  • Horse by Rushika Wick
  • Top Doll by Karen McCarthy Woolf

 

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

  • Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
  • The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji

 

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • The Most by Jessica Anthony
  • Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion by Lamorna Ash
  • The Interpretation of Cats: And Their Owners by Claude Béata; translated by David Watson
  • Fulfillment by Lee Cole
  • A Sharp Scratch by Heather Darwent
  • I Think I Like Girls by Rosie Day
  • The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
  • To the Edge of the Sea: Schooldays of a Crofter’s Child by Christina Hall
  • The Blue Hour by Paula Hawkins
  • Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity by Robin Ince
  • The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
  • Shattered by Hanif Kureishi
  • Enchanted Ground: Growing Roots in a Broken World by Steven Lovatt
  • Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie
  • Wife by Charlotte Mendelson
  • Ripeness by Sarah Moss
  • The Age of Diagnosis: Sickness, Health and Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far by Suzanne O’Sullivan
  • Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid
  • Three Weeks in July by Adam Wishart & James Nally

 

The top four books are from the Jhalak Poetry Prize shortlist.

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time by Helen Gordon – I enjoyed her previous book well enough, but found I wasn’t interested enough in the subject matter here.

 

RETURNED UNREAD

  • I Am Not a Tourist by Daisy J. Hung – The writing style was not enticing.
  • Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb – This was requested off of me but I will get it out 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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Love Your Library, September 2024

By Rebecca Foster on | 25 Comments

Thanks to Eleanor, Laura (here, here and here & Happy birthday!), Marcie and Naomi (here and here) for posting about their recent library reading!

On our holiday I popped into the Dunbar library (East Lothian, Scotland) while my husband was touring a nearby brewery. It seemed like a sweet and useful community centre, and I enjoyed the kid-friendly book returns box.

Last week my library removed its Perspex screens from around the three enquiry desks, nearly four years on from when they were put up during Covid.

I’m dipping into the Booker and Wainwright Prize shortlists through my library borrowing, and stocking up for R.I.P.

I appreciated this passage about libraries from Home Is Where We Start by Susanna Crossman:

Every week, from the age of seven, I walk the twenty minutes to the local library, and I borrow four books. My path takes me past the greengrocer’s, the newsagent’s, the butcher’s, the baker’s, the bank, the post office, and across the town square … Inside the library, high walls are lined with books, and when I’ve read all the Children’s section, the librarian lets me take the Adult books, but only the Classics. Back in my room at the community, I read for hours. Reading is one of my forms of resistance. … Books are my home, and when you turn the cover, you close one door and open another, moving to imagined worlds.

 

My library use over the last month:

(links to reviews not already featured on the blog)

 

READ

  • One Garden against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate by Kate Bradbury
  • Clear by Carys Davies
  • Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson
  • The Song of the Whole Wide World: On Motherhood, Grief, and Poetry by Tamarin Norwood
  • Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent
  • Heartstopper: Volume 1 by Alice Oseman (reread)
  • Heartstopper: Volume 2 by Alice Oseman (reread)
  • Heartstopper: Volume 3 by Alice Oseman (reread)
  • Lumberjanes: Campfire Songs by Shannon Watters
  • The Echoes by Evie Wyld

SKIMMED

  • The Garden against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
  • The Accidental Garden: The Plot Thickens by Richard Mabey

 

CURRENTLY READING

  • The Lone-Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven by Sherman Alexie

 

CURRENTLY READING-ish (more accurately, set aside temporarily)

  • Death Valley by Melissa Broder
  • The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
  • Learning to Think: A Memoir about Faith, Demons, and the Courage to Ask Questions by Tracy King
  • Groundbreakers: The Return of Britain’s Wild Boar by Chantal Lyons
  • Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets by Kyo Maclear
  • Late Light: Finding Home in the West Country by Michael Malay
  • Mrs Gulliver by Valerie Martin
  • After Dark by Haruki Murakami
  • Stowaway: The Disreputable Exploits of the Rat by Joe Shute

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
  • Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee
  • Now She Is Witch by Kirsty Logan
  • Held by Anne Michaels
  • Heartstopper: Volume 4 by Alice Oseman (reread)
  • It’s Not Just You: How to Navigate Eco-Anxiety and the Climate Crisis by Tori Tsui

 

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • Orbital by Samantha Harvey
  • Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter by Kat Hill
  • The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes
  • Playground by Richard Powers
  • The Place of Tides by James Rebanks

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

  • The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
  • James by Percival Everett
  • Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
  • Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

 

RETURNED UNREAD

  • Wasteland: The Dirty Truth about What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters by Oliver Franklin-Wallis – Twice I’ve had this out and failed to actually open it. I think I’m worried it will depress me.
  • This Is My Sea by Miriam Mulcahy – A bereavement memoir with a swimming theme was sure to attract me, but the writing was blah. In fact, I think I may have borrowed this when it first came out in hardback and DNFed it then, too. Whoops!

 

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • The Forester’s Daughter by Claire Keegan (a standalone Faber short) – This didn’t seem very interesting, and I figure there is no point reading just one story from a whole unread collection.
  • The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal – I actually read 109 pages, then left it alone for weeks before it was requested off me. It was perfectly readable stuff but I kept feeling like I’d encountered this story before. It reminded me most of The Shadow Hour by Kate Riordan but was also trying for the edginess of early Sarah Waters. Now that I’ve DNFed Macneal’s two latest novels, I think it’s time to stop trying her.

 

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, August 2024

By Rebecca Foster on | 17 Comments

It’s a Bank Holiday today here in the UK – if you have the day off, I hope you’re spending it a fun way. We’re on a day trip to Windsor Castle with friends who got free tickets through her work. Otherwise, there’s no way we would ever have gone: it’s very expensive, plus down with the monarchy and all that.

Thanks so much to Eleanor (here, here and here), Laura (the two images below) and Marcie for posting about their recent library reading!

Marina Sofia has posted a couple of relevant blogs, one a review of an Alberto Manguel book about his home library and the other a series of tempting photos of world libraries.

In the media: I loved this anti-censorship George Bernard Shaw quote posted by Book Riot on Instagram…

…and my heart was warmed by the story of Minnesota governor and current vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz installing a Little Free Library in the state capitol earlier this year. He gets my vote!

One volunteering day, a staff member told the strange-but-true story of an e-mail just received to the general libraries account. A solicitor presiding over an estate clearance let us know about a West Berkshire Libraries book found among their client’s effects, borrowed in early 1969 and never returned. Did we want it back? The consensus was that, as we’ve been doing fine without this book since BEFORE THE MOON LANDING, we will drop the issue.

Not exactly library related, but in other fun book news, I took a couple of online quizzes and got intriguing results:

My suggestion (for Angie Kim’s Happiness Falls) featured in the recent Faber Members’ summer reading recommendation round-up. And here’s that blog post I wrote for Foreword Reviews about the Bookshop Band’s new album and tour.

I’m hosting book club a week on Wednesday. Although it’s felt for a while like it might be doomed, the group has had a stay of execution at least until January. We took a break for the summer and at our July social everyone made enthusiastic noises about joining in with the four autumn and winter reads we voted on – plus we have two prospective new members who we hope will join us for the September meeting. So we’ll see how it goes.

 

My library use over the last month:

 

READ

 SKIMMED

  • Nature’s Ghosts: A History – and Future – of the Natural World by Sophie Yeo

CURRENTLY READING

  • One Garden against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate by Kate Bradbury
  • Clear by Carys Davies (for September book club)
  • Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson
  • The Garden against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
  • The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal
  • Late Light: Finding Home in the West Country by Michael Malay
  • The Song of the Whole Wide World: On Motherhood, Grief, and Poetry by Tamarin Norwood
  • The Echoes by Evie Wyld

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

  • Wasteland: The Dirty Truth about What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters by Oliver Franklin-Wallis
  • This Is My Sea by Miriam Mulcahy

 

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

  • The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
  • James by Percival Everett
  • Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
  • Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter by Kat Hill
  • The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes
  • Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee
  • Held by Anne Michaels
  • Playground by Richard Powers
  • Intermezzo by Sally Rooney

 

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

  • The Accidental Garden: The Plot Thickens by Richard Mabey

 

RETURNED UNFINISHED

  • The Cove: A Cornish Haunting by Beth Lynch – I enjoyed her previous memoir, and her writing is evocative, but this memoir about her return to the beloved site of childhood holidays lacks narrative drive. If you’re more familiar with the specific places, or can read it on location, you might be tempted to read the whole thing. I read 30 pages.

 

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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