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 Most of what I used to read via libraries has now been replaced by e-books downloaded from NetGalley and Edelweiss.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?