Lots of buzzy books this month, some of which lived up to the hype and some of which did not entirely. Many of these were requested after me, so I’ve had to be snappy and read them within three weeks. Most I’ve already written about here, but I give links to reviews of any that I haven’t already featured, and ratings for the ones I’ve read or skimmed. What have you been reading from your local library? Library Checkout runs on the last Monday of every month. I don’t have an official link-up system, but feel free to use this image in your post and to leave a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part.

READ

• Golden Child by Claire Adam
• On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons by Laura Cumming
• An Angel at My Table by Janet Frame [university library]
• Expectation by Anna Hope
• The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver [university library; a reread]
• Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
• The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann
• A Reckoning by May Sarton [university library]
• The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood

SKIMMED

• The Science of Fate: Why Your Future Is More Predictable than You Think by Hannah Critchlow
• The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy by Rachel Cusk
• The Garden Jungle: Or Gardening to Save the Planet by Dave Goulson
• The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton

CURRENTLY READING

• Time Song: Searching for Doggerland by Julia Blackburn
• Our Place: Can We Save Britain’s Wildlife before It Is Too Late? by Mark Cocker [set aside temporarily]
• Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene
• Bodies in Motion and at Rest by Thomas Lynch [university library]
• The Electricity of Every Living Thing: One Woman’s Walk with Asperger’s by Katherine May
• Because: A Lyric Memoir by Joshua Mensch
• Dark Glasses by Blake Morrison [poetry; university library]
• Old Toffer’s Book of Dogs by Christopher Reid [poetry; university library]

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• The Night Boat to Tangier by Kevin Barry
• The Porpoise by Mark Haddon
• The Hidden Ways: Scotland’s Forgotten Roads by Alistair Moffat

I’ve also had a recent stock-up on university library books via my husband – not that I needed any more books!

• Intoxicated by My Illness by Anatole Broyard
• Meet the Austins by Madeleine L’Engle
• Autumn Journal by Louis MacNeice
• Becoming a Man: Half a Life Story by Paul Monette

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• The Lost Art of Scripture by Karen Armstrong
• If Only I Could Tell You by Hannah Beckerman
• The Easternmost House: A Year of Life on the Edge of England by Juliet Blaxland
• The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
• The Confession by Jessie Burton
• A Single Thread by Tracy Chevalier
• The School of Life: An Emotional Education by Alain de Botton
• Akin by Emma Donoghue
• A Short History of Falling: Everything I Observed about Love whilst Dying by Joe Hammond
• Starve Acre by Andrew Michael Hurley
• The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy
• I Never Said I Loved You by Rhik Samadder
• The Poetry Pharmacy Returns: More Prescriptions for Courage, Healing and Hope by William Sieghart
• Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
• The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Multitudes: Eleven Stories by Lucy Caldwell – I enjoyed the short opener, “The Ally Ally O,” which describes a desultory ride in the car with mother and sisters with second-person narration and no speech marks. I should have given up on “Thirteen,” though, a tired story of a young teen missing her best friend; she tries drinking, boys and parties, but her heart’s not really in it. I couldn’t face any more stories of troubled adolescence.
• How to Treat People: A Nurse’s Notes by Molly Case – I read the first 77 pages. Her writing about her nursing training and the patients she encountered is pleasant enough, but I found the structure (Airway – Breathing – Circulation – Disability – Exposure) clichéd and too similar to the Aoife Abbey book I DNFed earlier in the year. If you’re going to read a book about nursing it might as well be Christie Watson’s The Language of Kindness.
• I Want to Show You More by Jamie Quatro – I read the first two stories, a total of 18 pages. “Decomposition,” about a woman’s lover magically becoming a physical as well as emotional weight on her and her marriage, has an interesting structure as well as second-person narration, but I fear the collection as a whole will just be a one-note treatment of a woman’s obsession with her affair. The same goes for Fire Sermon, which I’m taking off my TBR.
• Three Women by Lisa Taddeo – I read the Author’s note and Prologue; I skimmed the Epilogue. That was enough. I feel about this book the way I did about My Absolute Darling: so many have acclaimed it as brilliant, but I don’t feel any need to expose myself to the disturbing content. Many trusted reviewers have concluded that, despite her stated aims, Taddeo doesn’t say anything original about female desire.

RETURNED UNREAD

• How Do You Like Me Now? by Holly Bourne – lost interest; wasn’t drawn in by the first few pages.
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Díaz – This was a university library book that sat on my bedside shelf for … months? Maybe even years? I finally decided it was time to let it go. Perhaps another time.
• When All Is Said by Anne Griffin – Well, this is a first: The book is so heavily perfumed from its last borrower’s wrists that I can’t bear to read this paperback; I’ll have to place a reserve on the hardback instead to ensure I don’t encounter this copy again.
• The Wall by John Lanchester – lost interest; wasn’t drawn in by the first few pages.
• Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon – Just glancing at the first few pages was daunting enough. I thought this historical fiction epic about the eighteenth-century surveyors’ travels sounded like the Pynchon I’d enjoy most and would make a good doorstopper. But it hung around for so many months unread that, like Oscar Wao, I finally gave up on it.
• The Farm by Joanne Ramos – lost interest; wasn’t drawn in by the first few pages.

Does anything appeal from my stacks?

Lots of library books in progress or waiting in the wings; not so many that I’ve actually managed to read this month. I give links to reviews of any books that I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way, and ratings for all the ones I’ve read or skimmed. What have you been reading from your local library? Library Checkout runs on the last Monday of every month. I don’t have an official link-up system, but feel free to use this image in your post and to leave a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part.

READ

• Exposure by Helen Dunmore
• City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
• The Crossway by Guy Stagg
• Frankissstein: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson

SKIMMED

• Flight Risk: The Highs and Lows of Life as a Doctor at Heathrow Airport by Dr. Stephanie Green

CURRENTLY READING

• How to Treat People: A Nurse’s Notes by Molly Case
• Our Place: Can We Save Britain’s Wildlife before It Is Too Late? by Mark Cocker
• An Angel at My Table by Janet Frame
• Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
• The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Time Song: Searching for Doggerland by Julia Blackburn
• How Do You Like Me Now? by Holly Bourne
• Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene
• The Sun Does Shine by Anthony Ray Hinton
• Expectation by Anna Hope
• The Electricity of Every Living Thing: One Woman’s Walk with Asperger’s by Katherine May
• Because: A Lyric Memoir by Joshua Mensch
• I Want to Show You More by Jamie Quatro
• The Farm by Joanne Ramos
• The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood

ON HOLD, TO BE CHECKED OUT

• On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons by Laura Cumming
• Three Women by Lisa Taddeo

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Golden Child by Claire Adam
• If Only I Could Tell You by Hannah Beckerman
• The Easternmost House: A Year of Life on the Edge of England by Juliet Blaxland
• The Science of Fate: Why Your Future Is More Predictable than You Think by Hannah Critchlow
• The Last Supper: A Summer in Italy by Rachel Cusk
• The Garden Jungle: Or Gardening to Save the Planet by Dave Goulson
• When All Is Said by Anne Griffin
• The Porpoise by Mark Haddon
• The Wall by John Lanchester
• The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy
• I Never Said I Loved You by Rhik Samadder
• Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Stroke: A 5% Chance of Survival by Ricky Monahan Brown
• How to Catch a Mole: And Find Yourself in Nature by Marc Hamer

RETURNED UNREAD

• Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
• How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned from Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day
• The Years by Annie Ernaux
• The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
• Under the Camelthorn Tree: Raising a Family among Lions by Kate Nicholls

I lost interest in all of these, plus there were holds after me on the first three.

Does anything appeal from my stacks?

(A rare second post in a day from me, but Library Checkout runs on the last Monday of the month, no matter what!)

I’ve been slowly chipping away at several nonfiction library books (memoir, nature, travel) – with the exception of bestsellers that are requested after me; these I always have to read within two or three weeks.

On Friday I picked up Elizabeth Gilbert’s City of Girls from the library, expecting that there would be huge demand for it, but at the moment it hasn’t got any holds after me. I doubt I’ll want to take such a large hardback on the train to Milan next week, though, so I’ll hope to get straight into it on our return.

I give links to reviews of any books that I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way, and ratings for all. What have you been reading from your local library? I don’t have an official link-up system, so please just pop a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout this month. Feel free to use the above image in your post.

READ

• Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns by Kerry Hudson
• The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
• The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal

SKIMMED

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon
• The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us: A Diary by Emma Mitchell
• The Seasons, a Faber & Faber / BBC Radio 4 poetry anthology

CURRENTLY READING

• Stroke: A 5% Chance of Survival by Ricky Monahan Brown
• An Angel at My Table by Janet Frame
• How to Catch a Mole and Find Yourself in Nature by Marc Hamer
• The Crossway by Guy Stagg

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• How Do You Like Me Now? by Holly Bourne
• How to Treat People: A Nurse’s Notes by Molly Case
• Our Place: Can We Save Britain’s Wildlife before It Is Too Late? by Mark Cocker
• The Years by Annie Ernaux
• City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene
• The Electricity of Every Living Thing: One Woman’s Walk with Asperger’s by Katherine May
• Because: A Lyric Memoir by Joshua Mensch
• Under the Camelthorn Tree: Raising a Family among Lions by Kate Nicholls
• The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann

ON HOLD, TO BE CHECKED OUT

• Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
• Frankisstein: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• On the Marsh: A Year Surrounded by Wildness and Wet by Simon Barnes
• On Chapel Sands: My Mother and Other Missing Persons by Laura Cumming
• How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned from Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day
• The School of Life by Alain de Botton
• The Garden Jungle: Or Gardening to Save the Planet by Dave Goulson
• Flight Risk: The Highs and Lows of Life as a Doctor at Heathrow Airport by Dr. Stephanie Green
• The Porpoise by Mark Haddon
• Expectation by Anna Hope
• The Summer Book by Tove Jansson
• Sweet Sorrow by David Nicholls
• Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
• Three Women by Lisa Taddeo
• The Hiding Game by Naomi Wood

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• A Pocket Mirror by Janet Frame
• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Does anything appeal from my stacks?

A more modest library reading month for me as we were off to America midway through – I’ve taken the Chabon with me to finish off by the 31st for my Doorstopper of the Month post, but my 15 holds are suspended until we come back. I give links to reviews of any books that I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way, and ratings for all.

What have you been reading from your local library? I don’t have an official link-up system, so please just pop a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout this month. Feel free to use this image in your post.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
• Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
• The Butcher’s Hands [poetry] by Catherine Smith
• A Farmer’s Diary: A Year at High House Farm by Sally Urwin

SKIMMED

• Horizon by Barry Lopez

CURRENTLY READING

• The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay by Michael Chabon

(Set aside temporarily)

• An Angel at My Table by Janet Frame
• A Pocket Mirror by Janet Frame
• The Crossway by Guy Stagg

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

• The Seasons, a Faber & Faber / BBC Radio 4 poetry anthology

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Stroke: A 5% Chance of Survival by Ricky Monahan Brown
• Our Place: Can We Save Britain’s Wildlife before It Is Too Late? by Mark Cocker
• How to Catch a Mole and Find Yourself in Nature by Marc Hamer
• The Music Shop by Rachel Joyce
• Because: A Lyric Memoir by Joshua Mensch
• Under the Camelthorn Tree: Raising a Family among Lions by Kate Nicholls
• The Pine Islands by Marion Poschmann
• The Lost Properties of Love: An Exhibition of Myself by Sophie Ratcliffe

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• On the Marsh: A Year Surrounded by Wildness and Wet by Simon Barnes
• How Do You Like Me Now? by Holly Bourne
• Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
• How to Treat People: A Nurse’s Notes by Molly Case
• How to Fail: Everything I’ve Ever Learned from Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day
• The Years by Annie Ernaux
• City of Girls by Elizabeth Gilbert
• Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene
• Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns by Kerry Hudson
• The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
• The Electricity of Every Living Thing: One Woman’s Walk with Asperger’s by Katherine May
• The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us: A Diary by Emma Mitchell
• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
• Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
• Frankisstein: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson

RETURNED UNREAD

• Joinedupwriting by Roger McGough (lost interest)
• First Time Ever by Peggy Seeger (requested after me; I’ll try again sometime)

Does anything appeal from my stacks?

This was a huge library reading month for me! I finished off a lot of books that I’d started last month, several of which were requested after me, and picked up a novel from the Women’s Prize longlist plus a few that have attracted a lot of buzz. Looking ahead, I’ve placed holds on a bunch of recent nonfiction: nature, medicine, current events and essays. [I give links to reviews of any books that I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way, and ratings for all.]

What have you been reading from your local library? I don’t have an official link-up system, so please just pop a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout this month. Feel free to use this image in your post.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• A Breath of French Air, H.E. Bates
• 21st-Century Yokel by Tom Cox
• Murmur by Will Eaves
• Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors by Caroline Elton
• Ordinary People by Diana Evans
• Faces in the Water by Janet Frame
• The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway
• Injury Time by Clive James [poetry]
• Lanny by Max Porter
• The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid
• Daisy Jones & the Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Bottled Goods by Sophie van Llewyn
• The Dreamers, Karen Thompson Walker

SKIMMED

• Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-wage Britain by James Bloodworth
• It’s All a Game: A Short History of Board Games by Tristan Donovan
• The Village News: The Truth behind England’s Rural Idyll by Tom Fort
• Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World by Lyndall Gordon
• The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
• To Obama: With Love, Joy, Hate and Despair by Jeanne Marie Laskas
• Amateur: A Reckoning with Gender, Identity and Masculinity by Thomas Page McBee [a look back through before finalizing our Wellcome Book Prize shadow panel vote]
• Lost and Found: Memory, Identity, and Who We Become when We’re No Longer Ourselves by Jules Montague
• Still Water: The Deep Life of the Pond by John Lewis-Stempel
• The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future by David Wallace-Wells

CURRENTLY READING

• Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
• The Crossway by Guy Stagg

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

• The Seasons, a Faber & Faber / BBC Radio 4 poetry anthology (the “Spring” section, naturally)

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Stroke: A 5% Chance of Survival by Ricky Monahan Brown
• Because: A Lyric Memoir by Joshua Mensch
• The Lost Properties of Love: An Exhibition of Myself by Sophie Ratcliffe
• First Time Ever by Peggy Seeger
• The Butcher’s Hands [poetry] by Catherine Smith

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

• Our Place: Can We Save Britain’s Wildlife before It Is Too Late? by Mark Cocker
• How to Catch a Mole and Find Yourself in Nature by Marc Hamer
• Under the Camelthorn Tree: Raising a Family among Lions by Kate Nicholls

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• How to Treat People: A Nurse’s Notes by Molly Case
• Once More We Saw Stars by Jayson Greene
• Lowborn: Growing Up, Getting Away and Returning to Britain’s Poorest Towns by Kerry Hudson
• Horizon by Barry Lopez
• The Doll Factory by Elizabeth Macneal
• The Electricity of Every Living Thing: One Woman’s Walk with Asperger’s by Katherine May
• Machines Like Me by Ian McEwan
• The Wild Remedy: How Nature Mends Us: A Diary by Emma Mitchell
• Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata
• Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
• A Farmer’s Diary: A Year at High House Farm by Sally Urwin
• Frankisstein: A Love Story by Jeanette Winterson

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Seven Signs of Life: Stories from an Intensive Care Doctor by Aoife Abbey
• Remembered by Yvonne Battle-Felton

RETURNED UNREAD

• The Pebbles on the Beach: A Spotter’s Guide by Clarence Ellis
• Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli
• Taking the Arrow out of the Heart by Alice Walker [poetry]
• The Face Pressed against a Window: A Memoir by Tim Waterstone

(I lost interest in all of these.)

Does anything appeal from my stacks?

A rare second post in a day from me since I was also committed to a blog tour. What have you been reading from your local library? I don’t have an official link-up system, so please just pop a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout this month. Feel free to use this image in your post.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family by Garrard Conley
• Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot [poetry]
• Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds
• “My Purple Scented Novel” by Ian McEwan
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Absent in the Spring by “Mary Westmacott” (aka Agatha Christie)

SKIMMED

• Yesterday Morning by Diana Athill – I had read this back in 2012, but looked over it again for an article I was writing on Athill.
• Have You Eaten Grandma? by Gyles Brandreth
• Let’s Talk about Death (over Dinner): An Invitation and Guide to Life’s Most Important Conversation by Michael Hebb
• The Roasting Tin by Rukmini Iyer
• The Secret Lives of Colour by Kassia St. Clair

CURRENTLY READING

• Murmur by Will Eaves
• Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors by Caroline Elton
• Ordinary People by Diana Evans
• Faces in the Water by Janet Frame
• The Garden of Eden by Ernest Hemingway
• Injury Time by Clive James [poetry]
• Lanny by Max Porter
• The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

• To Obama: With love, joy, hate and despair by Jeanne Marie Laskas

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ (or skimmed)

• Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-wage Britain by James Bloodworth
• It’s All a Game: A Short History of Board Games by Tristan Donovan
• The Pebbles on the Beach: A Spotter’s Guide by Clarence Ellis
• Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World by Lyndall Gordon
• Lost and Found: Memory, Identity, and Who We Become when We’re No Longer Ourselves by Jules Montague
• Taking the Arrow out of the Heart by Alice Walker [poetry]
• The Uninhabitable World: A Story of the Future by David Wallace-Wells
• The Face Pressed against a Window: A Memoir by Tim Waterstone

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

• A Breath of French Air, H.E. Bates
• Still Water: The Deep Life of the Pond by John Lewis-Stempel
• The Dreamers, Karen Thompson Walker

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Seven Signs of Life: Stories from an Intensive Care Doctor by Aoife Abbey
• How to Treat People: A Nurse’s Notes by Molly Case
• Our Place: Can We Save Britain’s Wildlife before It Is Too Late? by Mark Cocker
• 21st-Century Yokel by Tom Cox
• How to Catch a Mole and Find Yourself in Nature by Marc Hamer
• The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
• Horizon by Barry Lopez
• I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara
• Daisy Jones & the Six, Taylor Jenkins Reid
• Unnatural Causes by Richard Shepherd
• Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
• A Farmer’s Diary: A Year at High House Farm by Sally Urwin

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Hyperbole and a Half by Allie Brosh – I’d heard so much about this graphic novel, but I found the drawing style childish and didn’t get more than 10 pages in.
• Everybody Died, So I Got a Dog by Emily Dean – I couldn’t resist that title for a bereavement memoir, but within a couple pages I knew the author’s voice wasn’t for me.

RETURNED UNREAD

• Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon – I needed space on my card to borrow my reservations. I’ll get this back out another time, perhaps even for book club as some other members have expressed interest.

Does anything appeal from my stacks?

A somewhat lighter month, but with lots of skimming of books on topics that interest me: happiness, nature, mental health and self-help. The set of books that I’m currently reading is absolutely fantastic. (As usual, I’ve added in star ratings and links to Goodreads reviews where I haven’t already featured the books on the blog in some way.)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Silence in the Snowy Fields by Robert Bly [poetry]
• The Golden Tresses of the Dead by Alan Bradley
• Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
• A Light Song of Light by Kei Miller [poetry]

SKIMMED

• The Happy Brain: The Science of Where Happiness Comes From, and Why by Dean Burnett
• The Nature of Winter by Jim Crumley
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis
• Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions, Johann Hari
• The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal how to Make Your Life Better (And Other People’s Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin

CURRENTLY READING

• Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family by Garrard Conley
• Faces in the Water by Janet Frame
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• Absent in the Spring by “Mary Westmacott” (aka Agatha Christie)

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

• To Obama: With love, joy, hate and despair by Jeanne Marie Laskas

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Old Possum’s Book of Practical Cats by T.S. Eliot [poetry]
• Injury Time by Clive James [poetry]
• Taking the Arrow out of the Heart by Alice Walker [poetry]
• Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

Along with the rest of a new batch of university library books:

• An Angel at My Table by Janet Frame
• A Pocket Mirror by Janet Frame
• Becoming a Man by Paul Monette

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Seven Signs of Life: Stories from an Intensive Care Doctor by Aoife Abbey
• Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-wage Britain by James Bloodworth
• 21st-Century Yokel by Tom Cox
• Everybody Died, So I Got a Dog by Emily Dean
• Murmur by Will Eaves
• Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors by Caroline Elton
• Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds
• Outsiders: Five Women Writers Who Changed the World by Lyndall Gordon
• The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison
• Lost and Found: Memory, Identity, and Who We Become when We’re No Longer Ourselves by Jules Montague
• Lanny by Max Porter
• The World I Fell Out Of by Melanie Reid
• The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken
• Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith
• The Face Pressed against a Window: A Memoir by Tim Waterstone

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Louis & Louise by Julie Cohen – The prose is fine – easy to read, but nothing special. Though Cohen says she was inspired by Alderman’s The Power and Woolf’s Orlando, I don’t have faith that significant points will be made about gender identity.
• The Binding by Bridget Collins – I didn’t even make it through the first chapter. I was getting Diane Setterfield-lite vibes, but couldn’t imagine reading 400 pages of this.
• Orchid Summer: In Search of the Wildest Flowers of the British Isles by John Dunn –The writing is great; no question about that. But the book is so dense: so many words on a page, in such small type. Unless you’re a botany nut, I wouldn’t recommend it.
• Milkshakes and Morphine: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Genevieve Fox – Fox has some amusing turns of phrase when talking about her throat cancer and treatment, but this is way too long at over 370 pages of small print.

RETURNED UNREAD

• Daphne by Will Boast – I liked the voice in the first couple of pages and will definitely get this back out at another time.
• The Way of the Hare by Marianne Taylor – This felt more detailed and technical than I was looking for in a species overview.

What have you been reading from your local libraries? Does anything appeal from my stacks?

I don’t have an official link-up system, so please just pop a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout this month. (Feel free to use the image in your post.)

As soon as I was back from the States on the 1st, I set about refilling my library stack and my reservation queue. I’ve been reading a bunch of poetry and skimming a lot of nature and social science books, with plenty of fiction, self-help and medical material on the way.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Get Well Soon: Adventures in Alternative Healthcare by Nick Duerden 
• The Way Past Winter by Kiran Millwood Hargrave 
• A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes 
• Us by Zaffar Kunial [poetry] 
• Soho by Richard Scott [poetry] 
• Don’t Call Us Dead by Danez Smith [poetry] 

SKIMMED

• Rewild Yourself: 23 Spellbinding Ways To Make Nature More Visible by Simon Barnes 
• Making Winter: A Creative Guide for Surviving the Winter Months by Emma Mitchell 
• The Brief Life of Flowers by Fiona Stafford 
• Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations by Arnold van de Laar 

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

• The Nature of Winter by Jim Crumley
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• Take Courage: Anne Brontë and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis
• Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the Unexpected Solutions, Johann Hari
• The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal how to Make Your Life Better (And Other People’s Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Orchid Summer: In Search of the Wildest Flowers of the British Isles by John Dunn
• East of Eden by John Steinbeck
• The Way of the Hare by Marianne Taylor
• The Mary Westmacott Collection, Vol. 1 [the alias of Agatha Christie – I only plan to read the third book in the volume, Absent in the Spring]

ON HOLD, TO BE CHECKED OUT

• Daphne by Will Boast
• The Binding by Bridget Collins

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Hired: Six Months Undercover in Low-wage Britain by James Bloodworth
• Selected Poems by Edmund Blunden
• The Golden Tresses of the Dead by Alan Bradley
• The Happy Brain: The Science of Where Happiness Comes From, and Why by Dean Burnett
• Louis & Louise by Julie Cohen
• Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family by Garrard Conley
• Also Human: The Inner Lives of Doctors by Caroline Elton
• Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds
• Milkshakes and Morphine: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Genevieve Fox
• How to Break Up with Your Phone: The 30-Day Plan to Take Back Your Life by Catherine Price
• The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It’s Broken
• Growing Pains: Making Sense of Childhood: A Psychiatrist’s Story by Dr. Mike Shooter
• The Face Pressed against a Window: A Memoir by Tim Waterstone

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson – I read the first 85 pages in December and found I couldn’t get back into it after a number of weeks away.

RETURNED UNREAD

• Assurances by J.O. Morgan [poetry] – I opened to the first page and instantly thought, “Nope.” Poetry is so subjective that it’s hard to pinpoint what put me off, but the fragmentary phrasing felt simultaneously repetitive and overwritten, and I don’t think I’d realized this is basically one long war poem. I didn’t make it past page 1 and returned it to the library on my next trip. Of course I then felt sheepish when I saw it won the Costa Prize for Poetry …
• From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan – I’ve lost interest for the time being.

What have you been reading from your local libraries? Does anything appeal from my stacks?

I don’t have an official link-up system, so please just pop a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout this month. (Feel free to use the image in your post.)

A lighter month since I was trying to finish up review books I got from the publisher and get all my end-of-year posts together. My local library closed for refurbishment for the entire length of my Christmas trip to America – how convenient! – so my loans from earlier in the month aren’t due until the first week of January. When I say “currently” below it’s sort of a fib; I’ve set all these books aside temporarily and will get back into them once I’m back in the UK. (As usual, I’ve added in star ratings and links to Goodreads reviews where I haven’t already featured the books on the blog in some way.)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• West by Carys Davies 
• Becoming by Michelle Obama 
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger 
• Fox 8 by George Saunders 

SKIMMED

• Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts by Brené Brown 
• In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate the World by Simon Garfield 
• The Angry Chef: Bad Science and the Truth about Healthy Eating by Anthony Warner 

CURRENTLY READING

• A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes
• Us by Zaffar Kunial [poetry]
• The Sealwoman’s Gift by Sally Magnusson

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

• Rewild Yourself: 23 Spellbinding Ways To Make Nature More Visible by Simon Barnes
• Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations by Arnold van de Laar

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Orchid Summer: In Search of the Wildest Flowers of the British Isles by John Dunn
• The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco
• The Way Past Winter by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
• Mason & Dixon by Thomas Pynchon
• From a Low and Quiet Sea by Donal Ryan
• Soho by Richard Scott [poetry]
• Don’t Call Us Dead: Poems by Danez Smith
• The Mary Westmacott Collection, Vol. 1 [the alias of Agatha Christie – I only plan to read the third book in the volume, Absent in the Spring]

TO SKIM ONLY

• The Brief Life of Flowers by Fiona Stafford

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Selected Poems by Edmund Blunden
• Daphne by Will Boast
• Louis & Louise by Julie Cohen
• The Binding by Bridget Collins
• Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family by Garrard Conley
• The Nature of Winter by Jim Crumley
• Get Well Soon: Adventures in Alternative Healthcare by Nick Duerden
• Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds
• Milkshakes and Morphine: A Memoir of Love and Loss by Genevieve Fox
• Making Winter: A Creative Guide for Surviving the Winter Months by Emma Mitchell
• Assurances by J.O. Morgan [poetry]
• The Four Tendencies: The Indispensable Personality Profiles that Reveal how to Make Your Life Better (And Other People’s Lives Better, Too) by Gretchen Rubin
• The Way of the Hare by Marianne Taylor

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• House of Glass by Susan Fletcher
• Winter by Ali Smith

What have you been reading from your local libraries? Does anything appeal from my stacks?

I don’t have an official link-up system, so please just pop a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout this month. (Feel free to use the image in your post.)

This month I focused on novella-length books, though I also managed a doorstopper from the Booker Prize shortlist. I only have another three weeks until I fly to America for Christmas, so I may end up canceling some of the reservations below, or just taking a chance that they won’t come in for me until the new year. (As usual, I’ve added in star ratings and links to Goodreads reviews where I haven’t already featured the books on the blog in some way.)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Surfacing by Margaret Atwood 
• The Bus on Thursday by Shirley Barrett 
• Sincerity by Carol Ann Duffy [poetry] 
• The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway 
• Everything Under by Daisy Johnson 
• The Glorious Life of the Oak by John Lewis-Stempel 
• The Secret Life of the Owl by John Lewis-Stempel 
• Holloway by Robert Macfarlane 
• Ghost Wall by Sarah Moss 
• The Overstory by Richard Powers 
• Cassandra Darke by Posy Simmonds [graphic novel] 

CURRENTLY READING

• West by Carys Davies
• House of Glass by Susan Fletcher
• Becoming by Michelle Obama
• The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger
• Winter by Ali Smith

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

• In Miniature: How Small Things Illuminate the World by Simon Garfield
• Under the Knife: A History of Surgery in 28 Remarkable Operations by Arnold van de Laar

TO SKIM ONLY

• Rewild Yourself : 23 Spellbinding Ways To Make Nature More Visible by Simon Barnes
• Dare to Lead: Brave Work, Tough Conversations, Whole Hearts by Brené Brown
• The Angry Chef: Bad Science and the Truth about Healthy Eating by Anthony Warner

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Selected Poems by Edmund Blunden
• Daphne by Will Boast
• Louis & Louise by Julie Cohen
• The Binding by Bridget Collins
• Owl Sense by Miriam Darlington
• Dream Sequence by Adam Foulds
• A Honeybee Heart Has Five Openings by Helen Jukes
• Fox 8 by George Saunders
• The Brief Life of Flowers by Fiona Stafford

RETURNED UNFINISHED

• Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami – I cut my losses at page 120. At that point the story still hadn’t taken off. The setup is fairly similar to that of The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle, and so was not fresh or enticing enough.
• The House on Vesper Sands by Paraic O’Donnell – I read the first chapter (21 pages) and enjoyed it well enough, but didn’t feel any need to continue.
• The Man Who Came Uptown by George Pelecanos – I’m interested in trying more literary/crossover crime novels and liked the synopsis of this one, but didn’t enjoy the hardboiled style. I read the first 20 pages.

RETURNED UNREAD

• Varina by Charles Frazier – I tried the first few pages and wasn’t drawn in.
• The Tattooist of Auschwitz by Heather Morris – I put it down when I found a dangling modifier on page 2! Some people might be willing to look past issues of writing quality and appreciate a story, but I have so many hundreds of books waiting to be read that I am keen not to waste my time on anything even remotely subpar.
• The Long Take by Robin Robertson – Getting through 240 pages of a novel in verse was never really going to happen. (I managed about two.)
• The Mussel Feast by Birgit Vanderbeke – No chapters, okay. No heading breaks, maybe alright. But no paragraphs? That’s a step too far!

What have you been reading from your local libraries? Does anything appeal from my stacks?

I don’t have an official link-up system, so please just pop a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout this month. (Feel free to use the feature image in your post.)