Love Your Library, November 2025
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.
Love Your Library, October 2025
Thanks, as always, to Eleanor and Skai for posting about their recent library reading!
Library borrowing is often the only thing that allows me to follow literary prizes. My library system always acquires at least the entire shortlist for most major UK prizes; sometimes the longlist as well. It would be fair to say that I’ve not engaged with what I’ve read from the Booker Prize shortlist this year. I half-heartedly skimmed two novels (Choi and Miller) and swiftly DNFed another (Markovits; see below). The Desai isn’t going to happen any time soon due to the length, and I haven’t enjoyed Kitamura enough in the past to try her again. David Szalay is my last great hope! I remember liking his All that Man Is, so when I pick up Flesh from the library tomorrow I’ll be hoping that it jumps out at me as a potential winner.
My library use over the last month:
(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog; some reviews are still to come)
READ
- New Cemetery by Simon Armitage
- The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood
- Cathedral by Raymond Carver
- Dim Sum Palace by X. Fang
- The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness
- Endling by Maria Reva
- The Doctor Stories by William Carlos Williams
Naughty photo bomber on the dining table!
SKIMMED
- Flashlight by Susan Choi
- All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert
- The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading by Sam Leith
- Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
CURRENTLY READING
- The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
- Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
- Emil and the Detectives by Erich Kästner
- Misery by Stephen King
- Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
- Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
- Red Pockets: An Offering by Alice Mah
- Rainforest by Michelle Paver
- Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood
- Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann
- Super-Frog Saves Tokyo by Haruki Murakami
- The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy
ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED
- The Eights by Joanna Miller
- Flesh by David Szalay
- Notes on Infinity by Austin Taylor
- Lone Wolf: Walking the Faultlines of Europe by Adam Weymouth
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
- It’s Not a Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult by Kat Brown
- Look Closer: How to Get More out of Reading by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst
- Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
- Snegurochka by Judith Heneghan
- The Perimenopause Survival Guide: A Feel-Like-Yourself-Again Roadmap for Every Woman over 35 by Heather Hirsch
- Queen Esther by John Irving
- The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly
- Heart the Lover by Lily King
- Night Life: Walking Britain’s Wild Landscapes after Dark by John Lewis-Stempel
- The Shapeshifter’s Daughter by Sally Magnusson
- Winter by Val McDermid
Library pick-ups on my birthday; I perused them over a cappuccino at my favourite local coffeehouse. Also got a voucher for a free pair of socks (which I gave to my husband).
RETURNED UNREAD
- The Two Roberts by Damian Barr – Lost immediate interest.
- Opt Out by Carolina Setterwall – Lost immediate interest.
- Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth – Keeps being requested off me.
- Night Side of the River by Jeanette Winterson – I was put off by the endless introduction about the history of ghost stories, and at a glance none of the stories themselves jumped out at me.
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- The Ghost Cat by Alex Howard – Great premise but iffy writing/editing, including lots of “reigns”-instead-of-reins nonsense. I read 40-some pages.
- The Rest of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovits – THIS is one of the six best books of the past year!? I thought I’d try Markovits again after the lacklustre A Weekend in New York but I barely made it past page 10. What a boring voice!
- What We Can Know by Ian McEwan – I was tickled that the protagonist shares my birthday, but not at all drawn in. I read 20-some pages.
- The Lamb by Lucy Rose – The vampire novel I have on the go is enough for me for R.I.P. without cannibalism added on. I glanced at the first few pages.
- A Long Winter by Colm Tóibín – Jumping on that Claire Keegan stand-alone-story bandwagon. Except this story of an alcoholic mother and soldier brother was deathly dull. I read 30-some pages (in a small hardback with some supplementary material this is stretched out to 130+).
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.
Love Your Library, September 2025
Thanks, as always, to Eleanor for posting about her recent library reading! And thank you to Skai for joining in again.
Somehow over the summer I forgot to mark two anniversaries: my library’s 25th birthday (July), and five years of me volunteering there (August). When I first started as a volunteer, Covid was still a raging unknown and the library was closed to the public. I shelved returns in an empty building. It was blissful, in all honesty. But I know it’s perverse to be nostalgic about the pandemic. I still enjoy my Tuesday morning sessions of hunting for reservations, even when it’s (too) busy and noisy during the school holidays.
Early in the month, my husband and I went to an evening event at the library with Jasper Fforde. C is a fan, having read five of his novels, whereas I read The Eyre Affair during graduate school and found it silly – in the same way I can’t really get on with Douglas Adams or Terry Pratchett. But with tickets just £5, I thought why not go and support the library.
Fforde considers himself an “accidental author” for two reasons: one, he was seen as a stupid child who would never achieve anything – his dyslexia wasn’t diagnosed until he was in his fifties; and two, he wanted to work on films, and indeed did for a time. In 1988 he sat down to write a short story treatment of his intended film script and fell in love with the process of writing. He described it as being like a jigsaw where the words just fell into place. Thirteen years of hard work later, he made the New York Times bestseller list.
I didn’t realize that Fforde has lived fairly locally and set novels in Reading and Swindon – comic in itself because these are very unlovely towns. His first two series, nursery rhyme crime novels and the Thursday Next books (the eighth and last, Dark Reading Matter, is due out in September 2026), were about “moving the furniture around in people’s heads,” taking existing classic stories and twisting them. When he tried making things up, as with the Shades of Grey and Red Side Story duology and The Last Dragonslayer children’s books, the results were not as commercially successful. During the question time he reflected on the irony of his book getting confused with the blockbuster Fifty Shades of Grey. He joked that some probably bought his book by mistake and then wondered where the bondage was.
The evening was a conversation with the library staff member who seems to organise all the events. She asked him a lot of questions about his process. He listed a few tenets he lives by: “the narrative dare” (come up with a random idea and then figure out how to pull it off), “the path less-trodden,” and “the no-plan plan” (he makes it up as he goes along). His mind works like a drift net, he said, saving bits and pieces up to use another time, such as snippets of conversation overheard on a bus. For instance, “Oh my goodness, they’ve trodden on the gibbon!” and “They say haddock is making a comeback.” He also leaves himself “off-ramps” he can take up later if he ends up writing a sequel.
(C is at the bottom right of the second photo.)
Fforde was very personable and self-deprecating and I got more out of the event than I might have expected to.
My library use over the last month:
(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog)
READ
- The Most by Jessica Anthony
- Sojourn by Amit Chaudhuri
- The Wedding People by Alison Espach
- Of All that Ends, Günter Grass
- The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
- Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
SKIMMED
- Wild City by Ben Hoare
- The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller – The chilly writing and atmosphere suit the subject matter, but didn’t draw me in or make me care about the central characters.
- Cuddy by Benjamin Myers (for book club)
CURRENTLY READING
- Kairos by Jenny Erpenbeck
- Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
- Endling by Maria Reva
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood (for book club)
- Red Pockets: An Offering by Alice Mah
- Death in Venice and Other Stories by Thomas Mann
- Opt Out by Carolina Setterwall
- Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth
ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED
- The Two Roberts by Damian Barr
- All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert
- The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading by Sam Leith
- Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
- A Long Winter by Colm Tóibín
C will read the Sopel for book club, but I have to miss that meeting for a Repair Cafe committee meeting.
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- New Cemetery by Simon Armitage
- Book of Lives: A Memoir of Sorts by Margaret Atwood
- It’s Not a Bloody Trend: Understanding Life as an ADHD Adult by Kat Brown
- Flashlight by Susan Choi
- The Perimenopause Survival Guide: A Feel-Like-Yourself-Again Roadmap for Every Woman over 35 by Heather Hirsch
- Queen Esther by John Irving
- The Matchbox Girl by Alice Jolly
- Heart the Lover by Lily King
- Misery by Stephen King
- The Rest of Our Lives by Benjamin Markovits
- What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
- The Eights by Joanna Miller
- Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia
- Super-Frog Saves Tokyo by Haruki Murakami
- Rainforest by Michelle Paver
- Death of an Ordinary Man by Sarah Perry
- The Lamb by Lucy Rose
- Flesh by David Szalay
RETURNED UNREAD
- Fulfillment by Lee Cole – Argh, this keeps being requested off me!
- An Eye on the Hebrides by Mairi Hedderwick
- Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien
- The Artist by Lucy Steeds
I missed the moment on the last three but may try another time.
- The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde – I thought about giving him another try after the event, but … no.
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd – I read about 45 pages. The setup was interesting but the narrative voice did not captivate.
- The Names by Florence Knapp – Ditto, but only 25 pages. The writing was just not very good.
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.
Love Your Library, August 2025
Thanks to Eleanor for posting about her recent library reading, including for 20 Books of Summer (here and here). Thanks also to Skai for joining in again!
Further to last month: My library system’s reclassification seems all the stranger the more I look at it, especially in the children’s section. Yellow stickers will have: one black stripe (Beginner Reads), two black stripes (Short Chapter Books), three black stripes (Picture Books for Older Readers) or a T (Teen). Okay, that last one makes sense, but taking in the number of stripes at a quick glance when organising a trolley or shelving? Seems like a recipe for misfiling.
Also, as a member of senior staff astutely observed, surely the length of a book is the one thing you can tell just by looking at it! So why make that its own designation? Especially when those double-stripe books will be mixed in with the rest of the chapter books, which from now on will not be given a very helpful label on the spine with the first letter of the author’s surname.
It’s having the two systems on the go at the same time that is most confusing. Apparently, these changes were handed down from on high, to keep us in line with other libraries, but no one consulted with the people who actually handle the books on a day-to-day basis. As in, the staff and volunteers. Ahem. We shall see how it goes.
My library use over the last month:
(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog)
I’ve been borrowing some Booker and Wainwright Prize list reads, as well as looking ahead to our mid-September trip to Berlin and Novellas in November.
READ
- Good Night, Little Bookshop by Amy Cherrix
- Bothered by Bugs by Emily Gravett
- More Katie Morag Island Stories by Mairi Hedderwick
- The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
- The Dig by John Preston
Last month we joined my in-laws for a few days at the holiday cottage they’d rented in Suffolk. We crammed in loads: Orford Ness, a former military site with a very unusual shingle landscape where hares live and the wind howls; Minsmere RSPB reserve; and Sutton Hoo, the site of a famous Anglo-Saxon ship burial, discovered there during an archaeological dig of the mounds in 1939; and Woodbridge, the nearest town to the cottage, whose museum has a project underway to build a full-size replica of the ship. I didn’t put two and two together to realize that The Dig, adapted into a 2021 Netflix film starring Ralph Fiennes and Carey Mulligan (there was a big on-site exhibit about the filming), is about Sutton Hoo or I would have gotten it out of the library to take with us. Instead, I caught up afterward.
Preston focuses on the few spring and summer months of Basil Brown’s amateur excavation, which was then co-opted by museum professionals. Edith Pretty, the landowner, was a widow in her fifties, raising her plucky son Robert on her own and struggling with ill health (she had Robert at age 47, almost unheard of in those days, and would die after a stroke in 1942). The day to day of the excavation was engrossing and I enjoyed the interactions between Brown and Pretty. I didn’t need the third narrator, Peggy Piggott, wife of one of the archaeologists and excavation staff in her own right, nor the extra background about characters’ marriages and museum bureaucracy. Meanwhile, the epilogue from Robert returning to the site in the 1960s made me wish that there had been more of that retrospective viewpoint. This was enjoyable in a minor way but I wouldn’t have read it had I not been to Sutton Hoo. I wonder if the film would be, on the whole, more successful.
SKIMMED
- I Think I Like Girls by Rosie Day – I took a desultory look but the content seemed pretty lite and the writing style iffy. (Hadn’t heard of Day but I guess she’s a celebrity?)
SKIMMING
- Cuddy by Benjamin Myers (for book club; I also skimmed it when it first came out)
CURRENTLY READING
- The Most by Jessica Anthony
- The Honesty Box by Luzy Brazier
- Bellies by Nicola Dinan
- The Wedding People by Alison Espach
- The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
- An Eye on the Hebrides by Mairi Hedderwick
- The Mermaid Chair by Sue Monk Kidd
- Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
- The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller
- The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by James Patterson & Matt Eversmann
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
It’s nearly time for Novellas in November planning! Thus I borrowed a quartet of books from the university library (the bottom stack below), two of which were recommended by blog friends: the Barker (Blow Your House Down) by Margaret and the Hesse by Kaggsy. The Kertesz is on my radar thanks to C’s bandmate Jo. And I’ve enjoyed the two Sagan novellas I’ve read so far so thought I’d source another.
ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED
- Sojourn by Amit Chaudhuri
- The Names by Florence Knapp
- Love in Five Acts by Daniela Krien
- Red Pockets: An Offering by Alice Mah
- Birding by Rose Ruane
- Opt Out by Carolina Setterwall
- Slags by Emma Jane Unsworth
- Seascraper by Benjamin Wood
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- The Two Roberts by Damian Barr
- All the Way to the River by Elizabeth Gilbert
- Helm by Sarah Hall
- The Haunted Wood: A History of Childhood Reading by Sam Leith
- What We Can Know by Ian McEwan
- The Eights by Joanna Miller
- Endling by Maria Reva
- Buckeye by Patrick Ryan
- Flesh by David Szalay
RETURNED UNREAD
- 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
I lost immediate interest in all of these but would be willing to try them again 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.
Love Your Library, July 2025
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.
Love Your Library, June 2025
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
- Good Girl by Aria Aber
- Moving the Millers’ Minnie Moore Mine Mansion by Dave Eggers
- Self-Portrait with Family by Amaan Hyder
- May Day by Jackie Kay
- Spring: The Story of a Season by Michael Morpurgo
- The Age of Diagnosis: Sickness, Health and Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far by Suzanne O’Sullivan
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.
Love Your Library, May 2025
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.
Love Your Library, April 2025
Thanks to Eleanor, Laura, Marcie, and Skai for posting about their recent library reading!
Sadly, my library system’s Mobile Library service closed down recently.
New at the library, however, is a digital piano, which can only be played with headphones on.
I was delighted to come across Lucy Mangan’s paean to Bromley Library in Bookish: “it was ugly as sin. Unlike my beloved Torridon, it was modern. Its cold, stark, straight lines, metal bookshelves and thin polyester carpeting … amplified every sound. … But it had more books than Torridon. Lots more books. More books in one place than I had ever seen. … And it had a secret. Behind a set of unassuming double doors was hiding a silent reading room and a reference library.” It was a sacred space for her even when she wasn’t borrowing books.
My library use over the last month:
(links are to books not already reviewed on the blog)
READ
- The Things He Carried by Stephen Cottrell (from my church’s theological library)
- Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
- Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
- We Do Not Part by Han Kang
- Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan
- Poetry Unbound by Pádraig Ó Tuama
- The Leopard in My House: One Man’s Adventures in Cancerland by Mark Steel
SKIMMED
- The Courage to Be by Paul Tillich
CURRENTLY READING
- Spring Is the Only Season: How It Works, What It Does and Why It Matters by Simon Barnes
- Women by Chloe Caldwell
- All Fours by Miranda July
- Stoner by John Williams (a reread for May book club)
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (for June book club)
- A Conversation with a Cat by Hilaire Belloc
- Day by Michael Cunningham
- The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time by Helen Gordon
- Period Power: Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working for You by Maisie Hill
- I Am Not a Tourist by Daisy J. Hung
- The Forgotten Sense: The Nose and the Perception of Smell by Jonas Olofsson
- The Waiting Rooms by Eve Smith
ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP
- Bellies by Nicola Dinan
- Looking After: A Portrait of My Autistic Brother by Caroline Elton
- Rebel Bodies: A Guide to the Gender Health Gap Revolution by Sarah Graham
- Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
- The Secret Lives of Booksellers and Librarians: True Stories of the Magic of Reading by James Patterson & Matt Eversmann
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- Good Girl by Aria Aber
- Don’t Forget We’re Here Forever: A New Generation’s Search for Religion by Lamorna Ash
- A Sharp Scratch by Heather Darwent
- The Husbands by Holly Gramazio
- Normally Weird and Weirdly Normal: My Adventures in Neurodiversity by Robin Ince
- The Homemade God by Rachel Joyce
- Enchanted Ground: Growing Roots in a Broken World by Steven Lovatt
- Is a River Alive? by Robert Macfarlane
- Whisky Galore by Compton Mackenzie
- The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji
- Spring: The Story of a Season by Michael Morpurgo
- Ripeness by Sarah Moss
- The Age of Diagnosis: Sickness, Health and Why Medicine Has Gone Too Far by Suzanne O’Sullivan
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes – The type is so small in the paperback that I couldn’t cope. I will have to get this on Kindle or secondhand in hardback sometime.
- Fundamentally by Nussaibah Younis – The first couple of short chapters were entertaining enough but a little bit try-hard. I decided to focus on other things.
RETURNED UNREAD
- Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley – The first pages weren’t gripping and it was requested after me. Let me know if it’s worth trying again another time.
- Sarn Helen by Tom Bullough – It’s at least the second time I’ve had this out from the library, thinking it would be a perfect one to take on holiday to Wales, and not read it. I glanced at the first few pages but, you know, I don’t actually enjoy most long-distance walking adventure books.
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.
Love Your Library, March 2025
Thanks to Eleanor, Marcie, and Naomi for posting about their recent library reads!
The library is the place with all the answers, as the below passage from When the Stammer Came to Stay by Maggie O’Farrell has it. The illustrations place this children’s book in a timeless past, perhaps somewhere between the 1920s and 1950s.
A major character in Every Day Is Mother’s Day by Hilary Mantel also heads to a library when looking for important information, but she is dismayed to find how much it has modernized (this is set in 1974):
“The library had changed a good deal, she noticed. The old wooden desks had gone, and the newspapers in racks. There were low vinyl seats that an elderly person could not get in and out of comfortably. There were modern pictures on the wall, sunbursts of yellow and orange, and a part marked ‘Children’s Play Area’. Children did not play in it, but ran about, loud and healthy. Fluttering notices on a cork board advertised yoga classes and Community Welfare Programmes, play-groups and Councillor’s Surgeries. People talked quite unashamedly in ordinary voices; there had only been an odd subdued whisper in the past”
We did actually have an anonymous complaint in the library comments book the other week about it being pretty loud for a library. I can only shrug. We don’t have any rules against phone use; patrons come to use the wi-fi and often do Zoom calls or interviews. I, too, would miss the silence if I came for a place to study.
My library use over the last month:
(links to books not already reviewed on the blog)
READ
- Mama’s Sleeping Scarf by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
- Old Soul by Susan Barker
- Every Day Is Mother’s Day by Hilary Mantel
- When the Stammer Came to Stay by Maggie O’Farrell
- Long Island by Colm Tóibín
- Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
CURRENTLY READING
- The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes
- We Do Not Part by Han Kang
- The Leopard in My House: One Man’s Adventures in Cancerland by Mark Steel
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Day by Michael Cunningham
- The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time by Helen Gordon
- Period Power: Harness Your Hormones and Get Your Cycle Working for You by Maisie Hill
- The Forgotten Sense: The Nose and the Perception of Smell by Jonas Olofsson
+ a bunch of London guides for advance planning for my sister’s visit in July
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- Case Histories by Kate Atkinson (for book club)
- Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
- Time of the Child by Niall Williams
- Rebel Bodies: A Guide to the Gender Health Gap Revolution by Sarah Graham
ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP
- The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
- Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
- Sarn Helen: A Journey through Wales, Past, Present and Future by Tom Bullough (to take to Hay-on-Wye)
- Maggie Blue and the White Crow by Anna Goodall
- Broken Country by Clare Leslie Hall
- I Am Not a Tourist by Daisy J. Hung
- Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan
- The Walking Cure: Harness The Life-Changing Power of Landscape to Heal, Energise and Inspire by Annabel Streets
RETURNED UNREAD
- Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum – Too close to reality right now.
- Homesickness by Colin Barrett – Borrowed as a potential Reading Ireland Month book, but I couldn’t get into it.
- I Want to Talk to You: And Other Conversations by Diana Evans – Requested off me plus (this will sound really shallow) her spoken delivery was so bad on the Women’s Prize longlist announcement video that I was put off reading her.
- After a Dance by Bridget O’Connor – Same as for the Barrett.
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.
Love Your Library, February 2025
Thanks, as always, to Elle for posting about her recent library reading!
Libraries are havens, whatever the circumstances. Coinciding with me on my volunteering days are an unhoused man who sits outside using the wifi on a laptop until opening time, a blind flower arranger, bus drivers on loo breaks, and an intellectually disabled man who repeats excellent catch phrases, all to do with Christmas. It’s a space available to all.
My library use over the last month:
(links to books not already reviewed on the blog)
READ
- Travels in the Scriptorium by Paul Auster
- Baumgartner by Paul Auster
- The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo
- Myself & Other Animals by Gerald Durrell
- Maurice and Maralyn: An Extraordinary True Story of Shipwreck, Survival and Love by Sophie Elmhirst
- The God of the Woods by Liz Moore
(& the children’s books pictured below)
CURRENTLY READING
- The Black Bird Oracle by Deborah Harkness
- Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Pádraig Ó Tuama
- Long Island by Colm Tóibín (for book club)
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Keep Love: 21 Truths for a Long-Lasting Relationship by Paul Brunson
- Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus (to skim back through for Literary Wives)
- The Forgotten Sense: The Nose and the Perception of Smell by Jonas Olofsson
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- Deep Cuts by Holly Brickley
- Raising Hare by Chloe Dalton
- I Want to Talk to You: And Other Conversations by Diana Evans
- We Do Not Part by Han Kang
- I Am Not a Tourist by Daisy J. Hung
- Bookish: How Reading Shapes Our Lives by Lucy Mangan
- When the Stammer Came to Stay by Maggie O’Farrell
- The Leopard in My House: One Man’s Adventures in Cancerland by Mark Steel
- Three Days in June by Anne Tyler
- Time of the Child by Niall Williams
ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP
- Autocracy, Inc. by Anne Applebaum
- Old Soul by Susan Barker
- Day by Michael Cunningham
- The Meteorites: Encounters with Outer Space and Deep Time by Helen Gordon
- Rebel Bodies: A Guide to the Gender Health Gap Revolution by Sarah Graham
- Period Power by Maisie Hill
- The Alternatives by Caoilinn Hughes
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- Confessions by Catherine Airey – I actually read the first 160 pages and enjoyed the first section about Cora in New York City in the wake of 9/11, but once the focus moved to her aunts in Ireland in the 1970s I failed to see a point.
- Unearthing: A Story of Tangled Love and Family Secrets by Kyo Maclear – I made it 50 or so pages into this last year but found it repetitive and elliptical. Dani Shapiro’s Inheritance, which tells quite a similar story (of finding out that the person the author always considered her father was not genetically related to her and that she was conceived by a sperm donor instead), was more engaging.
RETURNED UNREAD
- Newborn: Running Away, Breaking from the Past, Building a New Family by Kerry Hudson – I’m not sure why I requested this given I wasn’t impressed with Lowborn.
- Black Woods, Blue Sky by Eowyn Ivey – Requested off me; will try another time.
- The Coast Road by Alan Murrin – I don’t have time to focus on it now but might get it back out later in the year.
- No Filters: A Mother and Teenage Daughter Love Story by Christie Watson – The premise appealed to me but when I actually opened it up it looked scattered and lite.
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.
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 