I’ve been doing pretty well with my goal of reading mostly books that I own, but have also managed to squeeze in a handful from public and university libraries. Next month may well be full of library reads, though – I went a little wild with the free reservations! I’ve added in ratings and links to any reviews for books I haven’t already featured on the blog in some way.

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Love of Country: A Hebridean Journey by Madeleine Bunting 
• Safest by Michael Donaghy [poetry] 
• Blackout: Remembering the Things I Drank to Forget by Sarah Hepola 
• The Church Mice at Christmas by Graham Oakley 
• Falling Awake by Alice Oswald [poetry] 
• Quartet in Autumn by Barbara Pym 
• Say Something Back by Denise Riley [poetry] 
• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis 
  

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LIBRARY BOOKS SKIMMED

• Rainy Brain, Sunny Brain: The New Science of Optimism and Pessimism by Elaine Fox
• Fresh India: 130 Quick, Easy and Delicious Vegetarian Recipes for Every Day by Meera Sodha
  

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CURRENTLY READING

• From Me to You: Love Poems by U.A. Fanthorpe and R.V. Bailey
• Family Life by Akhil Sharma
• The January Man: A Year of Walking Britain by Christopher Somerville

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Pondlife: A Swimmer’s Journal by Al Alvarez
• Short and Sweet: 101 Very Short Poems, edited by Simon Armitage
• The Unexpected Professor: An Oxford Life in Books by John Carey
• The Tell-Tale Heart by Jill Dawson
• Nonsense by Christopher Reid [poetry]
  

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IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• Go Lean Vegan: The Revolutionary 30-Day Diet Plan to Lose Weight and Feel Great by Christine Bailey
• Swimming Lessons by Claire Fuller
• Quick and Easy Thai Recipes by Jean-Pierre Gabriel
• The Owl at the Window: A Memoir of Loss and Hope by Carl Gorham
• A Smell of Burning: The Story of Epilepsy by Colin Grant
• Bad Dreams and Other Stories by Tessa Hadley
• The Good People by Hannah Kent
• Where Poppies Blow: The British Soldier, Nature, the Great War by John Lewis-Stempel
• The No Spend Year: How I Spent Less and Lived More by Michelle McGagh
• Reading Allowed: True Stories and Curious Incidents from a Provincial Library by Chris Paling
• A Beginner’s Guide to Losing Your Mind: Survival Techniques for Staying Sane by Emily Reynolds
• The Best of Adam Sharp by Graeme Simsion

RETURNED UNREAD

• Talk to the Tail: Adventures in Cat Ownership and Beyond by Tom Cox: A glance at the table of contents revealed that most of the essays were not about cats. Rip-off!
• Sunshine by Melissa Lee-Houghton: This was also on the Costa Poetry Award shortlist, so I picked it up from a display at the same time I got the Oswald and Riley. I flicked through and it didn’t seem like it would be for me.
• Woods etc by Alice Oswald: I tried this just before Falling Awake (see above) and didn’t make it past the first few pages.

Have you been taking advantage of your local libraries? What appeals from my lists?

I’m winding down with public and university library books for the year and hope to get to the end of the stacks before 2016 is out. I read some terrific books this month! Some of them I’ve already talked about here, and others I may feature in a future post or two. (I’ve given ratings for all the books I finished, and added links to Goodreads for those I managed to review.)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Hag-Seed: The Tempest Retold by Margaret Atwood 
• Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes 
• Open City by Teju Cole 
• Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal 
• The Yellow House on the Corner by Rita Dove (poetry) 
• Squirrel Pie (and other stories): Adventures in Food across the Globe by Elisabeth Luard 
• Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann 
• Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich (poetry) 
• As We Are Now by May Sarton 
• The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler 
• Autumn by Ali Smith 
• The Pursuit of Happiness: Why Are We Driving Ourselves Crazy and How Can We Stop? by Ruth Whippman 

CURRENTLY READING

• Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Cat Sense by John Bradshaw [to skim only, I think]
• Poetry Notebook, 2006–2014 by Clive James [to skim only, I think]
• A Mother’s Reckoning by Sue Klebold
• All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
• What Nature Does for Britain by Tony Juniper [to skim only, I think]

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

• The Cat Who Came for Christmas, Cleveland Amory
• The Cat Who Stayed for Christmas, Cleveland Amory

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• The Dark Flood Rises by Margaret Drabble
• Cure: A Journey into the Science of Mind over Body by Jo Marchant
• Family Life by Akhil Sharma
• To Say Nothing of the Dog by Connie Willis

RETURNED UNREAD

• The Course of Love by Alain de Botton – requested; I’ll read it on my Kindle instead.
• The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge – I scanned the first few pages and wasn’t in the mood; I may try it again another time.
• Dear Mr. M by Herman Koch – I read the first 20 pages, but it wasn’t gripping me at all.
• The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace – same as for the Hardinge.

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

I’ve been powering through the public library books, even as I keep amassing owned books – including from local charity shops and the bargain shelves at Poundland and Waterstones.

I’ve given ratings for all the books I finished, and added links to Goodreads reviews for those I managed to write about. A few of these books were truly remarkable, so I’ll probably pull them out to highlight in a future post.

The stack I currently have on loan, plus the ones on reserve, should easily see me through the autumn and into winter! (* = poetry books)

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

• Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She’s “Learned” by Lena Dunham 
• The Malarkey by Helen Dunmore* 
• Late Fragments: Everything I Want to Tell You (about This Magnificent Life) by Kate Gross 
• The Reason I Jump: One Boy’s Voice from the Silence of Autism by Naoki Higashida 
• Hot Milk by Deborah Levy 
• Keeping Mum by Gwyneth Lewis* 
• Winter by Christopher Nicholson 
• Letter Composed during a Lull in the Fighting by Kevin Powers* 
• How Snow Falls by Craig Raine* 
• The Last Act of Love: The Story of My Brother and His Sister by Cathy Rentzenbrink 
• The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman 
• Golden Hill by Francis Spufford 
• The Wallcreeper by Nell Zink 

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

• Ozone Journal by Peter Balakian*
• Open City by Teju Cole
• The Course of Love by Alain de Botton
• Mend the Living by Maylis de Kerangal
• The Library of Unrequited Love by Sophie Divry
• Let Me Tell You about a Man I Knew by Susan Fletcher
• The Lie Tree by Frances Hardinge
• Man Walks into a Room by Nicole Krauss
• The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

• Keeping an Eye Open: Essays on Art by Julian Barnes
• The Most Perfect Thing: Inside (and Outside) a Bird’s Egg by Tim Birkhead
• Thrice the Brinded Cat Hath Mew’d by Alan Bradley
• Thirteen Ways of Looking by Colum McCann
• Do Not Say We Have Nothing by Madeleine Thien
• The Painted Bridge by Wendy Wallace

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

• The Crime Writer by Jill Dawson
• The Man Who Wouldn’t Get Up and Other Stories by David Lodge
• Nutshell by Ian McEwan
• The Many by Wyl Menmuir
• Fingers in the Sparkle Jar by Chris Packham
• The Tobacconist by Robert Seethaler
• Autumn by Ali Smith

RETURNED UNREAD

• Aftermath: On Marriage and Separation by Rachel Cusk [I sampled the first few pages and found it flat and affectless; perhaps I’ll try her fiction instead.]
• Kid Gloves: A Voyage round My Father by Adam Mars-Jones [I decided an interest in the subject matter couldn’t overcome my frustration with the author’s style.]

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

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

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

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

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

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

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

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

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

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

RETURNED UNREAD

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

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

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

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

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

Skimmed only:

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

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

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

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

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

RETURNED UNREAD

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

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

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

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

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

Skimmed only:

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

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

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

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

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

RETURNED UNREAD

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

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

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

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

Skimmed only:

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

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

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

 Consulting for travel planning purposes:

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

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

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

 ON REQUEST

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

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

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

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

LIBRARY BOOKS READ

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

LIBRARY BOOKS CURRENTLY READING

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

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

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

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

• Travellers Sweden
• Lonely Planet guide to Germany

ON REQUEST

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

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