Tag Archives: Library Checkout

Love Your Library, March 2022

By Rebecca Foster on March 28, 2022 | 14 Comments

Naomi has been reading a variety of books from the library, including middle grade fiction and Indigenous poetry. Rosemary and Laura posted photos of the books they’ve borrowed from their local libraries recently.

Like Laura, I’ve been sourcing prize nominees from various places. In April I hope to read two nonfiction books from the Jhalak Prize longlist (Things I Have Withheld by Kei Miller and Brown Baby by Nikesh Shukla) and two more novels from the Women’s Prize longlist (The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller and The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak), and I’ve just started Colm Tóibín’s Folio Prize-winning The Magician.

All from the library: a great way to read new and critically acclaimed books without having to buy them!

women's prize longlist 2022 reading plan

I’ve joined Kay, Lynn and Naomi for the Literary Wives online book club and our first read, coming up in June, will be The Sentence by Louise Erdrich, which will be doing double duty as part of the Women’s Prize longlist. I’m in the library holds queue and my copy should come in soon. My only other Erdrich so far, Love Medicine, was a 5-star read, so I have high hopes even though the premise for this one sounds a little iffy. (A bookshop ghost – magic realism being a common denominator on this year’s list – and a Covid lockdown setting.)

For those of you who like to plan ahead, here’s our schedule thereafter. I’ll be rereading two of them (Hornby and O’Farrell) and getting four out from the library (Feito, Hurston, Medie, O’Farrell). One I’ll request as a review copy (Lee), one was 99p on Kindle (Brown), and two more remain to be found secondhand (Gaige and Hunter). Maybe there’s one or more you’d like to join in with?

September 2022 Red Island House by Andrea Lee

December 2022 State of the Union by Nick Hornby

March 2023 His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie

June 2023 The Harpy by Megan Hunter

September 2023 Sea Wife by Amity Gaige

December 2023 Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

March 2024 Mrs. March by Virginia Feito

June 2024 Recipe for a Perfect Marriage by Karma Brown

September 2024 Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

What have you been reading or reviewing from the library recently?

Do share a link to your own post in the comments, and feel free to use the above image. I’ve co-opted a hashtag that is already popular on Twitter and Instagram: #LoveYourLibrary.

Here’s a reminder of my ideas of what you might choose to post (this list will stay up on the project page):

Photos or a list of your latest library book haul
An account of a visit to a new-to-you library
Full-length or mini reviews of some recent library reads
A description of a particular feature of your local library
A screenshot of the state of play of your online account
An opinion piece about library policies (e.g. Covid procedures or fines amnesties)
A write-up of a library event you attended, such as an author reading or book club.

If it’s related to libraries, I want to hear about it!

Posted in: Love Your Library | Tagged: book clubs, Colm Tóibín, Elif Shafak, Jhalak Prize, Kei Miller, library books, Library Checkout, Literary Wives, Louise Erdrich, Love Your Library, Miranda Cowley Heller, Nikesh Shukla, Rathbones Folio Prize, Women’s Prize

Love Your Library, February 2022

By Rebecca Foster on February 28, 2022 | 16 Comments

We’re now onto the fifth month of the Love Your Library feature. A big thank you to…

“The Fab Four of Cley,” who run a Little Free Library in their area. They found last month’s post and gave me a link to a bilingual piece they wrote about a book sale they ran at their local church, with the thousands of books they’d amassed. Heavenly!

Margaret of From Pyrenees to Pennines for her lovely account (with photos!) of a visit to the Central Public Library of Valencia.

Mary R. of Bibliographic Manifestations for her post on interlibrary loans.

Blogger Laila of Big Reading Life also mentioned ILLs recently. I know some states and provinces are able to offer this service for free. When I lived in Maryland, statewide ILLs were free and I took full advantage of it. It’s how I binged on books by Marcus Borg, Frederick Buechner, Jan Morris, and many others during the year between my Master’s degree and moving back to England permanently. For my thesis research I’d had the University of Leeds’ ILL team get me an obscure Victorian novel on microfiche all the way from Australia. I also cheekily put through a few university ILLs for myself while I worked for King’s College London’s library system. Where I live now in the UK, a public library ILL costs £3 per book, so isn’t worth doing; you might as well find a secondhand copy at that price. I do miss the freedom of knowing that I could borrow (almost) anything I want.

Two funny moments from my recent library volunteering: I found Mrs Dalloway shelved under D, and an M. C. Beaton “Agatha Raisin” mystery shelved under R!

Read from the library recently:

The Jasper & Scruff series by Nicola Colton: Having insisted I don’t like sequels or series … I do sometimes make exceptions, like I did for these early reader books (meant for, I don’t know, maybe ages 7 to 9?). I was drawn by the grey and white cat with a bowtie – that’s Jasper, a dapper fellow who likes the fine things in life and desperately wants to be admitted to the Sophisticats’ club, until he realizes they’re snooty and just plain mean. Whereas Scruff the puppy, though he makes life messy, is loving and fun. I liked the sequels more than the original because they build on each other, bringing back characters from the earlier books for a pirate-themed scavenger hunt, a reality TV-style talent show, and bookshop and diner ventures. There are good lessons about being honest and fair, even if others are cheating to outcompete you, and being yourself instead of putting on airs. I also like the menagerie of mammals: not just dogs and cats, but African megafauna, too.

The Decameron Project: 29 New Stories from the Pandemic (originally published in The New York Times): Creative responses to Covid-19, ranging from the prosaic to the fantastical. I appreciated the mix of authors, some in translation and some closer to genre fiction than lit fic. Standouts were by Victor LaValle (NYC apartment neighbours; magic realism), Colm Tóibín (lockdown prompts a man to consider his compatibility with his boyfriend), Karen Russell (time stops during a bus journey), Rivers Solomon (an abused girl and her imprisoned mother get revenge), Matthew Baker (a feuding grandmother and granddaughter find something to agree on), and John Wray (a relationship starts up during quarantine in Barcelona). The best story of all, though, was by Margaret Atwood.

Allegorizings by Jan Morris: Disparate, somewhat frivolous essays written mostly pre-2009, or in 2013, and kept in trust by her publisher for publication as a posthumous collection, so strangely frozen in time. She was old but not super-old; thinking vaguely about death, but not at death’s door. The organizing principle, that everything can be understood on more than one level and so we must think beyond the literal, is interesting but not particularly applicable to the contents. There are mini travel pieces and pen portraits, but I got more out of the explorations of concepts (maturity, nationalism) and universal experiences (being caught picking one’s nose, sneezing).

The Priory by Dorothy Whipple (read for book club): A cosy between-the-wars story, pleasant to read even though some awful things happen, or nearly happen. Like in Downton Abbey and the Cazalet Chronicles, there’s an upstairs/downstairs setup that’s appealing. It was interesting to watch how my sympathies shifted. The Persephone afterword provides useful information about the Welsh house (where Whipple stayed for a month in 1934) and family that inspired the novel. Whipple is a new author for me and I’m sure the rest of her books would be just as enjoyable, but I would only attempt another if it was significantly shorter than this one.

Borrowed since last month:

My latest university library book haul. Paradise by Toni Morrison is to read with my women’s classics book club subgroup in mid-April. Findings is to reread just because Kathleen Jamie is amazing. The other three are in preparation for the 1954 Club coming up in April.

Do share a link to your own post in the comments, and feel free to use the above image. I’ve co-opted a hashtag that is already popular on Twitter and Instagram: #LoveYourLibrary.

Here’s a reminder of my ideas of what you might choose to post (this list will stay up on the project page):

Photos or a list of your latest library book haul
An account of a visit to a new-to-you library
Full-length or mini reviews of some recent library reads
A description of a particular feature of your local library
A screenshot of the state of play of your online account
An opinion piece about library policies (e.g. Covid procedures or fines amnesties)
A write-up of a library event you attended, such as an author reading or book club.

If it’s related to libraries, I want to hear about it!

Posted in: Love Your Library | Tagged: book clubs, books about cats, children's books, Colm Tóibín, COVID-19, Decameron, Dorothy Whipple, essays, interlibrary loan, Jan Morris, John Wray, Karen Russell, libraries, library books, Library Checkout, Love Your Library, Margaret Atwood, Matthew Baker, Nicola Colton, Rivers Solomon, short stories, Victor LaValle, volunteering

Library Checkout, September 2021

By Rebecca Foster on September 27, 2021 | 49 Comments

My library has been closed for a few weeks while a new lighting system is being installed, so I’ve had fewer opportunities to pick out books at random while shelving. Still, I have quite a stockpile at home – a lot of the books are being saved for Novellas in November – so I can’t complain. Meanwhile, I’m awaiting my holds on some of the biggest releases of the year.

This will most likely be our last September in our current rental place as we’ve started house-hunting in the neighbourhood, so I’m trying to appreciate the view from my study window while I can. I’m taking one photo per day to compare. The first hints of autumn leaves are coming through. (Look carefully to the right of the table and you’ll see our cat!)

As always, I give links to reviews of books not already featured, as well as ratings. I would be delighted to have other bloggers – not just book bloggers – join in with this meme. Feel free to use the image below and leave a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout (on the last Monday of each month), or tag me on Twitter and Instagram: @bookishbeck / #TheLibraryCheckout & #LoveYourLibraries.

READ

Medusa’s Ankles: Selected Stories by A.S. Byatt
Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson
Everyone Is Still Alive by Cathy Rentzenbrink
September 11: A Testimony (Reuters)
Pumpkinheads by Rainbow Rowell [graphic novel]
Lena Finkle’s Magic Barrel by Anya Ulinich [graphic novel]

SKIMMED

The Easternmost Sky: Adapting to Change in the 21st Century by Juliet Blaxland
Gardening for Bumblebees: A Practical Guide to Creating a Paradise for Pollinators by Dave Goulson
An Eye on the Hebrides: An Illustrated Journey by Mairi Hedderwick
A Walk from the Wild Edge by Jake Tyler

CURRENTLY READING

Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
Darwin’s Dragons by Lindsay Galvin
Fathoms: The World in the Whale by Rebecca Giggs
Anarchipelago by Jay Griffiths
The Cure for Good Intentions: A Doctor’s Story by Sophie Harrison
Picnic at Hanging Rock by Joan Lindsay
Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven
Cut Out by Michèle Roberts
Yearbook by Seth Rogen
A Shadow Above: The Fall and Rise of the Raven by Joe Shute
The Interestings by Meg Wolitzer

CURRENTLY SKIMMING

The Sea Is Not Made of Water: Life between the Tides by Adam Nicolson

CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ

October, October by Katya Balen
Winter Story by Jill Barklem
Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica
The Tragic Death of Eleanor Marx by Tara Bergin
Barn Owl by Jim Crumley
Kingfisher by Jim Crumley
Otter by Jim Crumley
Victory: Two Novellas by James Lasdun
Jilted City by Patrick McGuinness
His Only Wife by Peace Adzo Medie
Conundrum by Jan Morris [to reread]
The State of the Prisons by Sinéad Morrissey
Fox and I: An Uncommon Friendship by Catherine Raven
Before Everything by Victoria Redel
The Performance by Claire Thomas
Elizabeth and Her German Garden by Elizabeth von Arnim

Plus a modest new pile from the university library:

The Ballad of the Sad Café by Carson McCullers
The Takeover by Muriel Spark (for 1976 Club)
The Pigeon by Patrick Süskind

ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP

The Echo Chamber by John Boyne
The Blind Light by Stuart Evers
Mayflies by Andrew O’Hagan

IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE

Four Thousand Weeks: Time and How to Use It by Oliver Burkeman
Cloud Cuckoo Land by Anthony Doerr
Manifesto by Bernardine Evaristo
Spike: The Virus vs. the People – The Inside Story by Jeremy Farrar
Mrs March by Virginia Feito
Crossroads by Jonathan Franzen
Matrix by Lauren Groff
Julia and the Shark by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiny
The Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller
The Book Smugglers (Pages & Co., #4) by Anna James
The Morning Star by Karl Ove Knausgaard
The Premonition: A Pandemic Story by Michael Lewis
Metamorphosis: Selected Stories by Penelope Lively
Listen: How to Find the Words for Tender Conversations by Kathryn Mannix
Sorrow and Bliss by Meg Mason
Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney
Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead
Oh William! By Elizabeth Strout
Liv’s Alone by Liv Thorne
Sheets by Brenna Thummler
The Magician by Colm Tóibín
Still Life by Sarah Winman (to try again)

RETURNED UNFINISHED

Something out of Place: Women & Disgust by Eimear McBride – I hadn’t gotten on with her fiction so thought I’d try this short nonfiction work, especially as it was released by the Wellcome Collection and based on research she did at the Wellcome Library. However, it was very dull and just seemed like a string of quotes from other people.
12 Bytes: How We Got Here. Where We Might Go Next by Jeanette Winterson – I looked at the first essay to consider reviewing this one, but Winterson’s musings on technology and Mary Shelly feel very familiar – from her previous work as well as others’.

RETURNED UNREAD

I Give It to You by Valerie Martin – I’ll get this suspenseful Tuscany-set novel out again next summer instead.
Fall and Rise: The Story of 9/11 by Mitchell Zuckoff – I ran out of time to read this before the twentieth anniversary of 9/11, but I wouldn’t rule out reading it in the future.

What appeals from my stacks?

Posted in: Library Checkout | Tagged: library books, Library Checkout

Library Checkout, August 2021

By Rebecca Foster on August 30, 2021 | 15 Comments

I’ve read a little of everything this month, including a Booker Prize nominee and one from the Wainwright Prize longlist. A few reads were good enough to make it onto my growing “Best of 2021” list. (Full reviews of the Green and Thirkell coming soon.) In September one of my usual foci is short story collections, so I plan to get through the Butler and Byatt next month. Cathy and I have also been plotting about Novellas in November, so I’ve checked out a number of short works in advance.

As always, I give links to reviews of books not already featured, as well as ratings. I would be delighted to have other bloggers – not just book bloggers – join in with this meme. Feel free to use the image above and leave a link to your blog in the comments if you’ve taken part in Library Checkout (on the last Monday of each month), or tag me on Twitter and Instagram: @bookishbeck / #TheLibraryCheckout & #LoveYourLibraries.