Love Your Library: February 2026
Thanks, as always, to Eleanor and Skai for posting about their recent library borrowing/reading!
All of the books that I asked to be added to stock seemed to arrive at once. By the time I picked them up, four already had at least one further reservation on them, which was pleasing as it shows it these weren’t selfish requests; the books are of interest to others, too. Although a 2026 goal of mine was to read more from my own shelves, I’m having to balance that with big stacks of library books – which I’m glad I didn’t have to buy. A few will count towards #ReadIndies if I manage to finish them before the end of the month.
I mentioned last month that loans are down in my library system. I’ve noticed a couple of new initiatives that must be intended to boost borrowing: a “Love at First Line” Valentine’s Day display, and ‘blind date with a book’-style bundles distributed around the shelves.
One unfortunate necessity to keep stock turning over is weeding. I recently noticed that a couple of books I’d long meant to read were culled from the collection before I was able to borrow them: A Widow’s Story by Joyce Carol Oates and The Cold Millions by Jess Walter.
The majority of the library’s withdrawn books are sold. The latest book sale started mid-month and I was among the first through the door on that Saturday morning to have a rummage. I came away with one mostly pristine paperback (probably a rejected donation) and a signed ex-library hardback of an Andrew Miller novel for a grand total of 80 pence.
I’ve had to do some weeding myself recently, of the theology library I run at my church. We’re pushing 500 items, and given the limited space on the shelves in the lobby, I often find I’m having to wedge books in or lay them across the top. I’ve culled 24 items over the years: duplicates, books in poor condition, and a couple I labelled as irrelevant (a Barbara Pym novel set among clergy types and a book of Coronavirus prayers I’ll keep for posterity).
I do much more frequent culling at the neighbourhood Little Free Library I curate. Turnover is low in the winter (and I put fewer books in there than usual anyway, to try to cut down on condensation), so the same stuff often hangs around for many weeks. I immediately remove anything tatty or with a spine so faded the title is unreadable, and I try to keep only one book per author (series are frequent donations but take up too much space and don’t shift). Every so often I do a complete changeover of the stock and take the rejects to a charity warehouse or have them picked up for charity – the same strategy as with the withdrawn theology books.
Appropriately, I found this next one among the Little Free Library donations: a sweet picture book based on the true story of how the young people of Daraya amassed a 15,000-volume basement library of rescued books during the first four years of the Syrian civil war. The author grew up during the Lebanese civil war and the illustrator in communist Romania, so they, too, know how books can give comfort and courage during the hardest times. “Their secret library had become a safe port in a sea of war. The hope it brought carried them from the darkness of destruction into a bright new dawn.” Lovely.
You’ll see from the Rough Guide and phrase book that we’re pondering a trip to Portugal in April. It’s feeling last minute now; we hope to book our travel and accommodation soon.
My library use over the last month:
READ
- Eva Trout by Elizabeth Bowen
- The Honesty Box by Lucy Brazier
- Badger Books by Paddy Donnelly
- Mildred the Gallery Cat by Jono Ganz
- Everything Is Tuberculosis by John Green
- Green by Louise Greig
- I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman
- Footpath Flowers by JonArno Lawson
- An Experiment in Love by Hilary Mantel
- The Girls Who Grew Big by Leila Mottley
- Bog Queen by Anna North
- Winter Trees by Sylvia Plath
- Let the Bad Times Roll by Alice Slater
- Ultra-Processed People by Chris van Tulleken
- Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst
With a cheeky Oxfam book haul (Hartnett and Wood) on the top.
CURRENTLY READING
- The Parallel Path: Love, Grit and Walking the North by Jenn Ashworth
- The Heart of Christianity by Marcus Borg (a reread)
- Strangers: The Story of a Marriage by Belle Burden
- Leaving Home: A Memoir in Full Colour by Mark Haddon
- Carrie by Stephen King
- Of Thorn & Briar: A Year with the West Country Hedgelayer by Paul Lamb
- Half His Age by Jennette McCurdy
- The Spirituality Gap by Abi Millar
- People Like Us by Jason Mott
- Pick a Colour by Souvankham Thammavongsa
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Eva Luna by Isabel Allende (for April book club)
- Pathfinding: On Walking, Motherhood and Freedom by Kerri Andrews
- Like Mother by Jenny Diski
- Bog Child by Siobhan Dodd
- The Swell by Kat Gordon
- Skylark by Paula McLain
- Wandering Stars by Tommy Orange
- Carrion Crow by Heather Parry
- The Original by Nell Stevens
- Women Talking by Miriam Toews
- The First Day of Spring by Nancy Tucker
ON HOLD, TO BE COLLECTED
- The Brain at Rest: Why Doing Nothing Can Change Your Life by Joseph Jebelli
- Seven by Joanna Kavenna
- Our Better Natures by Sophie Ward
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- A Beautiful Loan by Mary Costello
- The Correspondent by Virginia Evans
- Honour & Other People’s Children by Helen Garner
- Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave
- Frostlines: An Epic Exploration of the Transforming Arctic by Neil Shea
- First Class Murder by Robin Stevens
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- Redwall by Brian Jacques – I read 60 pages before this was requested off me, and I decided it was probably for the best to leave this series to my childhood.
- A Long Game: How to Write Fiction by Elizabeth McCracken – I was about halfway through when this was requested off me, but I have it from Edelweiss so can finish it on my Kindle.
RETURNED UNREAD
- Zami by Audre Lorde – I have it on my Kindle so will return this for another member of my book club (the women’s classics subgroup) to borrow as our May read.
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.
Final Reading Statistics for 2025 & Goals for 2026
Happy New Year! We went to a neighbours’ party again this year and played silly games and chased their kittens until 1:30 a.m. It was a fun, low-key way to see in 2026.
I read 313 books last year. (2024’s total of 352 will never be topped!) Initially, I set a goal of 350, but by midyear I downgraded it to 300 and it was easy to reach. I can’t pinpoint a particular reason for the decline. In general, I felt like I was chasing my tail all year, despite having less work on than ever (but increased volunteering commitments). Often, I struggled with fatigue or being on the verge of illness. What a fun guessing game: is it long Covid or perimenopause?
Goodreads was glitchy for me all year, randomly counting books two or three times and falsely inflating my total by a whole extra 33 books at one point. It also has a lot of annoying, automatically generated book records that duplicate ISBNs or add the publisher to the title field. So I’m thinking about moving over to StoryGraph this year – I just imported my Goodreads library – though I always quail at learning new online systems. It would also be the next logical step in divesting from Am*zon.
The year that was…
2025’s notable happenings:
- Twice assessing the ‘proper’ (published) books as a McKitterick Prize judge
- Adopting crazy Benny (though that was after losing our precious Alfie)
- Acquiring a secondhand electric car for the household
- Holidays in Hay-on-Wye; the Outer Hebrides; Suffolk; Berlin and Lübeck, Germany
- A summer visit from my sister and brother-in-law
- Having the windows and door replaced in the back of our house; and the hall and stairwell/landing redecorated
- I got ever more into gin and cocktails, with tastings in Abingdon and Wantage (and in December I led two informal tastings for friends). I also acquired the taste for rum!
The reading statistics, as compared to 2024:
Fiction: 54.7% (↑3.3%)
Nonfiction: 31.6% (↓0.2%)
Poetry: 13.7% (↓3.1%)
Female author: 67.7% (↓0.2%)
Lydi Conklin was one of 10 nonbinary authors I read from this year. Had I read their novel earlier, this would have made it into my Cover Love post!
Nonbinary author: 3.2% (↑2.1%)
BIPOC author: 18.5% (↑0.1%)
How to get it to 25% or more??
LGBTQ: 20.4% (↓1.1%)
(Author’s identity or a major theme in the work.) It’s the first time this has decreased since 2021, but I’m still pleased with the figure overall.
Work in translation: 9.6% (↑3.6%)
Going the right way with this trend! 10% seems like a good minimum to aim for. I find I have to make a conscious effort by accepting translated review copies or picking them off my shelves to tie in with particular reading challenges.
German (6) – mainly because of our trip in September
French (5)
Swedish (4)
Korean (3)
Italian (2)
Japanese (2)
Spanish (2)
Chinese (1)
Dutch (1)
Norwegian (1)
Polish (1)
Portuguese (1)
Russian (1)
2025 (or pre-release 2026) books: 55.6% (↑3.2%)
Backlist: 44.4%
But a lot of that ‘backlist’ stuff was still from the 2020s; I only read eight pre-1950 books, the oldest being Diary of a Nobody from 1892.
E-books: 35.5% (↑3.4%)
Print books: 64.5%
I almost exclusively read e-books for BookBrowse, Foreword and Shelf Awareness reviews. The number of overall Shelf Awareness reviews will be decreasing because of changes to their publishing model, so this figure may well change by next year.
Rereads: 11, vs. last year’s 18
I managed nearly one a month. Like last year, three of my rereads ended up being among my most memorable reading experiences of the year, so I should really reread more often.
And, courtesy of Goodreads:
- 69,616 pages read
- Average book length: 221 pages (just one off of last year’s 220; in previous years it has always been 217–225, driven downward by poetry collections and novellas)
- Average rating for 2025: 6 (identical to the last three years)
Where my books came from for the whole year, compared to 2024:
- Free print or e-copy from publisher: 33.9% (↓10.9%)
- Public library: 18.8% (↑0.4%)
- Free (gifts, giveaways, Little Free Library/free bookshop, from friends or neighbours): 15.3% (↑2.9%)
- Downloaded from NetGalley, Edelweiss or BookSirens: 15% (↑7.2%)
- Secondhand purchase: 12.8% (↑1.3%)
- New purchase (often at a bargain price; includes Kindle purchases): 2.6% (↓0.5%)
- University library: 1.3% (↓0.7%)
- Other (church theological library): 0.3% (↑0.3%)
I’m pleased that 30.3% of my reading was from my own shelves, versus last year’s 24%. It looks like I mainly achieved this through a reduction in review copies. In 2026, I’d like to read even more backlist material from my own shelves (including rereads). This will be a particular focus in January, and then I’ll plan how to incorporate it for the rest of the year.
I have an absurd number of review books to catch up on (42), some stretching back to 2022 – the year of my mother’s death, which put me off my stride in many ways – as well as part-read books (116) to get real about and either finish or call DNFs and clear from my shelves. Dealing with these can be part of the reading-from-my-shelves initiative.
What trends did you see in your year’s reading? What is your plan for 2026?
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, 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, 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, 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.
Love Your Library, November 2024
Thanks to Eleanor (here and here) and Marcie for posting about their recent library reading!
New at my library this month: lacemakers sitting and working at their craft at two designated tables, with examples of finished work behind them. I was intrigued by their round wooden boards, almost like artists’ palettes, holding various pins and threads. Apparently if you can crochet you can tat lace. I didn’t know that we had a local lacemaking tradition in Newbury. On travels elsewhere, e.g. Nottingham, I have seen it more prominently mentioned as part of a city’s history. During my Tuesday volunteering the other week, a patron made a point of coming up to me and saying how nice it was to see them there.
The only thing that tarnished the experience for me, as with some other things I’m involved with (Repair Café especially), is that the participants are overwhelmingly over 50 – probably most of them over 70, in fact. Such skills and crafts are going to die out unless they’re being passed on to younger generations. This is not arcane knowledge to be admired but essential human culture to be preserved. Art is always of value for its own sake. We have never needed a ‘make do and mend’ mindset more, yet we are consuming and disposing as if there is no tomorrow. I need to bring up again with the Repair Café coordinators how we might get younger people apprenticed to skilled volunteer repairers to start this process.
Anyway, back to libraries. That day, one member of staff went over to a lacemaker and apologized that it was about to get noisy with Rhyme Time (a singing session for babies and toddlers with their parents and carers), which seemed like a great juxtaposition that shows the range of activities the library system supports.
My library use over the last month:
I’ve been catching up on the Booker Prize shortlist and reading loads of novella-length works.
READ
- The Wood at Midwinter by Susanna Clarke
- Without Ever Reaching the Summit: A Himalayan Journey by Paolo Cognetti
- James by Percival Everett
- A Haunting on the Hill by Elizabeth Hand
- Orbital by Samantha Harvey
- What Feasts at Night by T. Kingfisher
- Heartstopper: Volume 5 by Alice Oseman (a reread)
- Playground by Richard Powers
- Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
+ picture books Pete the Cat Saves Christmas and The Twelve Cats of Christmas
SKIMMED
- Barcode by Jordan Frith
- A Nature Poem for Every Winter Evening by Jane McMorland Hunter
- A Thousand Feasts by Nigel Slater
- Dinner by Meera Sodha
CURRENTLY READING
- Interlunar by Margaret Atwood
- Life before Man by Margaret Atwood
- A Beginner’s Guide to Dying by Simon Boas
- Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
- Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World by Pádraig Ó Tuama
- The Place of Tides by James Rebanks
- Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
- The Peculiar Life of a Lonely Postman by Denis Thériault
- The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- The Second Coming by Garth Risk Hallberg (audiobook)
- Dexter Procter: The 10-Year-Old Doctor by Adam Kay
- Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee
RETURNED UNREAD
- Rosarita by Anita Desai
- Bellies by Nicola Dinan – Requested off me; will try another time.
- Bothy by Kat Hill – Have had it out twice and not managed to open it; maybe I should wait and take it away to a Scottish island.
- What Does It Feel Like? by Sophie Kinsella
- Kick the Latch by Kathryn Scanlan
The three not explained were borrowed for #NovNov24 with the best of intentions, but I don’t think they actually appeal to me (for very different reasons).
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- Graveyard Shift by M.L. Rio – Subpar.
- How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair – Too long and involved (and such small print!) for a busy month. Will try 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.
Eve Smith Event & Absurd Person Singular
Two literary events I attended recently…
On Friday afternoon I volunteered on stewarding and refreshments for an author chat held at my local public library. It was our first such event since before Covid! I’d not heard of Eve Smith, who is based outside Oxford and writes speculative – not exactly dystopian, despite the related display below – novels inspired by scientific and medical advancements encountered in the headlines. Genetics, in particular, has been a recurring topic in The Waiting Rooms (about antibiotic resistance), Off Target (gene editing of embryos), One (a one-child policy introduced in climate-ravaged future Britain) and The Cure (forthcoming in April 2025; transhumanism or extreme anti-ageing measures).
Smith used to work for an environmental organization and said that she likes to write about what scares her – which tends not to be outlandish horror but tweaked real-life situations. Margaret Atwood has been a big influence on her, and she often includes mother–daughter relationships. In the middle of the interview, she read from the opening of her latest novel, One. I reckon I’ll give her debut, The Waiting Rooms, a try. (I was interested to note that the library has classed it under Science Fiction but her other two novels with General Fiction.)
Then last night we went to see my husband’s oldest friend (since age four!) in his community theatre group’s production of Absurd Person Singular, a 1972 play by Alan Ayckbourn. I’ve seen and read The Norman Conquests trilogy plus another Ayckbourn play and was prepared for a suburban British farce, but perhaps not for how dated it would feel.
The small cast consists of three married couples. Ronald Brewster-Wright is a banker with an alcoholic wife, Marion. Sidney Hopcroft (wife: Jane) is a construction contractor and rising property tycoon and Geoffrey Jackson is a philandering architect with a mentally ill wife, Eva. Weaving all through is the prospect of a business connection between the three men: “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours,” as Sidney puts it to Ronald several times. After one of Geoffrey’s buildings suffers a disastrous collapse, he has to consider humbling himself enough to ask Sidney for work.
The three acts take place in each of their kitchens on subsequent Christmas Eves; the period kitchen fittings and festive decorations were a definite highlight. First, the Hopcrofts stress out over hosting the perfect cocktail party – which takes place off stage, with characters retreating in twos and threes to debrief in the kitchen. The next year, the jilted Eva makes multiple unsuccessful suicide attempts while her oblivious friends engage in cleaning and DIY. Finally, we’re at the Brewster-Wrights’ and the annoyingly cheerful Hopcrofts cajole the others, who aren’t in the Christmas spirit at all, into playing a silly musical chairs-like game.
With failure, adultery, alcoholism and suicidal ideation as strong themes, this was certainly a black comedy. Our friend Dave decided not to let his kids (10 and 7) come see it. He was brilliant as Sidney, not least because he genuinely is a DIY genius and has history of engaging people in dancing. But the mansplaining, criticism of his poor wife, and “Oh dear, oh dear” exclamations were pure Sidney. The other star of the show was Marion. Although the actress was probably several decades older than Ayckbourn’s intended thirtysomething characters, she brought Norma Desmond-style gravitas to the role. But it did mean that a pregnancy joke in relation to her and the reference to their young sons – the Brewster-Wrights are the only couple with children – felt off.
The director chose to give a mild content warning, printed in the program and spoken before the start: “Please be aware that this play was written in the 1970s and reflects the language and social attitudes of its time and includes themes of unsuccessful suicide attempts.” So the play was produced as is, complete with Marion’s quip about the cycles on Jane’s new washing machine: “Whites and Coloreds? It’s like apartheid!” The depiction of mental illness felt insensitive, although I like morbid comedy as much as the next person.
I can see why the small cast, silliness, and pre-Christmas domestic setting were tempting for amateur dramatics. There was good use of sound effects and the off-stage space, and a fun running gag about people getting soaked. I certainly grasped the message about not ignoring problems in hopes they’ll go away. But with so many plays out there, maybe this one could be retired?
Love Your Library, August 2024
It’s a Bank Holiday today here in the UK – if you have the day off, I hope you’re spending it a fun way. We’re on a day trip to Windsor Castle with friends who got free tickets through her work. Otherwise, there’s no way we would ever have gone: it’s very expensive, plus down with the monarchy and all that.
Thanks so much to Eleanor (here, here and here), Laura (the two images below) and Marcie for posting about their recent library reading!
Marina Sofia has posted a couple of relevant blogs, one a review of an Alberto Manguel book about his home library and the other a series of tempting photos of world libraries.
In the media: I loved this anti-censorship George Bernard Shaw quote posted by Book Riot on Instagram…
…and my heart was warmed by the story of Minnesota governor and current vice-presidential candidate Tim Walz installing a Little Free Library in the state capitol earlier this year. He gets my vote!
One volunteering day, a staff member told the strange-but-true story of an e-mail just received to the general libraries account. A solicitor presiding over an estate clearance let us know about a West Berkshire Libraries book found among their client’s effects, borrowed in early 1969 and never returned. Did we want it back? The consensus was that, as we’ve been doing fine without this book since BEFORE THE MOON LANDING, we will drop the issue.
Not exactly library related, but in other fun book news, I took a couple of online quizzes and got intriguing results:
My suggestion (for Angie Kim’s Happiness Falls) featured in the recent Faber Members’ summer reading recommendation round-up. And here’s that blog post I wrote for Foreword Reviews about the Bookshop Band’s new album and tour.
I’m hosting book club a week on Wednesday. Although it’s felt for a while like it might be doomed, the group has had a stay of execution at least until January. We took a break for the summer and at our July social everyone made enthusiastic noises about joining in with the four autumn and winter reads we voted on – plus we have two prospective new members who we hope will join us for the September meeting. So we’ll see how it goes.
My library use over the last month:
READ
- Private Rites by Julia Armfield
- Parade by Rachel Cusk
SKIMMED
- Nature’s Ghosts: A History – and Future – of the Natural World by Sophie Yeo
CURRENTLY READING
- One Garden against the World: In Search of Hope in a Changing Climate by Kate Bradbury
- Clear by Carys Davies (for September book club)
- Moominpappa at Sea by Tove Jansson
- The Garden against Time: In Search of a Common Paradise by Olivia Laing
- The Burial Plot by Elizabeth Macneal
- Late Light: Finding Home in the West Country by Michael Malay
- The Song of the Whole Wide World: On Motherhood, Grief, and Poetry by Tamarin Norwood
- The Echoes by Evie Wyld
CHECKED OUT, TO BE READ
- Wasteland: The Dirty Truth about What We Throw Away, Where It Goes, and Why It Matters by Oliver Franklin-Wallis
- This Is My Sea by Miriam Mulcahy
IN THE RESERVATION QUEUE
- The Glassmaker by Tracy Chevalier
- James by Percival Everett
- Small Rain by Garth Greenwell
- Bothy: In Search of Simple Shelter by Kat Hill
- The Painter’s Daughters by Emily Howes
- Dispersals: On Plants, Borders and Belonging by Jessica J. Lee
- Held by Anne Michaels
- Playground by Richard Powers
- Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
ON HOLD, TO BE PICKED UP
- The Accidental Garden: The Plot Thickens by Richard Mabey
RETURNED UNFINISHED
- The Cove: A Cornish Haunting by Beth Lynch – I enjoyed her previous memoir, and her writing is evocative, but this memoir about her return to the beloved site of childhood holidays lacks narrative drive. If you’re more familiar with the specific places, or can read it on location, you might be tempted to read the whole thing. I read 30 pages.
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 