Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Linda from Silly Little Mischief that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.
This is one of those entirely delightful Library Loot posts where everything I have to present to you seems equally alluring to me. I’ve already started in on this batch of books but can’t wait to work my way through all of them!
Drawn From Memory by Ernest H. Shepard – I do love a happy childhood memoir! Here, Shepard looks back on his life as a seven-year old in Victorian London. It looks quite marvellous.
The Pursuit of Alice Thrift by Elinor Lipman – I read a lot of Lipman last year, though I don’t think I reviewed a single one of those books. Whoops. Everything she writes is entertaining and this book was no different (which I know because, having no self control, I read it immediately after picking it up from the library).
Educating Alice by Alice Steinbach – I read Steinbach’s Without Reservations last year and rather enjoyed it, though I did find Steinbach embarrassingly earnest. Still, she was an interesting writer and I look forward to this follow-up volume about her further travels.
Bring on the Empty Horses by David Niven – growing up, I read Niven’s The Moon’s a Balloon about a gazillion times (that’s a conservative estimate), never realising that he had written further memoirs.
Pastoral by Nevil Shute – Shute, like Lipman, is one of those dependably entertaining authors. I’ve never this but have been looking forward to it since reading Lyn’s review a few years ago.
Farewell to Priorsford and to O. Douglas – Barb wrote a good synopsis of this a few years ago.
What did you pick up this week?
I should read more Nevil Shute. I hve only read A Town Like Alice!
I think A Town Like Alice is still the best but everything I’ve read so far has been really entertaining. Looking forward to seeing what this one is like.
I did not know of this book by Steinbach. Thanks for the tip.
You’re very welcome! I started reading it this morning and it really is very interesting (though Steinbach remains overly earnest for my tastes).
Enjoy your loot!
Thanks!
The Shepard memoir sounds charming – I’ll be looking for a copy of that. I haven’t read that Lipman yet, so I’ll also be checking for that at some point. Pastoral is an interesting book, and I’ll be interested to see what you think of it.
Lisa! You must, must, must try Lipman. She is so funny and sweet and just generally wonderful.
I love it when I want to read everything all at once. Enjoy!
Thanks, Linda!
Nevil Shute is one of those authors I keep meaning to try – guess I should put a hold on his books and get one already!
I read a bunch of Shute in high school and then, feeling too upset by On the Beach, gave him a rest for the last decade. Looking forward to getting back to him now!
Oooo, that Shepherd book does look good! I finally have one Shute title on my TBR shelf – picked up after Christmas to try soon.
Doesn’t the Shepard look lovely? It’s got lovely illustration, too (of course).
Aside from the Elinor Lipman, I haven’t heard of any of these titles. They all look very enticing. Were any of them ILLs?
All of these are from my library, I’m proud to say. Not an ILL among the bunch!
Hope you enjoy! At the moment my loot consists of textbooks on genre theory, the Gothic and historiographic metafiction. Not quite as fun, but probably just as interesting
I have the Ernest Shepherd and also Educating Alice, which I loved. So sad that Alice Steinbach died a year or two ago. I’ve had the Shepherd on the shelf for years but still not read it!
What have I picked up? I’ve just ordered Wake by Anna Hope and I’ve Jane Gardam’s final part of her trilogy which began with Filth on its way to me, the title of which is Last Friends. I have just received Under The Jewelled Sky by Alison McQueen and started that last night, and for non-fiction I’m reading Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey (after enjoying The Secret Rooms, non-fiction but reads as easily as a novel, and a good one at that!)
I really enjoyed Pastoral when I read it a couple of years ago. It was a very moving story – and all the more meaningful to me because my maternal grandfather was a co-pilot in the RAF during the war and flew Lancaster bombers over Germany.
I love Elinor Lipman! if there are any scenes set in Brookline, please say hello to my old neighborhood for me!