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.
Bit of an odd week here, I must say. I finished work last Friday so am odds again, trying to figure out what comes next. I have one job offer under consideration but just want to take some time to make sure it’s the right fit for me. Lots of big questions to consider over the next few weeks, certainly, but I’m also looking forward to having some time to catch up with my reviews and just relax a little. The last couple of months were very stressful and already I can feel myself calming down, which is wonderful. It is so nice to feel like my cheerful, energetic self again!
The Barbed-Wire University by Midge Gillies – As someone who watched The Bridge on the River Kwai far, far too many times as a child (it is still one of my favourite films), I’ve always been interested in learning more about what POWs did in captivity. And when have I ever turned down any sort of World War Two social history book? Here, Gillies examines the experiences of Allied servicemen as prisoners in both the European and Asian theatres of war.
The Junior Officers’ Reading Club by Patrick Hennessey – a few years ago, stranded at the airport during a snowstorm, I read the first half of this memoir in the airport bookstore. I remember enjoying it but was too cheap to buy it. Now, a bit belated, I’ll have a chance to finish it.
Society’s Queen by Anne de Courcy – I own most of de Courcy’s other books but haven’t yet read this one, a biography of the Marchioness of Londonderry.
The Sidmouth Letters by Jane Gardam –Jane Austen’s love life- long the subject of speculation- is finally, delightfully dealt with in the title story of this collection. Many of the other stories, like ‘The Sidmouth Letters,’ bring together past and present- with sometimes hilarious, sometimes disturbing, often intensely moving results. With quiet elegance and devastating accuracy, Jane Gardam probes many and varied lives. We meet a trio of Kensington widows, mean-spirited and middle-aged, paying improbable tribute to a long exploited nanny; we await- with dread- a stranger to tea in an English home; we witness the mercurial changes that take place in young love, and we watch as a bohemian, passionate past returns to tempt domestic bliss.
God on the Rocks by Jane Gardam –During one glorious summer between the wars, the realities of life and the sexual ritual dance of the adult world creep into the life of young Margaret Marsh. Her father, preaching the doctrine of the unsavoury Primal Saints; her mother, bitterly nostalgic for what might have been; Charles and Binkie, anchored in the past and a game of words; dying Mrs Frayling and Lydia the maid, given to the vulgar enjoyment of life; all contribute to Margaret’s shattering moment of truth. And when the storm breaks, it is not only God who is on the rocks as the summer hurtles towards drama, tragedy, and a touch of farce.
The Sun in the Morning by M.M. Kaye – have I ever read any of M.M. Kaye’s novels? No. But that doesn’t mean I’m not excited to read this first volume of her memoirs!
What did you pick up this week?
Another Jane Gardam! an author I would like to get hold of.
I hope you’re able to. She’s wonderful.
Aw, you should read some MM Kaye novels. The Ordinary Princess is short and sweet, and The Far Pavilions is long and awesome. 🙂 I’ve only read bits of her memoir so far, but I really enjoyed it — she’s very wry and amusing.
I think I will, one day. Her books are certainly on my TBR list.
Fabulous haul, Claire, and my list keeps growing. I’m knee deep in Gone Girl, which is for our book discussion tonight.
Have you read Guests of the Emperor? I’m forgetting the author, but, it is about the women who were held captive in the Philippine’s by the Japanese during WWII. Nurses and missionaries who, for several reasons, didn’t make it out in time and were POW’s. The book has been around for at least 20 years and I think you might find it an interesting read, and war perspective.
No, I haven’t read or even heard of Guests of the Emperor. I know pathetically little about the war in Asia.
I’ve got a copy of Guests of the Emperor by Janice Young Brooks, 1989 ISBN: 0-7472-3404-3. It’s fiction, and I would group it with books like Nevil Shute’s A Town Like Alice and J. G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun – fiction based on wartime experiences in the Pacific. For non fiction there’s Agnes Newton Keith’s Three Came Home. And on another quite different note, thanks to this blog I found a copy of The World of Psmith at my library and am enjoying Mike and Psmith enormously.
Oh,Barbed Wire University looks really good.
Doesn’t it just?
I’m always one to like a little time between jobs. Often you won’t get a break for a while so I always try to take one when I can. Hope you get a little time for reading and relaxing.
Looks like I’m going to have a full month, more than enough time for rest, relaxation, and lots of reading!
I read The Sun in the Morning many years ago. A rivetting memoir.
That’s great to hear, Susan!
Once again, a loot full of lovely books and covers. I especially like the look of the Jane Gardams,
Best of luck with your decisions!
Thank you!
The cover of my copy of The Sidmouth Letters has a pair of brown crocodile high heels on the front…if it had the same cover as yours I would read it long ago! 🙂
I’ve seen that cover and it is awful! How do they come up with these things?
Great book haul! The Sidmouth Letters looks like a fun collection.