Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader 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.
Lots of easy reading this week, which is exactly what I need. I am into my second week at my new job and I am really enjoying it, but learning so many new things every day is tiring. I know once I’m through training and have settled in I’ll have more attention left at the end of the work day (maybe even enough to blog), but for now, easy books are best.
There is such thing as too much D.E. Stevenson (especially since I just read two other D.E.S. novels over the weekend) but the Inter-Library Loan system does not take that into account. And so I have three D.E.S. books waiting for me:
Five Windows by D.E. Stevenson
Gerald and Elizabeth by D.E. Stevenson
The House of the Deer by D.E. Stevenson
Mary Stewart Reading Week, hosted by Anbolyn, starts this Sunday and I am ready for it!
Airs Above the Ground by Mary Stewart – Vanessa March, two years married and very much in love, is propelled to Vienna by a shocking discovery. In her charge is young Timothy Lacy, who also has urgent problems to solve. But what promises to be no more than a delicate personal mission turns out to involve the security forces of three countries, two dead men, a circus and its colourful personnel and the famous white stallions of Vienna.
Rose Cottage by Mary Stewart – When Kate Herrick’s grandmother asks her to travel down from Scotland to her childhood home in Todhall to retrieve some papers and family mementoes before Rose Cottage is sold, Kate is happy enough to go, but curious as to the changes she may find there. Widowed in the recent war – this is the summer of 1947 – and comfortably settled now in London, she is in some doubt as to how the village will receive her. Rose Cottage – a tiny thatched dwelling with fragrant roses in the garden – is unchanged, and the villagers seem friendly. But there is evidence of a break-in at the cottage, and then her nearest neighbours, three elderly ladies from what the villagers call ‘Witches’ Corner’, come with tales of night-time prowlers in the cottage garden, and even ghosts. In the process of solving the mystery, Kate finds romance.
What are you reading this week?
The Captive Reader 
I really must read Airs Above the Ground again. I read this donkey’s years ago and I don’t think I really appreciated the quality of Mary Stewart’s storytelling then. Similarly, I gave up her novel, The Gabriel Hounds, and I think I’d enjoy that more today.
What am I reading? The children’s classic, Capt Frederick Marryat’s The Children of the New Forest, published way back in 1847. I never read this when I was a child but I watched it on children’s television in the 1950s as a b&w serial and loved it. Can’t think why it’s taken me this long to buy a copy. I treated myself to an edition published in 1965 with illustrations by Lionel Edwards and I am really enjoying this story (bearing in mind the time in which it was written when black was black and white was white; it’s a bit of a morality tale, and one has to suspend reality as it’s a story as far fetched as any sci-fi we might read today, but it’s most enjoyable!)
That’s a *lot* of DE Stevenson! I am currently reading an old lost thriller, Murder in Moscow, by Andrew Garve, and loving it!
I’m trying to decide what to read for Mary Stewart Reading Week – I’m spoiled for choice, even without the library.
I’m sure you’ll be relieved when the training is over, but it sounds like it’s all going very well. Is the commute OK – and does it take you by any libraries or bookstores? 😉
And I am waiting to discover my first Stevenson. Enjoy them all.
Mary Stewart! I have only read a few of her books, and long ago, but must get around to reading more of them. I did love them so.
I’m not familiar with those at all. But enjoy!
You picked ALL my favorite books! (the only one I haven’t read yet, is the “Five Windows” one)… you are going to have a great week reading these!
just finished a D.E. Stevenson (have been on a Stevenson kick lately… comfort reads for me!) and you can’t go wrong with Mary Stewart. Enjoy….
Glad to hear that the new job is going well! I’m always amazed at the service of your library. I went over to the Mary Stewart reading week page and did the quiz – thinking I might give her a second chance – the quiz told me to read the one book of hers that I’ve read and didn’t care for, Touch Not the Cat. Ah well, I will save her for another time. Happy reading to you!
I’ve not read a Stevenson before, but agree a retro mystery is just the thing for a tired mind – enjoy.
Mary Stewart is perfect reading for busy weeks! Easy to read, fast paced, riveting yet easy to put down and pick up again. I haven’t read either of your choices so will be interested to see what you think of them.
I love Mary Stewart, and Airs Above the Ground is probably my favourite. One passage always has me in tears – you’ll know it when you read it!
I’ve just read Still Glides the Stream by DES. Very predictable plot but none the worse for that!
At the moment I’m reading Sailing to Sarantium by GGKay, and a Maisie Dobbs, The Mapping of Love and Death.