The Captive Reader

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.

I have been struck with a bad case of bookish indecision.  I was reading like a whirlwind but suddenly, over the last week or two, I find it impossible to match my reading to my mood.  I’ve started and abandoned a dozen books (generally after reading them for far too long) in my quest for just the right thing.  I have found a few good fits – anything Patrick Leigh Fermor-related seems to suit me perfectly just now – but mostly I’m stumbling around in the dark.  I’ve picked up a suitably broad array of books this week on the assumption that there must be something here for every mood.

All Strangers Are Kin by Zora O’Neill – I love books about learning a foreign language.  And – for once! – rather than Italian or French or Greek or Latin, the language at the heart of this memoir is Arabic.

When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi – there have been some medical scares among friends and family lately – some happily resolved, some unlikely to be – so Kalanithi’s memoir of his short life after being diagnosed with terminal lung cancer seems like an appropriate choice.  It’s been effusively reviewed by everyone and every publication I’ve come across and I except there will be lots of tears.

The Lark Shall Sing by Elizabeth Cadell – my first three Cadells were all fun and I’ve tasked the library’s inter-library loan system with tracking down many more for me.  This is the first of a trio about the Waynes of Woodmount.  If you’re interested, all three books are now available as e-books.

The Temporary Bride by Jennifer Klinec – in her early 30s, Klinec went to Iran hoping to learn more about Persian cooking.  Instead, she fell in love with a young Iranian and discovered the complexities of cross-cultural romantic relationships in such a rigid society, where family traditions and expectations weigh heavily on young couples.

Who’s That Girl? by Mhairi McFarlane – newest Chicklit novel from McFarlane.

Palladian Days by Sally Gable with Carl I. Gable – summer (and autumn and winter and spring…if you’re me, that is) is always the right time for memoirs about buying and restoring homes in foreign countries.  In this case, it’s a historically-important Palladian villa – not exactly a crumble farmhouse – so the level of fantasy involved for me will be greater than ever.  I can handle it.

What did you pick up this week?