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.
To the Bright Edge of the World by Eowyn Ivey – a little too complicated for me to attempt to blurb, so I’ll let the publisher have the pleasure. I am three quarters of the way through and completely in love with this book. I don’t want to stop reading but I certainly don’t want it to end.
The Romanovs by Simon Sebag Montefiore – murderous, mad Russians! Fun times lie ahead.
Rush Oh! by Shirley Barrett – I’d been looking forward to this since Sarra Manning mentioned it back in January. Read it quickly and have to say it didn’t make much of an impact. Probably suffered from comparison to To the Bright Edge of the World (since my reading overlapped).
A Killer in King’s Cove by Iona Whishaw – slight cheat here: this title and cover is the soon-to-be-released reissue. I have the original. But no matter, the story is the same and it sounds intriguing. A post-war mystery – with spies! – in small town British Columbia is not something I even knew existed before.
Sons and Daughters of Ease and Plenty by Ramona Ausubel – a hold I’d completely forgotten placing (placed, I think, after reading this LA Times review). Sounds like fun.
Naga Path (also published as Drums Behind the Hill) by Ursula Graham Bower – I was 90% certain I’d heard about this book from Slightly Foxed. But then I checked their index online and Bower is nowhere to be found. So that’s a mystery. Regardless, I’m very excited to read Bower’s story about her experiences in the Naga Hills, both as an anthropologist and, during the Second World War, guerrilla fighter.
The Long Weekend by Adrian Tinniswood – you know me, can’t turn down any sort of social history about the inter-war years.
I Was a Stranger by General Sir John Hackett – An account of Hackett’s experiences during World War Two, after escaping from a German prisoner camp and being taken in and hidden by a Dutch family. This was reissued several years ago as a Slightly Foxed edition.
Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets by Jessica A. Fox – I saw this memoir about a young woman who left her job in LA to go work in a Scottish bookstore recently and was intrigued (just not quite intrigued enough to buy it at the store where I spotted it).
The Daughters by Adrienne Celt – I’ve had this on my radar since reading the NPR review last summer. As autumn begins, it seems like the right time for a story about women, their families, and the stories they share.
My Kitchen in Rome by Rachel Roddy – very, very excited to get my hands on this cookbook.
The Lady with the Borzoi by Laura Claridge – a biography of Blanche Knopf (of the publishing house) and her role as a literary tastemaker.
What did you pick up this week?
The Captive Reader 
I’m a reader with ‘War and Peace’ on my audio book , ‘Possession’ on my Kindle app(read before and now again loving the rich, often funny and always lucid and shining language and crazy story with its familiar London setting) , Edmund de Waal ‘s ‘White’ – his pilgrimage about porcelain – by my bed. But the book I read straight through in about three sittings this week was ‘Grief is the thing with feathers.’ truly unforgettable – and inviting a revisit of Ted Hughes’s Crow. An astonishing wild poem of a book..
What a wonderful selection of books, Hilary! I`ve vaguely heard of Grief is the Thing with Feathers but not yet read it myself. Sounds like it should go on the to-be-read list.
Lots of good loot. To The Bright Edge Of The World looks good. Enjoy!
It is very, very good. I think I`ll be trying to push it on everyone I meet for the foreseeable future.
I brought The Long Weekend home yesterday, Claire. Definitely a book written for readers like us. I’ll enjoy my turn with the library’s copy but will probably look for a copy to keep.
I`m really looking forward to it, too. Seems like the perfect reading for a early autumn weekend by the fire.
A Killer in King’s Cove sounds enticing. (Originally self-pubbed as Dead in the Water. I see that Goodreads has a giveaway draw for it, ending today, Sept 22)
I thought it sounded fun. Not usually my genre of choice but it`s always good to try something a little different!
I read Iona Wishaw’s book a few months ago (when it was “Dead in the Water.” I enjoyed it, and having read her mother’s book, it was like seeing old friends.
Glad to hear you liked it! Am looking forward to starting it.