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.
Welcome to 2018! I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays and is having a good start to the new year. For me, 2018 arrived accompanied by a deluge of library holds. As you may have seen, I’m doing A Century of Books (ACOB) again this year so I’ve been placing holds and inter-library holds left, right and center as I prepared for that. Very exciting to finally have them coming in! And, if reading 100 books from the 20th Century wasn’t enough to fill my spare time, I’ve also grabbed a few more recent titles that look very interesting.
I begin 2018 as I mean to go on – surrounded by books and excited to read them!
All Creatures Great and Small by James Herriot – I was flipping through this in a bookstore around Christmas and contemplating getting it for my brother (who is in the final months of his vet program). Then I remembered that he doesn’t read so put it down. It did remind me of how much I love these books (this volume contains the first two in the series) so I’m looking forward to a reread.
The Magic Apple Tree by Susan Hill – I’ve been entertained by Hill’s recent books about books but have zero interest in her novels, which leads me to this: a dispatches-from-country-life collection published in the 1980s.
The Farm in the Green Mountains by Alice Herdan-Zuckmayer – I love the random delights the people at NYRB Classics unearth. In this case, it’s an account of a German family’s life on a farm in Vermont in the 1940s. Danielle reviewed it last summer and it sounds like just the sort of thing I’ll love.
Yeoman’s Hospital by Helen Ashton – I’ve really enjoyed my two encounters with Ashton so far (Bricks and Mortar and The Half-Crown House) and am hoping to read more of her this year for ACOB. Rereading Ali’s 2015 review has made me eager to get started on this.
The School at the Chalet by Elinor M. Brent-Dyer – Awful. Just so, so awful.
We’ll Always Have Paris by Emma Beddington – I’ve been waiting for the library to get a copy of this for ages and now it’s finally here! I do love expat memoirs (though I wish people would write them about somewhere other than France or Italy). Coincidentally, Danielle just read this and loved it so much it made her Favourite Reads of 2017 list.
Alone Together and Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle – Very intrigued by these books about how technology has changed/is changing the ways we interact with one another. I first heard of them when the fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay mentioned he was a big fan and since then have heard only marvellous things.
My Life with Bob by Pamela Paul – Simon’s recent review prompted me to pick this up when I saw it on the shelves. I started it as an e-book last year but that is a ridiculous format when reading a book about books so I put it aside until I could read it properly.
What did you pick up this week?
The Captive Reader 
I really hope you like Yeoman’s Hospital, I really liked it. I find Helen Ashton is the of novelist who takes a while to get going. I find her a slow burn.
Yes, slow burn seems a very good way to describe her writing. But I find that once I settle into her books they are deeply satisfying – hopefully this one will be the same!
I would avoid Ashton’s scarce novel DUST OVER THE RUINS .It is about an archaeological dig in Syria.But the best she wrote is MACKEREL SKY–also quite scarce.
All new to me. I like the sound of the memoir. I don’t seem to get tired of the French and Italian settings
It does sound good, doesn’t it? I enjoy reading about France and Italy but I would dearly love to vary it up with books about other places both around Europe and the world.
The Magic Apple Tree is one of my all-time favorites! (and I have a feeling that some of the other books on this list – except Chalet – are going to be.)
That’s so good to hear! I’ll be extra excited to start it now.
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Oo hope you like My Life With Bob! I would be very surprised if you didn’t. And I’ve had The Magic Apple Tree on my shelves since around the publication of Howards End is on the Landing I think, so maybe I’ll take it down soon.
I’m confident I’m going to like it! As for The Magic Apple Tree, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Hill’s country-themed bits in Jacob’s Room is Full of Books and this seems like much more of that – quite promising!
Enjoy!
Thanks!
Wow, this looks like a great library haul, especially the nonfiction! I’m always a little nervous to pick up books about how technology has changed our lives, because I think a lot of authors approach the topic without nuance – either sure technology is a miracle or sure it’s ruining everything – but I’m definitely interested in the topic, so I’m still intrigued by the books you picked up. I’ll look forward to hearing what you think of them 🙂
Turkle has been studying human-technology interaction since the 1980s so she has a particularly well-informed point of view. I’m finding her books very interesting indeed!