The Captive Reader

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading 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 had three much-anticipated inter-library loans come in this week:

The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett – I’ve been hearing for years from readers who love the Lymond Chronicles.  My library keeps losing its copies (or does it?  Are there guilty Lymond lovers out there hoarding all the library copies for themselves?) so I finally resorted to ILL to get hold of this. (Book Depository)

Good in a Bed by Ursula Buchan – I’m having some frustrations with the Robin Lane Fox gardening book I picked up a couple of weeks ago so requested Buchan’s collection based on her column in the Spectator to provide some much needed contrast. (Book Depository)

A Green and Pleasant Land by Ursula Buchan – While I was ordering one book by Buchan, I requested this as well since it’s been on my to-read list for ages.  How could I resist a book that combines my love of gardening with my even greater love of World War Two social histories?  (Book Depository)

The Horse of Pride by Pierre-Jakez Hélias –  I’m still looking for books about Brittany (just as eager to read about it now that I’m back as I was before I left) and came across this childhood memoir of life between the wars while browsing at the library.  It was apparently a bestseller in France and sounds exactly like the kind of thing I’ll enjoy. (Book Depository)

Walking Home by Simon Armitage – I will eventually make my way through every European walking memoir/travelogue the library owns.  It is inevitable.  (Book Depository)

The Last Mazurka by Andrew Tarnowski – A history of an aristocratic Central European family during the dramatic upheavals of the 20th Century?  Yes please. (Book Depository)

The Fringes of Power by John Colville – These are some of the most famous British diaries of WWII.  Colville was a young, eager civil servant and, though without power himself, was connected both socially and professionally to the most interesting and important people of the day.  The diaries are fascinating and massive – 796 pages.  Despite their heft, I’m still happily lugging them to work with me each day so I have something fascinating to read over lunch.  (Book Depository)

The Inner Level by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett – Perhaps a case of preaching to the choir?  But I’m always happy to read books that I agree with. (Book Depository)

Farthest Field by Raghu Karnad – Far too little has been written about India’s contribution to the Second World War and this book helps to address that in a most interesting way, through the story of a single family.  I borrowed this back when it was first released but didn’t have a chance to finish at the time.  I’m looking forward to reading it now at my leisure. (Book Depository)

What did you pick up this week?

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