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.

After a slow spring, my reading has now hit warp speed and I am racing through everything.  My July has been full of light, undemanding reads and lots of them.  I don’t have any more holiday time booked until September and am hesitant to do too much face-to-face socializing outside of my bubble yet (for various family-member-related reasons) so my world is still quite small and uneventful.  Books, thankfully, make it feel much larger and help fill the long summer evenings.

But oh am I ever tired of my main non-work activities being going for a walk or reading a book (the garden is not large enough to withstand too much attention)!  Even combining them (walk to park/beach to read book?  Listen to audiobook while walking?  Daringly read while walking and hopefully avoiding traffic?) can’t add much excitement.

In search of excitement, I have returned to my old friend Amelia Peabody and her endlessly adventurous life.  The twenty books in this series should keep me well-occupied for a while and I am starting right from the beginning with Crocodile on the Sandbank and The Curse of the Pharaohs.

Rules of Civility by Amor Towles – I have borrowed this before but never chimed with it so, after adoring A Gentleman in Moscow last year, I wanted to return and give Towles’ earlier work another try.  Turns out I was in just the right mood this time and thoroughly enjoyed it.   (Book Depository)

The Relentless Moon by Mary Robinette Kowal – the third book in the “Lady Astronaut” series, just released this week. (Book Depository)

Home Work by Julie Andrews (with Emma Walton Hamilton) – Andrews’ memoir of her years in Hollywood. (Book Depository)

Take a Hint, Dani Brown by Talia Hibbert – I dropped everything to read this follow up to Get a Life, Chloe Brown and it did not disappoint.  (Book Depository)

Party of Two by Jasmine Guillory – This, on the other hand, did disappoint.  Guillory has been churning out follow ups since she published The Wedding Date in 2018 and they are getting duller with each iteration.  And none of her characters have developed diabetes despite consisting on, as far as I can tell, diets consisting entirely of fast food augmented by baked goods.  In this book the hero sends something like five cakes to the heroine in as many days.  It’s a minor detail but one that has been driving me nuts throughout all of Guillory’s books. (Book Depository)

Beach Read by Emily Henry – Two writers – of romances and literary fiction – make a summer pact to help one another break through their writers block.  Sounds like the perfect…beach read.  (Book Depository)

The Glittering Hour by Iona Grey – one of those holds I’ve had in place for so long that I’d entirely forgotten what it is about.  It promises Bright Young Things and Secrets Being Unraveled – irresistible.  (Book Depository)

The Map of Salt and Stars by Zeyn Joukhadar – This rich, moving, and lyrical debut novel, the story of two girls living eight hundred years apart—a modern-day Syrian refugee seeking safety and a medieval adventurer apprenticed to a legendary mapmaker—places today’s headlines in the sweep of history, where the pain of exile and the triumph of courage echo again and again. (Book Depository)

The Last Train to Key West by Chanel Cleeton – Bit of a disappointment.  Set in Key West during the historic hurricane of 1935, Cleeton follows three young women whose lives change over the course of a few destructive days.  The parallel heroines were unfortunately a little too similar and there is a mafia storyline that, while interesting, feels unnecessary given everything else going on.  No where near as good as Cleeton’s earlier novel, Next Year in Havana.  (Book Depository)

The Girl with the Louding Voice by Abi Daré – Debut novel from Nigerian author Abi Daré about a teenage girl fighting for an education and a chance to determine her own future.  It sounds worthy of all the praise it’s received and I’m looking forward to starting it soon.  (Book Depository)

So Lucky by Dawn O’Porter – I am steadily making my way through the longlist for the Comedy Women in Print prize. (Book Depository)

The Lonely Fajita by Abigail Mann – Also brought to my attention by the Comedy Women in Print prize, this was longlisted in the unpublished category last year.  That has now been remedied! (Book Depository)

What are you reading this week?