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 have real books!  Real, honest-to-goodness, physical books are now in my possession after two very different library trips.

The first trip was to my beloved local branch, which is now open for outdoor pick-ups.  I was able to pick-up three long-standing holds from them and I was practically giddy through the entire (very brief) experience.  Two of the three were books the library purchased at my request, so I was especially excited to get them.

My second visit was a bit more involved.  The hold system is not back to functioning normally yet; if you want books from one of the handful of libraries that are open for browsing you are encouraged to pick them up there.  So, book list in hand, I went to our central library downtown.  A limited section of the library is open so if you want something from upper floors you need to make a request and a staff member acts as a runner to pick up the books and bring them back downstairs.  It all worked very smoothly and I had plenty of time to browse the available fiction shelves while I waited.  All told, I was out within 20 minutes with plenty of books.

Now I am surrounded by beautiful stacks of new books and feel overwhelmed by choice once again, which is the proper result of any library visit.

Here are the three I was able to pick up from my local branch:

Eve in Egypt by Stella Tennyson Jesse – I am 100% the target market for people who publish travelogues thinly disguised as novels, which is what this 1920s tale promises to be.  (Book Depository)

The Lost Europeans by Emanuel Litvinoff – It has been four years (!) since Simon added this to his list of 50 Books You Must Read But May Not Have Heard About (full review here) but I’ve finally got my hands on it.  (Book Depository)

Scent Magic by Isabel Bannerman – The Times named this as the 2019 gardening book of the year, which is high praise indeed given some of the competition it had (most notably Catherine Horwood’s excellent biography of Beth Chatto). (Book Depository)

Fair Stood the Wind for France by H.E. Bates – this has been on my TBR list for ages.  Will this finally be the summer I read it?  (Book Depository)

The Duff Cooper Diaries edited by John Julius Norwich – Ditto.  (Book Depository)

Plot 29 by Allan Jenkins – As should be clear by now, I will read any sort of garden-focused memoir. (Book Depository)

Chanel’s Riviera by Anne de Courcy – I’m in just the right mood for one of de Courcy’s light social histories and the added escapism of the French Riviera is ideal for this travel-starved summer. (Book Depository)

Memories by Teffi – The library has finally recovered (or replaced) its copy of this.  (Book Depository)

The Horseman by Tim Pears – I loved listening to Pears when he was the focus of a recent-ish episode of the Slightly Foxed podcast.  I was immediately determined to start reading him and this, the first in his West Country trilogy, seemed like the perfect place to start.  (Book Depository)

The Semi-Attached Couple and The Semi-Detached House by Emily Eden – One of – or rather two of – the VMC titles that I remember hearing a lot about when I first started blogging.  Hayley wrote an excellent review of this volume back in 2011 and compared the experience to “reading an early [Georgette] Heyer”.  Sold! (Book Depository)

V. Sackville-West’s Garden Book – A selection of Sackville-West’s gardening columns in a singularly unattractive edition.  It’s even worse in person than pictured here.

The Summer Queen by Elizabeth Chadwick – I loved reading about Eleanor of Aquitaine when I was growing up so am looking forward to this book, the first in a trilogy, about her. (Book Depository)

What are you reading this week?