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.
It’s finally happened: after more than six month, my local library branch is now open for browsing. They opened yesterday and, no surprise, I made a point of going there on my lunch break just to embrace the joy of being back in familiar surroundings. I am so thankful the library has made it possible to pick up holds over the last few months and to browse at other branches but there is so much comfort in having this branch reopened.
And of course it makes it even easier for me to comfort myself with many, many books. Here are some of the new ones I’ve picked up:
What did you pick up this week?
The Captive Reader 
I think the Duff Cooper Diaries would be interesting and Cairo During the War.
And they’re linked! Artemis Cooper, author of Cairo in the War, is the granddaughter of Duff and Diana Cooper.
I just visited my library for the first time since the pandemic too!! The Woolgrowers Companion looks good – I love a book with an unusual setting – but a quick peek at reviews says it is “challenging” and “bleak”. Not necessarily bad things but I’ll be curious to hear what you think.
I haven’t started reading it in earnest yet but even just flipping through I can safely say it’s not challenging. It looks like a satisfyingly dramatic saga with – crucial at this stage of covid – an exotic location. Quite looking forward to it!
The Cairo book is the one that interests me the most. Hidden depths in that era!
I’ve read so much about Europe during the war that it’s fascinating to hear all the things that were happening in Africa. I’ve had glimpses (through other books, like To War with Whitaker, Penelope Lively’s works, Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War) but can’t wait to learn about it in more depth.