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.

Lots of excitement in our family since my last library post: last Friday (on my birthday) my newest nephew was born!  That brings it to three kids in under 39 months for my brother and sister-in-law – a busy household for years to come!  It’s hard – especially for the grandparents – not knowing when we’ll be able to go and visit them, even for a socially distanced sighting of the new arrival, but we’re hopeful travel will become an option as we move into spring.  Until then, plenty of books remain to keep me occupied.

A Sky Painted Gold by Laura Wood – I’ve been hearing good things about Laura Wood for a few years but it was Jane’s inclusion of Wood’s most recent novel in her box of books for 2020 that finally spurred me to action.  (Jane’s review of this, Wood’s first YA novel, is also worth checking out.)

Love and War in the WRNS by Vicky Unwin – I’ve had this on my to-read list for a few years but can’t remember now where I originally came across it.  It’s a collection of one woman’s letters from her time in the WRNS during the war, so no surprise that it appealed to me.

Twilight of Democracy by Anne Applebaum – Applebaum, a writer for The Atlantic, looks at why authoritarianism thrives.  This article from 2018, which describes the rifts Applebaum and her husband have experienced with one-time friends in his Polish homeland as the country has become increasing divided, was the inspiration for the book.

The Ex Talk by Rachel Lynn Solomon – I’ve just starting reading this delightful rom-com about two public radio colleagues who become cohosts of a new show about relationships based around the lie that they once dated.

The Piper on the Mountain by Ellis Peters – Elisabeth mentioned this 1960s mystery at the end of 2019 as one of the best books she had read that year and I was immediately intrigued by it’s Slovakian setting.  It just took me a while to do anything about it.

All the Young Men by Ruth Coker Burks with Kevin Carr O’Leary – A moving memoir of an Arkansan woman who became a caregiver and passionate AIDS education advocate starting in the mid-1980s.

What did you pick up this week?