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.

Spies, Lies, and Exile by Simon Kuper – Kuper is one of my favourite FT columnists but, until I read this article in January, I had never heard of the double agent George Blake, the focus of this book.  The Dutch-born British citizen had a fascinating life and this slim biography is proving to be an absorbing read.  It was published in the UK under the far better title of The Happy Traitor.  

The South Horizon Man by Essie Summers – my passion for Summers continues and there are more to come in my inter-library loan queue.

The Last Amateurs by Mark de Rond – An inside look at the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, this has been on my to-read list ever since coming across it ages ago in Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust.  Watching the rowing events during the Olympics was the kick to finally track it down.  

In the Garden – one of Daunt’s themed collections of essays.

Early Morning Riser by Katherine Heiny – I’ve heard a lot of praise for Heiny’s newest release but it was this NPR review that actually pushed me to add it to my hold queue.  I love the idea of the story of a relationship that is realistic enough to expand and consider “the outcome of those colossal romantic bargains, not only about what they decided to put up with, but also who — all those other people, family and friends, bound to the beloved.”

Racing Odysseus by Roger H. Martin – it’s almost back to school time here, which seems an appropriate season to pick up this memoir by a college president who enrolled as an undergrad at St. John’s College in his sixties.  

What did you pick up this week?