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.
Goblin Hill by Essie Summers – I have literally no idea what most Essie Summers books are about when I beg the ILL folks to track them down for me (New Zealand! Romance! This is generally enough) but that’s okay because 90% of them are all the same story, just with minor variations! This definitely sounds like one of the 90%: On the death of her parents, Faith discovered that she was not their real daughter at all, but adopted, and her real parents were still alive. Her father was now in New Zealand, and Faith could not rest until she had gone in search of him. Yet Gareth Morgan, her father’s grim stepson, could not forget the old family scandal that had almost ruined his own parents’ life – and he could not forgive Faith for it either.
A White Bird Flying by Bess Streeter Aldrich – I read and enjoyed A Lantern in Her Hand for the first time this year and was intrigued to discover it had a sequel.
We Don’t Know Ourselves by Fintan O’Toole – a personal history of modern Ireland
Free by Lea Ypi – I read this memoir about growing up in Albania in the 1980s and 1990s as soon as I picked it up on the weekend and it’s excellent. The writing is very good (as you’d expect from a professor at LSE) and it was fascinating to hear about life during and after communism in a country I know far too little about.
The Authority Gap by Mary Ann Stieghart – Wonderful look at how and why women are taken less seriously than men and what can be done about it. Just as enraging as it is informative, I wish I could press copies of this onto everyone I know (certainly most of the men – for the women there won’t be many surprises, but lots of validation).
And then a lot of books that make it look like I’m planning a trip to Europe. I am! I have even booked it! Except I am going to Northern Italy. But trip planning is so much fun that I thought I’d get started on planning future travels and France is a lovely large country that I’ve visited far too little. One More Croissant for the Road by Felicity Cloake is a favourite and I dived right into rereading it while I’m enjoying flipping through the rest.
What did you pick up this week?
The Captive Reader 
For Italy you should read Eric Newby Love and War in the Appenines
I’ve read it and loved it!
I was able to get both Free and The Authority Gap from my library! Great list!
Wonderful! They are both SO good.
Free is on my TBR and I so wanna read it! Happy reading!
I think you’ll love it! It’s so well written and, because I’ve read so little by Albanians, offers such an interesting perspective on what happened in that country in the 1990s.
It may be you are reading the Essies too close together! See if you can get A Song Begins by Mary Burchell from ILL as she is even more of a comfort read than Essie!
Constance
The library is bringing the Summers books in from other provinces, so they tend to come a few at a time. But even if I spaced them out I don’t think you can escape the default plot of girl arrives in X, guy thinks she is angling for house/property/inheritance, girl is hardworking and useful, guy is proven wrong. And I have no quibble with that! Happy to keep reading on and on and on.
Doing my best to track down some Burchell, too!
Some of my favorites also include girl having to organize meals for dozens of people without notice and requiring ingenuity, knowing recipes by heart, freezers full of useful ingredients, and strong cooking skills! I would have been a very hungry and inadequate outback (or any settlement) spouse.
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