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 possible that all of the end of year book lists in the newspapers have turned me a little mad. As if they were not adding enough new books to my to-be-read list, they’ve inspired me to gather several books about books from the library. By the end of the year my TBR should be truly gargantuan but how fun it is to make it so!
The Lyttelton Hart-Davis Letters: Volume Two, 1956-1957 – I managed to both enjoy and be underwhelmed by the first volume of these literary letters, which I read back in 2018. But in my current bookish mood, I thought I would give them another try and I am so glad I did! Hart-Davis was stricter in editing and the tedious cricket chat has been excised, along with a few other elements that made the first volume a bit stodgy. They have also settled into a stronger friendship and begin to share more about their personal lives amidst the trading of quotations and book recommendations. Very enjoyable so far.
Classics for Pleasure by Michael Dirda – I loved Browsings and got so many wonderful recommendations from it, as well as thoroughly enjoying Dirda’s writing. Here he appears to stick more to canon with fewer obscure choices but I’m looking forward to his thoughts on them.
The Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby – I read a collection of Hornby’s columns about his reading habits in 2013 and, despite getting some excellent recommendations from him, retained my general disinterest in Hornby himself so never rushed out to read more. Nine years later, I’m ready to dive back in.
Second Reading by Jonathan Yardley – Yardley, a Pulitzer Prize-winning book critic (like Dirda), is entirely new to me so I’m intrigued to see what I think of this.
The Snare of the Hunter by Helen MacInnes – my exploration of MacInnes’ spy novels continues. I’m especially intrigued by this one as the main character is a Czech who has defected and whose ex-husband, a member of the secret police, plans to use her to trap her famous father.
Family Business by Victoria Glendinning – Glendinning is such a talented biographer and I’ve been looking forward to this biography of the John Lewis family and business since it was released last year.
What did you pick up this week?
The Captive Reader 
I really enjoyed Polysyllabic Spree, also Housekeeping vs the Dirt. But somehow Shakespeare Wrote for Money palled on me, and I never got around to reading More Baths, Less Talking yet. I think it was just my mood back then, and I ought to try him again!
I’ve given up on the Hornby this time around, I’m sad to say. I think you need to be in the right mood for him and I’m definitely not right now. Maybe one day!