Posted in Library Lust | 3 Comments »
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.
I have only a little time left with physical library books before I head off on my travels. I love the convenience of e-books, especially when travelling, but spending months without physical books is always hard. It is really the only thing I’m sad about for my upcoming travels (the lack of income was much easier to make peace with).
To get me in the right mindset, I have a very appropriately New-Zealand-themed selection this week. After waiting since November for a number of Essie Summers ILLs, they have all decided to arrive in the weeks before I leave to get me in the mood!
And for everyone who wondered: don’t worry, my library loot posts will continue while I’m away. I might not always have much to share but they will be here!
What did you pick up this week?
Posted in Library Loot | 5 Comments »
After months of dreaming and planning, it’s almost here: in a few weeks, I leave for New Zealand for two whole months, to be followed by an additional three months in Europe through late spring into summer.
Yes, it’s not just a little trip this year but a full six-month break. I’ve been able to arrange an unpaid leave of absence from my company so can look forward to returning at the end of my travels (and restocking my bank account).
I realised early last year that I needed to take some kind of break from work, which had been increasingly stressful through 2020 and 2021. I work for a wonderful company and love the people I work with, but we are all rather intense. Life is too short not to take a breath every now and then, something I was reminded of between a few health issues of my own, scary diagnoses for friends and colleagues, and the sudden tragic death of a woman I’d known professionally for a decade, who was killed alongside her husband during a horrible storm. Her death really shook me as we were roughly the same age and I had rejoiced with her over so many milestones. Remembering her excitement at overcoming family prejudices to marry her high school sweetheart, planning an epic holiday in Southeast Asia, and then becoming a mother, it was – and is – upsetting to realise she won’t have any more of those moments. But I can.
I am healthy, I am relatively rich, I’m independent and there are things I want to do and see while all of that remains true!
So off I go! As usual, I’d be delighted hear your travel tips. Here’s a quick outline of where I’m headed for the first big leg of the trip – I’ll be back in April with more details about Europe:
New Zealand
- Russell
- Taupo
- Napier
- Wellington
- Nelson
- Abel Tasman (multi-day walk)
- Marlborough Sounds (multi-day walk)
- Christchurch
- Akaroa
- Mount Cook
- Wanaka
- Dunedin
- Auckland
Posted in Travel and Tourism | 28 Comments »
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.
The Reluctant Bride by Lucy Mangan – a reread (after many years).
The Gold of Noon by Essie Summers – I continue to track down as many Essie Summers books as I can – there promises to be a flurry of them next week as the ILL system is rolling again after a lull during the holidays.
This Land I Love by Susan Graham – in preparation for my trip to New Zealand, I have scoured the library catalogue and come up with some very random but appropriately themed picks. Graham was a Auckland-based newspaper columnist and this book from the early 1960s brings together entertaining vignettes from her travels around the country.
What did you pick up this week?
Posted in Library Loot | 1 Comment »
Posted in Library Lust | 2 Comments »
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.
Sharlene has the link this week.
Sorry for Your Trouble by Ann Marie Hourihane – a look a how death is handled in modern Ireland. I started reading this on the bus home from the library and couldn’t put it down.
Cousin Cinderella by Sara Jeannette Duncan – after enjoying Duncan’s An American Girl in London from 1891 (which I hope to manage a review of soon), I’m intrigued to see how this later book from 1908 about a Canadian girl and her brother in London differs.
The Day My Grandfather Was a Hero by Paulus Hochgatterer – a novella set in Austria at the end of WWII, I’ve been wanting to read this for a while but had trouble finding a copy. University library to the rescue!
Confessions by A.N. Wilson – a memoir focusing on the biographer’s early years.
Homelands by Chitra Ramaswamy – an intriguing look at “how a place becomes a home, what makes a family put down roots, and how hatred can tear them out” (from the Guardian review) and the friendship between Ramaswamy and a nonagenarian who came to Britain through the Kindertransport.
The Monk Downstairs by Tim Farrington – My library has lost its copy of this so I was happy to be able to track it down from the university library. Recommended by Nancy Pearl: “A graphic designer who has given up on men and a monk who has lost his faith in God meet and fall – most tentatively – in love.”
What did you pick up this week?
Posted in Library Loot | 10 Comments »
Posted in Library Lust | 5 Comments »
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.
Last Call at the Hotel Imperial by Deborah Cohen – a wonderful-looking group biography of wartime journalists. I was enticed by excellent reviews from Kirkus and the Financial Times.
Trespasses by Louise Kennedy – I’m very excited about this much-praised novel set in Northern Ireland during the 1970s.
Endurance by Rick Broadbent – I am not the natural audience for sports biographies but every so often one finds its way into my library bag (though none since For the Glory, so it’s been a while). There were a flurry of books about Zátopek, the Czech runner who won multiple gold medals at the 1952 Olympics, a few years ago and then a biopic more recently so I’m finally catching up.
What did you pick up this week?
Posted in Library Loot | 10 Comments »
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