The Captive Reader

Library Loot: September 17 to 23

September 17, 2025 by Claire (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.

A Distant Mirror by Barbara W. Tuchman – I am through one of the longest hold queues I’ve ever experienced at the library and looking forward to finally reading this history of the 14th century.

Mystery in Arles by Mabel Esther Allan – I’m headed to the south of France in a few weeks and getting in the mood with a regionally set mystery.

Southern Exposure by Chris Duff – I loved exploring New Zealand as a solo traveller but Chris Duff took a different approach and did it by kayak. That much time alone on the water scares the heck out of me, but I’m looking forward to reading this memoir about the experience. It would be one way to avoid the overly chatty bus drivers…(though I will forever love the one driver in Wanaka who, when I hopped on for a 9 minute ride, offered to take me to the end of his run and back (about 6 hours) for free as he thought I’d enjoy the scenery and he’d get to have a nice chat about Canada.)

Alice’s Book by Karina Urbach – Almost three and a half years after first reading about this, I’d almost given up being able to track it down but, once again, the inter-library loan team has come through for me!

Goodnight, Nebraska by Tom McNeal – I’ve been having amazing luck with Nancy Pearl recommendations this year and have high hopes for this one, too.

The Forgotten Daughter by Caroline Dale Snedecker – I’m always looking for new-to-me books and while a Christian publisher of old children’s novels isn’t the most obvious place for me to look, I’ve had fun tracking down books issued by Bethlehem Books and this one set in the early 2nd Century AD sounds interesting.

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Library Loot | 7 Comments »

Library Loot: September 3 to 9

September 3, 2025 by Claire (The Captive Reader)

The Camomile by Catherine Carswell – always happy when I can track down one of the books in the British Library Women Writers series!

The Dancing Bear by Peter Dickinson – I came across this children’s book about a Byzantine slave who, accompanied by a dancing bear, sets off in Hun territory thanks to Slightly Foxed.

Katabasis by R.F. Kuang – newly released fantasy novel about two graduate students who journey into Hell to save their professor’s soul.

Death on the Island by Eliza Reid – a debut mystery about a murder on an Icelandic island. Reid is Canadian but has lived in Iceland for more than twenty years with her Icelandic husband, who was president of the country from 2016 to 2024.

Notes from the Cévennes by Adam Thorpe – continuing to prepare for my upcoming visit to the south of France with another expat memoir.

Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry – this was one of the longest hold lists I’ve ever been part of at my library, and that is saying something. If only all forty-year-old novels could sustain such high demand!

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Library Loot, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Library Loot: August 20 to 26

August 20, 2025 by Claire (The Captive Reader)

Strong Roots by Olia Hercules – London-based Ukrainian cookbook writer Hercules shifts to memoir, telling her family’s story over the last hundred years and four generations.

The Deepening Stream by Dorothy Canfield Fisher – ever since Persephone reprinted this, I’ve felt like I needed to give it another chance after abandoning it years ago due to its glacially-paced start.

Lavinia by Ursula K. Le Guin – In The Aeneid, Vergil’s hero fights to claim the king’s daughter, Lavinia, with whom he is destined to found an empire. Lavinia herself never speaks a word. Now, Ursula K. Le Guin gives Lavinia a voice in a novel that takes us to the half-wild world of ancient Italy, when Rome was a muddy village near seven hills.

Time Loops and Meet Cutes by Jackie Lau – another Groundhog Day-inspired rom-com but I’m trusting it’s in good hands with Canadian author Lau.

The Sisterhood of Ravensbrück by Lynne Olson – speaking of trustworthy authors, I love historian Olson’s books and have been looking forward to learning about a group of French resistance members who banded together within the concentration camp.

The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays by Wendell Berry – continuing my exploration of Berry’s essays, which always give me much to think about.

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments »

Library Loot: August 6 to 12

August 6, 2025 by Claire (The Captive Reader)

I’m having a fitful reading year. I seem to go from one run of immensely absorbing books to completely dull periods where nothing can properly engage me. I’m in the midst of one of these doldrums right now (though Bonnie Tsui’s On Muscle is doing its best) but hoping this week’s loot will help me break through.

Race of Scorpions by Dorothy Dunnett – on to the next book in the House of Niccolo series.

Wildly Different by Sarah Lonsdale – “The globe-trotting tales of five women who fought for the right to enjoy the wild places of the earth.”

Red Water by Jurica Pavčić, translated by Matt Robinson – a Croatian mystery (released in English this year) about a girl who went missing from a beach party in 1989 and her brother’s decades-long search to uncover what happened.

Augustus the Strong by Tim Blanning – Augustus the Strong, Elector of Saxony, pops up regularly in my reading as one of the most colourful characters of the 18th Century but I’ve never read a biography of him.

The Eights by Joanna Miller – Set at Oxford in 1920, there is a huge amount of press around this novel about four female students and I really, really need to be in a better mood to read it otherwise I know I’m going to be hypercritical about it.

The Age of Diagnosis by Suzanne O’Sullivan – this may be the perfect book for my current contrary mood. O’Sullivan considers “How Our Obsession with Medical Labels Is Making Us Sicker”.

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Library Loot | 7 Comments »

Library Loot: July 23 to 29

July 23, 2025 by Claire (The Captive Reader)

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The Names by Florence Knapp – The story of one family told three different ways, leading to three different fates—a dazzling debut that asks: Can a name shape the course of a life?

On Muscle by Bonnie Tsui – I loved Tsui’s earlier book, Why We Swim, so am eager to get started on this.

Trio’s Trek by Mary Jaques-Aldridge – you know how I love a good travelogue and this sounds like a unique one about three young women who hitch hiked from London to Nairobi in the 1950s.

The Illegals by Shaun Walker – I’m ridiculously excited to read this “definitive history of Russia’s most secret spy program, from the earliest days of the Soviet Union to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and a revelatory examination of how that hidden history shaped both Russia and the West.”

One Place de l’Eglise by Trevor Dolby – I can’t decide if a carousel (round and round) or rollercoaster (up and down) is the more appropriate metaphor for my travel planning this year, but the current plan (#3? #4?) is now to head to France in October so I’m getting in the mood with this memoir about life in the Languedoc.

The Spring of the Ram by Dorothy Dunnett – on to the second book in the House of Niccolo series. I’m half-way through and enjoying it even more than the first book.

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Library Loot | 3 Comments »

Library Loot: July 9 to 15

July 9, 2025 by Claire (The Captive Reader)

Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies – well this has been one of the most enjoyable reading experiences of my year so far. Robertson Davies was on school reading lists for decades but was out of fashion by the time I was in high school so I never read any of his novels and had only the dimmest idea of what they were about (some bizarre covers did not help with this, especially for The Manticore). I started my discovery of Davies with his first novel, which is a delightful comedy about an amateur production of The Tempest in a university town modelled on Kingston, where both Davies and I studied as undergraduates. I was skeptical about the comparisons others had made to Trollope but they were warranted! Great fun.

My Two Polish Grandfathers and Other Essays on the Imaginative Life by Witold Rybczynski – I’ve already ready a few of architect-author Rybczynski’s books this year and thoroughly enjoyed them. Now I’m looking forward to this more personal “not quite a memoir.”

Bringing It To the Table by Wendell Berry – I adored The World-Ending Fire, a collection of Berry’s writings from the 1960s through to the 2010s, back in 2023. I’ve tried some of his fiction since then (less successfully) but it’s time to return to his essays, with this collection specifically focused on farming and food.

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths – I got lucky with the eBook catalogue! This was just released here yesterday and I’ve been looking forward to reading it.

Heart, You Bully, You Punk by Leah Hager Cohen – an old Nancy Pearl recommendation. It sounds great.

So Far Gone by Jess Walter – there is a lot of buzz around this story of a grandfather trying to save his grandchildren from a Christian militia and track down his missing daughter and, so far, it seems deserved. I picked it up after dinner on Tuesday and didn’t put it down until I was a third of the way through.

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments »

Library Loot: June 25 to July 1

June 25, 2025 by Claire (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.

Niccolò Rising by Dorothy Dunnett – I finished the Lymond Chronicles at the start of March and have felt bereft ever since, though I did appreciate gaining back my ability to focus on other things – they were all-consuming while I was reading them. Now it’s time to launch on to Dunnett’s eight-book House of Niccolò series (and hopefully read it more slowly than I managed with Lymond).

To Go On Living by Narine Abgaryan, translated by Margarit Ordukhanyan and Zara Torlone – a collection of linked short stories set in an Armenian mountain village in the early 1990s.

Family Romance by Jean Strouse – every review I’ve seen for this book about John Singer Sargent and the Wertheimer family who commissioned twelve paintings from him has been glowing. I’ve read an unusually small amount of non-fiction this year and am ready for something really good.

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Library Loot | 1 Comment »

Library Loot: June 18 to 24

June 18, 2025 by Claire (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.

Sharlene has the link this week.

I got to do one of my favourite things this week: visit a library I don’t usually have access to! This means being able to borrow books outside my own library’s catalogue that I’d usually have to wait months to get via inter-library loan (or years for new releases, which aren’t eligible for ILL until 2 years after their release). I only picked up a few things there (accounting for 3 of these 6 titles) but it’s satisfying no matter the volume.

Walking Europe’s Last Wilderness by Nick Thorpe – a journey through the Carpathians, “Europe’s last true wilderness.” Phrases like that always have me worried about how much the author is going to romanticize a place (any time a British person talks about the wild or wilderness, I’ve learned to run away) but Thorpe has spent decades returning to this region so I’m hopeful.

Saturnin by Zdeněk Jirotka – I am super pleased to have my hands on this 1940s comic Czech novel.

Moral Ambition by Rutger Bregman – a short and easy-to-digest plea for people to “stop wasting your talent and start making a difference.”

Jubilee Trail by Gwen Bristow – for such a popular author, it has been surprisingly difficult to track down any of Bristow’s historical novels!

Marry Me in Italy by Nicky Pellegrino – this passed me by when it was published last year but I’m happy to have now tracked it down. Pellegrino always provides a fun bookish escape to Italy.

Kate & Frida by Kim Fay – tracking a friendship between two young women based in Paris and Seattle in the 1990s, I’m intrigued. I read and liked Fay’s last novel, Love & Saffron.

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Library Loot | 4 Comments »

Library Loot: June 11 to 17

June 11, 2025 by Claire (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.

Going Home by Tom Lamont – I’ve been eagerly looking forward to this since it was released last year in the UK and enthusiastically reviewed in the Guardian.

Montana 1948 by Larry Watson – a novel that has long been on my to-read list thanks to Nancy Pearl’s enthusiasm for it.

Work Song by Ivan Doig – I loved Doig’s The Whistling Season when I read it last week so quickly picked up this sequel, focused on the later adventures of the most eccentric character. It was enjoyable but not nearly as much as the first book.

Taking Lottie Home by Terry Kay – another Nancy Pearl recommendation.

Very Nice Funerals by Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer – book two in Crusie and Mayer’s very fun “Rocky Start” trilogy.

The End and the Beginning by K.J. Holdom – this was a find in the library catalogue as it’s impossible for me to pass by a book with a mountain village on the cover without wanting to check it out. Set in Germany near the end of WWII and written by a New Zealand author, I’m intrigued.

What did you pick up this week?

Posted in Library Loot | 4 Comments »

Library Loot: June 4 to 10

June 7, 2025 by Claire (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.

Sharlene has the link this week.

An unusual theme for me this week: only male authors.