Hosted by Charleen at It’s a Portable Magic.
I’ve been giving my library quite a workout the last couple of months, accounting for about 90% of my reading right now.
Library books read:
- Steal Away Home by Karolyn Smardz Frost (my review)
- After James by Michael Helm (I loved it, but it’s probably not for everyone – see BIP’s review and Angie Abdou’s review at The Winnipeg Review)
- The Spinning Heart by Donal Ryan (my review)
- Mitzi Bytes by Kerry Clare (a fun read on the lighter side of things – bloggers might especially want to check this one out) Kerry Clare blogs at Pickle Me This.
- Delusions of Gender by Cordelia Fine (read for Doing Dewey’s NF Book Club, and loved it)
- Dear Sir, I Intend to Burn Your Book by Lawrence Hill (my review)
- Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald by Therese Ann Fowler (my review, for Literary Wives)
- The Wind Seller by Rachael Preston (my review, recommended by The Indextrious Reader)
- After Swissair by Budge Wilson (poetry)
- Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies (my review, read for the 1951 Club)
- If This Is Freedom by Gloria Ann Wesley
- The Lonely Hearts Hotel by Heather O’Neill
- Little Dogs by Michael Crummey (poetry)
Currently reading:
The Days of Abandonment by Elena Ferrante
Checked out, to be read:
- Invisible North by Alexandra Shimo (recommended by Penny)
- Specimen by Irina Kovalyova
- Leaven of Malice by Robertson Davies (because I loved Tempest-Tost)
- The Awakening by Kate Chopin (for Literary Wives)
- The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant (because of BIP’s Mavis Gallant Reading Project)
Returned, unread:
- The Stranger in the Woods by Michael Finkel
- The Glass Harmonica by Russell Wangersky
- How To Draw a Rhino by Kate Sutherland (poetry)
- One Native Life by Richard Wagamese
- Evicted by Matthew Desmond (for Doing Dewey’s NF Book Club)
On Hold:
- The Last Neanderthal by Claire Cameron
- A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
- Maud by Melanie Fishbane (Yay!)
- Four Letter Words by Chad Pelley
- Baloney by Maxime Raymond Bock
- Shot-Blue by Jesse Ruddock
- All That is Solid Melts into Air by Carole Giangrande
- Chorus of Mushrooms by Hiromi Goto
- My Life With Bob by Pamela Paul
Now let’s just hope they don’t all come at once.
How about you? Have you been feeling overwhelmed by library books lately? Or have you been reading from your shelves?
Consumed by Ink 
Thats quite a mix of books you have on hold…. I tend to go overboard when I do reservations and of course they all arrive together
I’ve been going overboard more than usual lately, which means that more than usual have to be sent back unread. The good thing is that I can always take them back out again. 🙂
I know that feeling – I have three unread books to return this weekend
You’ve got some great stuff through your library! A fine selection, and generous borrowing rights, or so it would appear. I do hope you enjoy the science-themed stories in Specimen; I reviewed that for Foreword magazine last year and loved it. Shame you had to return Evicted and The Stranger in the Woods unread; those are two nonfiction books that really appeal to me and as far as I know aren’t available in the UK. And, hooray for A Tale for the Time Being and My Life with Bob 🙂
I’m determined to at least get The Stranger in the Woods back again – I love reading about hermits. And I’m really looking forward to My Life With Bob!
I’m thinking that Specimen might be one I’d like to buy – I only have it through ILL for 3 weeks, and I’d rather take my time with it. But it’s good to be able to check it out first before buying.
Our library does have generous borrowing rights, and no fees. I even requested to renew a book for the fourth time (as long as no one else wanted it), and they did it for me no problem!
Your library usage this month was amazing! How is the Ferrante book? That one is outside of the Neapolitan series right?
I really do hope that all of your holds don’t come in at once – I’ve only been putting a couple on hold at a time and they do come in together. I don’t know what I would do with a whole stack like that at the same time!
I cheated and did March and April together – they do seem to blur together for me this year, so it kind of made sense. 🙂
So far, I’m loving The Days of Abandonment. It’s a nice way to get in some Ferrante without committing to the four book series!
If all these come in at once, I’ll have to make some tough choices, because I want to read them all!!
You should read Ferrante’s series. It is so good. The first book is my favorite. The description and characterization are phenomenal.
I probably will eventually, but I have to admit that the fact that there are four of them scares me away. I have to be ready to read all four at once! I`m glad to hear you recommend them!
They are really worth the time commitment. The story is compelling, and the author also explores ideas about feminism, class, education, and power as it relates to the characters.
It sounds like a longer version of her novellas, which I’ve loved. So, yes, I’ll have to make time for it!
I still need to read her novellas.
I think you’ll like them!
I’m at the library a few days a week now, mainly for kid-related purposes though 🙂
I miss those days! I feel like I don’t have a reason to hang out at the library anymore once I’ve found my books. I need to borrow someone’s toddler. 🙂
if you lived in Calgary, you could have mine!
🙂
This is a fun blog post. I might have to do one of these someday myself.
Lately I’ve been reading more of my own books, just as an experiment – two of my own for one library book. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to keep it up, though – a bunch of my holds are going to come in soon and I’m kind of tired of postponing them over and over!
I was trying to read one and one, but then the library books just suddenly exploded. I really don’t know how it happened. 😉
Look at all your great reading!!
I’m waiting for one to come in right now – that I thought would be in today – but the library where I pick up my holds is mysteriously closed (Heretics, by Leonardo Padura). Otherwise, they seem to be on a nice trickling in manner. 🙂 Yay.
Hooray for “trickling”! 🙂
I’m currently trying to read through my owned books so that I can focus more on library books. I take out a lot of library ebooks, but not a lot of physical books … I feel like I see a physical library book and then one I own and priority just goes to the latter! I think I’ve read 21 library books this year, though, so that’s not too bad! Mitzi Bytes looks really good … I keep seeing it in the store and finally requested it through the library!
Mitzi Bytes was a lot of fun – I think you’ll like it!
I have the opposite “problem” you have – I always seem to prioritize the library books so that very few of my own get read. 🙂
Wow, that’s some really productive library usage! I must visit the library soon to freshen up my TBR pile ( although It’s by no means small), but it’ll be nice to go with no expectations and see what I find. 🙂
It’s fun to go in without any expectations and then come out with an armload. Especially without having to pay a cent!
You’ve read SO many of them: that’s impressive! Not too many went back unread by the looks of it. I’m struggling to hang onto that kind of ratio these days; I definitely went overboard with the borrowed books in the past few weeks and it’s been a challenge to keep reading them while trying to hang onto my resolution to keep reading from my own shelves (my own are definitely outnumbered these days, but at least some of them are still in the rotation)! But, really, what a delightful “problem” to have. Do you feel like the trend is going to even out soon, or are you looking at a good number of holds and loans for the next bit?
Well, I just put The Hanging of Angelique on hold… 😉
But I’m hoping it’ll slow down a bit, or that some of the ones left on the hold list will take a while to get here, because I have a few of my own right now that I really want to get to.
Despite all your borrowed books right now, I feel like you had a really good start to the year in terms of reading your own books!
I AM feeling a bit overwhelmed by my library books at the moment! I don’t know why I’ve got so many checked out at the moment. I knew I had a vacation coming up in May, and it’s not like I can take all these library books with me, and yet nevertheless I have two weeks in a row checked out as many books as I could carry in my arms. I AM WEAK.
But your arms are strong! 🙂
Your list is so unique- I don’t most of the titles on it! Which is great (or maybe not) for my TBR.
I’m so behind the times that I only started checking out e-books from my library this year. So, I’m wearing out my library catalog because there is no pressure! Download the book and read it or it simply disappears. No library fines! Woo hoo. Of course, that means my eyes are bigger than my time and a lot of things are going unread. But it’s Fun! Like shopping without spending any money.
Yes! Exactly like shopping without spending any money! And it’s good for libraries, too – it doesn’t make a difference to them whether or not we get everything read!
Probably the reason you don’t recognize most of the titles is because of all those maple leaf stickers on the bindings – most of them are Canadian. 🙂
Yay for libraries! This is the second post that I see about people using their local library every month.
My library gets lots of love from me!
I find that the books on hold often come in all at once at the library and I can’t keep up (!) but that hasn’t stopped my library usage. I hope you like the Ruth Ozeki novel; also I think Pamela Paul’s book on her reading & books would be a fun read. Now what was the scoop on the Heather O’Neill book? yeh, neh, or meh? She still like those similes eh? … and pairing characters, like twins and brothers & sisters, or couples.
This was my first experience with Heather O’Neill, and I loved it. She does use a lot of similes, but they seemed to fit in nicely with the tone of the novel. I wonder how I would feel about them in her other books… I would like to read Lullabies For Little Criminals.