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.

Happy Wednesday! What did you get from your library this week?

Claire has the link-up this time.

Here’s my latest library loot:

How Should One Read a Book? – Virginia Woolf

Maybe not exactly library loot since I didn’t borrow it! But I did read this slim book at the library. Its introduction and afterword are by Sheila Heti, and the Woolf essay is a speech she gave to a school in 1926.

“To admit authorities, however heavily furred and gowned, into our libraries and let them tell us how to read, what to read, what value to place upon what we read, is to destroy the spirit of freedom which is the breath of those sanctuaries.”

This quote, I reckon, is especially appropriate for today.

Inheritance: A visual poem – Elizabeth Acevedo, illustrated by Andrea Pippins

I’m not sure why this was on the adult non-fiction shelves. I’m happy to have found it there, as the art is quite gorgeous! Again, didn’t borrow this one, but read it at the library, as it’s only one short poem, although would have been happy to read more!

Beautyland – Marie-Helene Bertino

This book was on quite a few “best of 2024” lists but I never got to it. I didn’t realise that it’s speculative fiction/magical realism, and that made me curious.

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.

Happy Wednesday! What did you get from your library this week?

Here’s my latest library loot:

Picked up some graphic novels at the library on Sunday.

Form of a Question – Andrew J Roston, illustrated by Kate Kasnow

That’s right, it’s a graphic memoir about being on Jeopardy!

Maybe an Artist – Liz Montague

Another graphic memoir, this time by one of the first Black female cartoonists to be published in the New Yorker.

49 Days – Agnes Lee

A debut graphic novel about family and grief.

Band Nerd – Sarah Clawson Willis, illustrated by Emma Cormarie

A coming-of-age middle grade graphic novel about music

Also picked up some e-books this week, like this one:

Coming Back – Jessi Zabarksy

Love the illustration style of this artist! I previously read her other graphic novel, Witchlight.

Awake in the Floating City – Susanna Kwan

This book has an interesting setting – a flooded San Francisco of the future. And its characters are an artist and the 130-year-old woman she cares for.

All Fours – Miranda July

I’ve had this on the TBR list for a bit and I think I suspended the hold last year – then forgot about it until recently, and unsuspended it haha! I believe it was nominated for quite a few book awards/best of lists of 2024. But I’m not sure if it won anything.

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.

Happy Wednesday! What did you get from your library this week?

Claire has the link-up this time.

Here’s my latest library loot:

The Wax Child – Olga Ravn

It’s described as historical horror? Essentially it’s set in 17th c Denmark and narrated by a wax doll that’s created by a woman accused of witchcraft. That does sound horrifying, but we will see!

A Beast Slinks Towards Beijing – Alice Evelyn Yang

Set during the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, I was just curious about this book because of its title.

Spring Garden – Tomoka Shibasaki

This one is a novella, and a winner of the Akutagawa Prize.

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.

Happy Wednesday! What did you get from your library this week?

Here’s my latest library loot:

The Scammer – Tiffany D Jackson

A college freshman’s roommate’s ex-convict brother moves into their dorm and starts controlling every one. Apparently based on a real life case at Sarah Lawrence College in 2022.

I Shall Never Fall in Love – Hari Conner

Described as “The Prince and the Dressmaker goes to Austenland” which sounds delightful.

Every Day I Read – Hwang Bo-Reum, translated by Shanna Tan

Love that cover – cats and books and also a nice view from the window too! This is a collection of essays about reading, by the author of

The Enlightenment of the Greengage Tree – Shokoofeh Azar

This book is set in Iran in the period immediately after the Islamic Revolution in 1979.

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.

Happy Wednesday! What did you get from your library this week?

Claire has the link-up this time.

Here’s my latest library loot:

A Memoir of My Former Self – Hilary Mantel (audiobook)

Interestingly this audiobook (of her writings spanning 4 decades) is narrated by quite a few different people. So far I’m liking Lydia Leonard’s voice – I didn’t know who she was until I looked her up. She was in Mantel’s Bring Up the Bodies (stage adaptation) and Wolf Hall (TV adaptation), neither one I’ve seen but she has a nice voice.

Tower – Bae Myung-Hoon

Gosh I love that cover. Anyway this is a series of interconnected stories revolving around the Beanstalk, a 674-story skyscraper and sovereign nation.

Witch of Wild Things – Raquel Vasquez Gilliland

Another book in which gardening or plants is a central theme.

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.

Happy Wednesday! What did you get from your library this week?

Claire has the link-up this time.

Here’s my latest library loot:

Last Chance to Save the World – Beth Revis

This is the third book in this fun sci-fi romance series.

Soil – Camille T Dungy

So one reading prompt was to find a book where gardening is a focus, which I thought was a fun prompt (especially when compared to things like, a book which a character does pilates/lagree – first I had to look up largree, then I had to wonder, how do you find these things? Also, why do they have to be so annoyingly specific??)

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.

Happy Wednesday! What did you get from your library this week?

Here’s my latest library loot:

Tokyo Ever After – Emiko Jean

I guess this is like the Japanese-American version of the Princess Diaries?

Hemlock & Silver – T Kingfisher

A gothic, dark retelling of Snow White.

Eat the Buddha – Barbara Demick

I feel like I’m lagging behind on the nonfiction reading! Demick wrote Nothing to Envy, the fascinating account of life in North Korea, and I’m guessing this book about Tibet is probably along those lines.

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.

Happy Wednesday and Happy Lunar New Year! It’s the second day of the Year of the Horse, and I’m out visiting relatives and eating tasty lunar new year treats.

What did you get from your library this week?

Claire has the link-up this time.

Here’s my latest library loot:

The Solitary Gourmet – Masayuki Kusumi

So I’ve not actually seen the Japanese TV series Solitary Gourmet 孤独のグルメ (starring Yutaka Matsushige), but I have seen Matsushige’s TV series K-foodie meets J-foodie, which also stars Korean entertainer and singer Sung Si-kyung. In that show on Netflix, they eat at different places in Japan and Korea. Anyway this is the manga that started it all.

Cursed Daughters – Oyinkan Braithwaite

A woman gives birth to her daughter on the day that her cousin is buried, and everyone is convinced the baby is the reincarnation of the cousin.

People Like Them – Samira Sedira

Didn’t mean to borrow two thrillers in the same week, I just thought this sounded interesting (insular French village, new family moves in) and I like that it’s a book in translation by a woman translator and written by a woman.

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.

Happy Wednesday! What did you get from your library this week?

Here’s my latest library loot:

Wild Dark Shore – Charlotte McConaghy

Another one of those “best of” books, and this one sounds like a thriller. It’s got a family on an isolated island near Antarctica, and a woman who washes up on the shore.

The Invisible Hotel – Yeji Y. Ham

This Korean book is described as “literary horror”.

Lucha of the Night Forest – Tehlor Kay Mejia (audiobook)

This author has written quite a few books! I seem to only have read one other, Miss Meteor, which was a collaboration with Anna-Marie McLemore.

Womb City – Tlotlo Tsamaase

That cover does require a good second look. It’s very striking, isn’t it? It’s fitting for a story with such a synopsis:

“Set in a cruel futuristic surveillance state where bodies are a government-issued resource, this harrowing story is a twisty, nail-biting commentary on power, monstrosity, and bodily autonomy.”

Corky Lee’s Asian America – Corky Lee

I’m not sure how I came across this book, but it’s a great collection of photos by photographer and activist Corky Lee, alongside essay contributions from prominent Asian Americans like playwright David Henry Hwang and writer Helen Zia.

Tokyo These Days vols 1, 2, 3 – Taiyo Matsumoto

Matsumoto wrote one of my favourite manga series, Sunny, about a group of kids who live in a foster home. So I was thrilled to find this series!