Claire - The Captive Reader

Library Loot: January 21 to 27 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 fr…

This week's Library Loot thecaptivereader.com/2026/01/22/l...

Beautiful frosty, foggy morning with hopeful signs of spring

Keeping an Eye Open – Julian Barnes Keeping an Eye Open by Julian Barnes was the first book I read in 2026 but that alone does not make it special.  No, it also holds two other distinctions: one, it is the first time I’ve both s…

New review: Keeping an Eye Open by Julian Barnes thecaptivereader.com/2026/01/11/k...

Letter from Walter Gropius to Martin Wagner from 1934 describing Gropius' first impressions of England. To Gropius, as to modern visitors, the British aversion to efficient heating and good food is incomprehensible but he finds "the humaneness here is so attractive."

Excellent epigraph to start Owen Hatherley's The Aliention Effect, about Central Europeans who came to Britain between the wars and the impact they made

Library Loot: January 7 to 13 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 fr…

First Library Loot of 2026: thecaptivereader.com/2026/01/07/l...

Top Ten Books of 2025 2025 marked a new and hopefully not to be repeated milestone: I only wrote one book review here for the entire year.  On the plus side, that means this will be a more exciting list than usual …

Twelve excellent months of reading and it all boils down to this: my Top Ten Books of 2025 thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/31/t...

I'm devoted to the Quo Vadis Trinote

Top Ten Books of 2025 2025 marked a new and hopefully not to be repeated milestone: I only wrote one book review here for the entire year.  On the plus side, that means this will be a more exciting list than usual …

Twelve excellent months of reading and it all boils down to this: my Top Ten Books of 2025 thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/31/t...

The Victoria Glendinning bio is excellent!

Paperback copies of three novels by Diane Pearson: Csardas, Voices of Summer, and The Summer of the Barshinskeys

What fun you can have for less than $10 at a good used bookstore! I went in looking for Csardas (all fine bookstores have at least one copy), was delighted to find favourite Voices of Summer (about an operetta festival in an Austrian village), & picked up the Barshinskeys because why not?

Well this is lovely!

Library Loot: December 24 to 30 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 fr…

Christmas Eve Library Loot, featuring my favourite seasonal reread: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/24/l...

Library Loot: December 17 to 23 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 fr…

My stacks of library books at home are approaching danger-to-health levels...so I added a few more thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/17/l...

You came to the right person! I lived there for 2.5 years (it's where I was when I started blogging)

Chart from The Economist showing the annual income in 1798 of various professions and of Jane Austen characters

Happy birthday to Jane Austen, and to this very on-brand Economist chart
www.economist.com/christmas-sp...

Library Loot: December 10 to 16 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 fr…

This week's Library Loot (delayed by Margaret Atwood, disturber of schedules) thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/10/l...

Who needs a top 10 list when you could have almost 400 book recommendations? Always deadly for my TBR.

Cover of The Rose Field by Philip Pullman

Was my top priority on my vacation day travelling to a neighboring city, signing up for their library system, and borrowing a single book - all to avoid the months-long wait across all the other library systems I'm part of?

Obviously.

Library Loot: November 19 to 25 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 fr…

thecaptivereader.com/2025/11/19/l...

A cow who is feeling happy because I have taken the photo it will use for the cover of its psychedelic debut LP which it feels confident will get a five out of five star rating in Rolling Stone magazine.

THREAD. A collection of photographs of excellent cattle I have met on walks.

You will find the captions to each photo in the alt text.

Library Loot: November 12 to 18 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 fr…

This week's library loot: thecaptivereader.com/2025/11/12/l...

She's speaking here in Vancouver in early December and I'm so excited to hear her!

Superb timing! I was fast but not fast enough - 4th in the queue.

Cover of "The Private Capital" by Sandra Gwyn

I did not anticipate that the highlight of my weekend would be a 41-year-old history of Ottawa around the time of confederation but here we are

I'm so looking forward to this!

Cyclist falls down 130-foot ravine in France, survives 3 days by drinking wine he had in shopping bag A helicopter airlifted him to hospital, with a rescue doctor calling his survival "a miracle."

flip.it/FchnW8

Candidate for the most French story ever reported.

Library Loot: October 29 to November 4 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 fr…

Fresh Library Loot thecaptivereader.com/2025/10/29/l...

Library Loot: October 1 to 7 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 fr…

A slim Library Loot: thecaptivereader.com/2025/10/01/l...

Europe 2025: Iceland Cool fall weather – and rain! glorious rain! – has finally arrived here after a long, warm summer and I am delighted. But summer felt especially long for me as it began in, of all place…

I spent a fantastic week in Iceland earlier this year (during a heatwave!) and finally shared some photos and thoughts
thecaptivereader.com/2025/09/29/e...

Gordon Korman is great, especially his Macdonald Hall books.