Claire - The Captive Reader

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
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Gordon Korman is great, especially his Macdonald Hall books.

This feels such a loss, a fine athlete and by all accounts I ever heard, a fine man.

Part of a generation of hockey fans’ memories. That image, as the P.M. says here, of him casually leaning, from a great height, on his stick.

Those Habs were ‘my’ team, he was their bulwark. Rest In Peace, sir.

Library Loot: September 3 to 9 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 journey to Hell, a Byzantine slave, a classic Western, an Icelandic mystery, a frustrated music teacher, and life in the south of France: this week's Library Loot thecaptivereader.com/2025/09/03/l...

Floral displays in barn for judging at fall fair

Sheaves of wheat attractively displayed for judging at a fall fair

Calves being shown by 4H teens for judging at fall fair

Is there any better end of summer tradition than an agricultural fair? This one had a rodeo but, let's be serious, can that beat the excitement of finding out who arranged the most attractive sheaf of wheat?

We specialize in messy used bookstores here! Happy to report that not all smell of rodent pee

My summer luxury has been leaving a blanket at the office so each lunch hour I can take it and a book to a nearby park. Reading under a tree on a hot day is always idyllic but there's something especially wonderful and transgressive when it's sandwiched between hours of playing with Excel.

Almost Perfect: Dorothy Evelyn Smith, ‘O, The Brave Music’ Sometimes I think that was the happiest day of my life, those hours of heat and silence and colour, alone with David high up on the moor. But then I remember that I have said that of many other day…

Almost Perfect: on Dorothy Evelyn Smith's "O, The Brave Music"

Library Loot: August 20 to 26 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 …

This week's Library Loot: thecaptivereader.com/2025/08/20/l...

Library Loot: August 6 to 12 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 …

This week's Library Loot thecaptivereader.com/2025/08/06/l...

Library Loot: July 23 to 29 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 …

This week's Library Loot thecaptivereader.com/2025/07/23/l...

There are lots of connections! Thirkell co-opted Trollope's Barsetshire and peopled it with her own characters but also descendants of Trollope's families. It's fun to spot all the familiar names and tributes to Trollope. The Angela Thirkell Society has notes on each novel for the linkages

Jutland Cottage 'Charming, very funny indeed' ALEXANDER McCALL SMITH Change is in the air in Barsetshire. The country may have a new queen, but Greshambury has a new rec...

I think Virago is still publishing but at a much slower rate (Jutland Cottage was released this year). No idea when they'll stop. The later books simply aren't that good so, fun as it would be to have a complete set, I can't blame them for losing enthusiasm www.virago.co.uk/titles/angel...

I remember when the first green spined Thirkells arrived and my gasp of disappointment. How I resented putting them on the shelf next to the earlier Virago editions with the image wrap on the spine! I'm still frustrated each time I look at them all lined up

Library Loot: July 9 to 15 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 …

A time-travelling detective, amateur theatrics, a loner math teacher finds love, a grandfather tries to save his family from a Christian militia, a not-quite-memoir, and essays on food and farming: this week in my Library Loot

thecaptivereader.com/2025/07/09/l...

Quote from Tempest Tost by Robertson Davies

I heard zero enthusiasm for Robertson Davies from the adults in my life while growing up so never read him. Surprise: he is funny!

Library Loot: June 25 to July 1 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 …

This week's Library Loot: short stories from Armenia, art history, and, most exciting of all, more Dorothy Dunnett

thecaptivereader.com/2025/06/25/l...

Library Loot: June 18 to 24 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 …

Raiding a new library in this week's Library Loot thecaptivereader.com/2025/06/18/l...

Library Loot: June 11 to 17 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 …

Books, glorious books! This week's Library Loot thecaptivereader.com/2025/06/11/l...

And you picked the nicest possible week to come here!

Library Loot: June 4 to 10 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…

Hurrah for the weekend! But also, how is it already Saturday? Time for a very belated bare-bones Library Loot: thecaptivereader.com/2025/06/07/l...

Library Loot: May 28 to June 3 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/2025/05/28/l...

YouTube video by Jill Sobule - Topic Heroes

So sorry to hear about the untimely death this week of Jill Sobule. I loved so many of her songs as teen (and still do), which had a sense of humour missing from many of my other favourite singer-songwriters

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Library Loot: April 30 to May 6 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…

I seem to finally be shaking off the reading curse that hung over me through most of April. Huzzah! Time to celebrate with more library books thecaptivereader.com/2025/04/30/l...

Shakespeare and Myself – George Mikes It has taken until almost the end of April but here I finally am with my first review of the year! All credit goes to Simon and Karen for hosting the 1952 Club, which, as these clubs tend to do, su…

Shakespeare and Myself by George Mikes for the #1952Club thecaptivereader.com/2025/04/24/s...

The Far Country by Nevil Shute, for the 1952 Club The Far Country, Nevil Shute, review

This book provided a real flavor of 1952, which I wasn't expecting but found fascinating - The Far Country by Nevil Shute perfectretort.blogspot.com/2025/04/the-...

Library Loot: April 23 to 29 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/2025/04/23/l...

Library Loot: April 2 to 8 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/2025/04/02/l...

Cover of The Clarinet Polka by Keith Maillard

I just finished The Clarinet Polka & it was the best kind of reading experience. It pulled me into a Polish-American community in West Virginia at the end of the 1960s & held me with its good-hearted-but-self-destructive narrator. Loved it all.