April RandomCAT – Love in the Stacks

Love in the Stacks:



The American Library Association has designated April 9-15, 2017 as National Library Week this year. First sponsored in 1958, It’s a week each year when libraries and librarians are celebrated. This year the theme is “Libraries Transform”. As much as we all work on clearing our TBR piles, my challenge to you this month is to head out to a local library and run your fingers along the shelves as you search for that perfect book to take home with you. Something you’ve been meaning to read that’s not in your TBR pile, the next book in a series, maybe something non-fiction, a book to complete a box in the Bingo, or a book for one of the CAT challenges.
As for me – I’m hoping to get a few of these read this month:



What's not in your TBR pile that you've been meaning to read?

If the ILL comes during April, I may read Flight in Yiktor, third book in the Moonsinger series by Andre Norton.

This is so timely as I just recently had a huge influx of requested items come in at the library. Most of them were books that just caught my interest for one reason or another. Some possibilities are: The Lobster Chronicles, The Unseen World, Wonder Women, or The Versions of Us.

Well, it seemed appropriate for me as I've pack all but one book in preparation for our move.

Hopefully this will spur me to read Speaking from Among the Bones the next book in the Flavia De Luce series for me.

Nice topic, and I'm sure I won't be able to resist one or more visits to the library to find something to meet the criteria. Often I forego reading something in my TBR for something irresistible that I picked up at the library!

I have these on hold at the library:

The Year of Living Danishly by Helen Russell
The Girl in the Garden by Melanie Wallace
The Last Days of Night by Graham Moore

The Wallace title has 6 ahead of me so I may not see it until after April but the other 2 should be to me within 2 or 3 weeks. I also have a couple of series books I'd like to work in.

This seems like a great theme, although I admit I may end up skipping it, or meeting the challenge later. I'm traveling at three different points in April, and I try not to take along library books when I go out of town (I'm not known to be gentle with books in the best of circumstances, I have to admit), so I'd actually planned on avoiding the library and focusing on my TBR until May 3rd or so! I'll look forward to seeing what others stumble across, though :)

Ooh, being ordered to go browse my local library's shelves! I'm up for it.

That's tricky, because if I'm planning to read it, it's on my tbr (list). I guess you mean one you don't own? (Just to clarify...) Thanks!

Does Overdrive count?

>11 Kristelh: It is a library, after all. And one whose collection you can browse in your pajamas at midnight.

I have SUCH A PILE of books from the library right now...as long as I can renew at least one so that it's due in April, I'm good.

This is an awesome idea! I may count Love Story, with Murders, by Harry Bingham, for this challenge because it was not on my TBR and it was definitely an impulse borrow (requested immediately after I finished the first book in the series).

>12 RidgewayGirl:. Yes it is nice to look at books from anywhere but nothing like Love in The Stacks! Here is a something from The Wander Society by Keri Smith. Library Wandering:

As I look a little closer at the last sentence in the initial post:
What's not in your TBR pile that you've been meaning to read?

I will answer my own question, then. Off my tbr list (not pile) is fine, as long as I don't own it. :-)
Thank you.

My library is closed right now as someone ran their car into the building, but it should be open next week. This is a great idea and I know I will be picking up a couple or more books from the library to read next month.

>16 LibraryCin: That's how I read it as well - as long as you don't own it. I don't buy a lot of books, so my TBR is mostly all mental: books I want to read when I can find them. And that mostly means at the library!

>10 LibraryCin: - >16 LibraryCin: - >18 raidergirl3: - Yes - I was thinking of things we never get to reading because our TBR piles are too big. Mental piles don't count.

>15 Kristelh: - I really like the first way to subvert your reading.

>11 Kristelh: - I think Overdrive is fine - you can still browse....

Sorry I wasn't back here sooner. We've had a lot to do with the new house. Just had our first walkthrough today and the bank wanted stuff. And there's always more to pack. I've finally packed up all my books except for one emergency one and am off to the library later to get some to tide me over for a while.

>19 dudes22: Terrific! Thank you for the confirmation!

I like this! The library whose shelves I will be wandering is on a cruise ship!

I've vowed to only read TBRs, at least until Mt TBR is substantially smaller than it is at the moment; I was supporting the local library through getting out books for my 3 year old daughter. However, I'm sure it wouldn't hurt their stats (or mine) if I got one out of the library - one more active punter for them, and something different for me. I visit most Mondays as they do a short programme for pre-school kids, called Bookbug, which my daughter really seems to enjoy. So I'll try to join in for this month's RandomCAT :)

Great idea, I'm certainly up for it! I think I might read a book for my African category. Or Agatha Christie. Or one for my "Newish publications" category. So many options, thank you for that! :)

Thanks for the interpretation about 'not owning it' - Roberta just lent me a book, so it's from her library, and I'll count it for this month!

It's Zadie Smith's Swing Time.

>21 LadyoftheLodge: What line are you cruising with? My husband and I were very disappointed to find that the Holland America line is phasing out its libraries. There was no librarian on the ship we were on at Christmastime, and the collection (nonfiction at least) was primarily from the George W. Bush era or earlier. I also did not find much light fiction to read.
My brother and sister-in-law just returned from a Holland America cruise and reported that they had learned that the line feels it is too expensive to maintain libraries and hire a librarian. They were told that libraries would disappear when ships were dry-docked for repairs.

I don't know whether or not this is happening with other cruise lines.

>25 sallylou61: No libraries!? *gasp!

At the same time, I think most cruise ships don't have librarians, anymore. None of the ships I've been on (on Celebrity, RCCL or NCL) have had a librarian, though they all had a library. All my cruises were done between 2007 and 2013.

The libraries pretty much work on the honour system. From what I hear, many people also leave books behind when they finish them. (That is, books they brought with them.)

>26 LibraryCin: Although we were on different Holland America ships, we found a huge change between the summer of 2015 and December of 2016 in the libraries. They were staffed in 2015 but not 2016, and the collection was much poorer in 2016.

I think that you are right about people's leaving their own books behind on cruise ships. We have done that ourselves. In the future, we will be sure to take enough reading with us so that we will not need to depend upon the libraries on ships.

I just hope that LadyoftheLodge is not disappointed in the book selection on the cruise ship she will be on.

>27 sallylou61: Have to admit that, though all the ships I've been on have had libraries, I tend to stick with the books I bring. I rarely read something not on my tbr, so...

I'll read at least two library books for the AwardsCAT - Thomas and Beulah by Rita Dove and The Children's Book by A.S. Byatt.

>21 LadyoftheLodge:,>25 sallylou61:,>26 LibraryCin:,>27 sallylou61:,>28 LibraryCin: We sail on Cunard pretty much exclusively (for us it's the ball-room dancing that is the enticement) - they have wonderful libraries. Although like LibrayrCin, I stick to the books I bring as well...

A few days early, but I was browsing the new books at the library, and happened upon Gratitude by Oliver Sacks. It's four essays written just before he died. Read them in one sitting.

I was browsing the audiobooks at my local library yesterday and picked up Stranglehold, the 4th book in Robert Rotenberg's Detective Ari Greene series.

Speaking of libraries, my daughter and I experienced an incredibly interesting exhibit at the Musée de la civilisation in Québec City recently. It's called The Library at Night and is based on the book of the same name by Alberto Manguel. It's a virtual-reality tour of 10 different libraries from various locations and time periods.

I popped into the library earlier today, and picked up a short book (I didn't want anything too long as this is in addition to my other challenges and CATs!). It is A Street Cat Named Bob by James Bowen, which keeps coming up in my kobo recommendations and which a friend had said she'd read and enjoyed (and had found the kid's version to read with her daughter who is a similar age to mine). I suspect it's something I'll quite enjoy but wouldn't ever have bought, which sums up the library for me nicely!

Edited to add: Hmm, looking at it properly now it appears I've got the kid's version rather than the full memoir. Never mind - it'll be a nice quick read anyway :)

I just got a few books from the library that I'm planning to read for this CAT: Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt, Warleggan by Winston Graham, and The Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham.

I visited my local library yesterday and picked up a few books that will work for this challenge. The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, The Prey by Tom Isbell, and The Bungalow by Sarah Jio.

>33 Jackie_K: I have 't read this yet but a friend of mine keeps telling me I should. There is a sequel she thinks is equally good.

I just finished Die Muskeltiere und Madame Roquefort, a book my sister lent to me. Third instalment in a series about a group of four mouseketeers (well, actually a hamster, two mice and a rat) who meet their own very devious Lady de Winter. Delightful.

I picked out The Birds and other short stories by Daphne du Maurier from Over Drive for my Horror! Group. It fits here as well!

Urn Burial for my intro to the Miss Fisher mysteries in books rather than tv! Loved it.> 32 I have a copy of The Library at Night - love that book. I bet the museum display would be wonderful.

Picked up In Farleigh Field on Thursday and read the whole book on Saturday. Loved it!

Just picked up How to be a Woman from the library and I still have a few borrowed from last month, Massey Murder, Malice at the Palace, and also audiobooks. I do over half my reading from the library!

3 cheers for public libraries!
I just finished The Wake of the Lorelei Lee L.A. Meyer,
one in the Bloody Jack series.

>34 christina_reads: I've got Warleggan on my radar for April, too!

Schooled / Gordon Korman
4 stars

Capricorn has been raised on a commune, by his grandmother, Rain. He has no experience in the “real world”, but when Rain is injured and needs time to heal, Cap is taken in by a social worker and has to go to the local middle school. Cap, the new kid, is nothing like anyone’s ever seen before… this weird hippie kid, who doesn’t understand the first thing about middle school or kids his own age. Because of this, he’s an easy target to pick on.

This was really good. Meant for a younger audience, it’s pretty simple and quick to read, but a good story. I have mixed feelings about the end of the book, but overall, I really enjoyed it.

I added and finished another library book to the list, Supermutant Magic Academy by Jillian Tamaki was a fun read.

So I decided to go hard core for this CAT and not only did I not count the books waiting for me on the holds shelf, I also ignored the New Books shelf, which is where I usually find things. Instead, I wandered the regular shelves and brought home The Arrangement by Sarah Dunn and This Must Be the Place by Maggie O'Farrell. Now to read them before the end of the month!

I finished Street Cat Bob in less than a day - a sweet, true story of a cat who adopted a human who happened to be a vulnerably housed recovering drug addict, and together they turned their lives around. It's a pretty simple tale - James had a living creature other than himself to focus on, and that is the motivation for him to finally get himself clean and on more of an even keel. 2.5/5 (although that might be a bit of an unfair starring - I'm thinking if I'd read the full version it might have gone up to a 3).

This is the Quick Reads version - www.quickreads.org.uk is an organisation who commission authors to write books which are designed to be short and easy to read in order to be more accessible to readers who are less confident in their reading ability, but are otherwise pretty much the same as mainstream books. They are then sold through regular bookselling outlets, or (as in this case) distributed to libraries.

I have two books from the library to read right now: Rules of Civility by Amor Towles and Horrorstor by Grady Hendrix, and I have one on hold: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle. So I do think I will get something done for this challenge. :-)

For both the April SFFFKit and the RandomCat, I have finished The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker.

I've read Death of a Nag by M.C. Beaton, an ebook loan from the library. I expect I'll read at least one more library book this month

I nabbed The Ides of June by Rosemary Rowe off the New Books shelf at the library. The author is entirely unknown to me.

Another book for both this RandomCat and the SFFFKit, The Prey, which was far from perfect, but I still enjoyed.

Secondhand Souls / Christopher Moore
3 stars

Charlie Asher used to collect souls. There has been a gap, when many souls that should have been collected, weren’t. Somehow this is all related to the Golden Gate Bridge.

This is the sequel to “A Dirty Job”, which was one of my favourites by Moore. Unfortunately, this one fell quite a bit short for me. I’m rating it ok at 3 stars, which might be a bit generous. It was nice to revisit some characters and I was interested as some events were happening, but I often missed connections on why something was happening (hence the sketchy summary in my first paragraph!). I listened to the audio, and I did think the narrator did a good job – he particularly did well with various accents.

A book that was at my library (Overdrive, audio, not on my TBR). Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg.

The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet / David Mitchell
2.25 stars

Jacob de Zoet is a Dutch man working in Japan. He meets and falls in love with a doctor’s daughter (??? I think that’s how they are connected). When the doctor dies, the daughter is sent to live in a nunnery, but there is something very wrong at that nunnery.

Ok, so my summary is only a small part of the book. Too small for my liking because it was the only interesting part of the book for me and the reason the book got an extra .25 stars. If it had been even a bit more of the book, I would have raised the rating slightly higher; if it had been the focus of the book, my rating would have been considerably higher. The rest of the book – no idea what happened. It was boring boring boring. I wasn’t even a little bit interested, so I have no idea what it was really about, except I think Jacob was working for the Dutch East India Company. Which reminds me, it was set, mostly in 1799.

I've finished one of my planned library reads for this month Doc by Mary Doria Russell, the story of Doc Holiday in Dodge City.

They Fight Like Soldiers, They Die Like Children / Romeo Dallaire
3.5 stars

Romeo Dallaire was head of UNAMIR, the peacekeeping mission in Rwanda, just before the genocide in 1994. Since then, he has become involved in trying to stop the use of children as soldiers. This book looks at how and why children become soldiers, some as young as 7 or 8 years old, and offers ways to get this stopped. He also talks a lot about the group he has formed to try to stop it; his group is trying to get the military and humanitarian NGOs to work together. He has done a lot of research and has published papers on the topic.

This is terrible. I have read both Dallaire’s Shake Hands With the Devil (which I highly recommend) and Ishmael Beah’s A Long Way Gone (also recommended). There were a few chapters where Dallaire created a fictional boy who became a soldier, then later a fictional peacekeeper who shot a girl soldier; I thought these chapters, in particular, were very powerful. I hadn’t realized how many girl soldiers were also involved, and they have (many sad) issues of their own. Although some of the nonfiction parts of the book weren’t as interesting (in the second half of the book, as Dallaire talks about trying to get agencies to help stop this), I did find myself reading the bibliography at the end for a couple more books to read on the topic. He does repeat himself a bit, but I forgave him that. He is obviously very passionate about what he is trying to do.

I have a terrible library addiction so this is a great category for me! So far, I have finished Galahad at Blandings and am working on the audiobook of Queen Lucia…

I have just completed Under the Banner of Heaven by Jon Krakauer. I picked this book up for the April CultureCat on Religious Diversity. The author not only examines the Mormon religion, he also turns his journalistic eye on some of the breakaway cults that are practicing polygamy.

Since I don't drive, it's difficult for me to get to the physical library, but I do use my library's digital collection extensively. Instead of choosing one of the numerous selections on my wishlist, I decided to browse the new addition selection of the web site for the challenge and found I Hate Everyone, Except You by Clinton Kelly. This was a collection of essays about random events in his life which I found slightly disappointing.

>60 staci426: - I usually only use the digital library for my wishlist too, but that's a great idea for this month.

>60 staci426: >61 dudes22: I know this isn't what you mean, but you've given me an idea - I've been putting BBs on my amazon wishlist rather than buying them (which has made a huge difference to the amount of books I am buying - I'm still buying more than I read, but much fewer than before), and it occurs to me that I could maybe look for some of them in the library. If I love them they can stay on the wishlist (in the hope that someone buys me a copy), and if not then at least I've read it and taken it off the wishlist from a position of knowledge rather than just taking it off because of being overwhelmed with the size of the wishlist!

>62 Jackie_K: I like that idea!

I finished Der Schwimmer (The Swimmer) by Zsuzsa Bánks, which I thoroughly enjoyed. A quiet, powerful book. Now I'm going to read two books from my TBR, but if I still have time afterwards, I'll get one of Agatha Christie's books from the library, I think.

I just finished another library book that I picked up on impulse during my last trip there: The Last One by Alexandra Oliva.

Just finished The Ides of June: a mystery set in Roman Britain by Rosemary Rowe. It looked like it could be an interesting mystery but I was wrong. I gave it a dismal two stars.

I've read my second library book of the month: Browsings: A Year of Reading, Collecting, and Living With Books by Michael Dirda.

I've finished The Silkworm by Robert Galbraith.

Since it's going to be a busy Easter weekend for me, I have posted the May RandomCat. It can be found here: http://www.librarything.com/topic/255017#

I have just finished a fabulous library book - The Rosie Project by Graeme Samsion. What a fun and quirky book, it actually had me laughing out loud at times.

>69 Roro8: I also thought The Rosie Project was a lot of fun!

>69 Roro8: He has a new book coming out in a few weeks. For me this is one of those where you want to read it but are fearful it won't meet your expectations.

>71 clue:, oh, I didn't know that. Do you know what it is called?

I picked up the audio of The Husband's Secret by Liane Moriarty on a whim. Started out badly, but ended up really liking it.

>72 Roro8: Yes, the name is The Best of Adam Sharp (touchstones aren't working for it).

I've read a couple more library books this month, Scrappy Little Nobody by Anna Kendrick (decently funny memoir from an actress I like) and Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett (pretty good YA contemporary romance).

I picked up an audio at the library that I would never ever have chosen. Yes Please by Amy Poehler. You can read my review if you are interested. A lot of my reading is from the library, so I wasn't sure where to go with this CAT. Most of the books I choose are already on my radar and on a TBR list. This one works because I had not heard of it nor did I intend on reading it before I went to the stacks. It was totally out of my wheelhouse, but it served me well in the car and on my walks.

I listened to the audio Purity by Jonathan Franzen from overdrive (library digital lending).

>76 beebeereads: I've been using any library book to fit this one. Pretty much everything I read is from my tbr (list, not necessarily pile), so I confirmed early on that tbr for this CAT was referring to the pile at home.

My ILL came in, Flight in Yiktor by Andre Norton, and I'm currently reading (and enjoying) it.

Finished 3 more library books and liked them all -

Burning Bright by Nick Petrie, an action/thriller.
Assassin's Apprentice Robin Hobb, fantasy.
In Farleigh Field Rhys Bowen, spies in WWII England

The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra / Helen Rappaport
4 stars

This book focuses on the lives of the four Romanov sisters, Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia – the daughters of the last Tsar of Russia, Nicholas II, and his wife, Alexandra.

Though the author did try to focus on the four girls, I found that there was a lot of other information, as well, that (at times) overshadowed the girls. I suspect there isn’t as much info out there about the girls, specifically, but the author did find letters and diary entries. Much of the start of the book focused on Nicholas and Alexandra; of course, there was also a good amount of information on their son, Alexei. It did focus a lot on the family, as a whole. And, historical events were also prominent (but there’s no way around that!). I think most of the information about the girls was as they got older, especially the older two, who acted as nurses during WWI before the family was imprisoned. It was very interesting – I did enjoy the book. I listened to the audio – the narrator was good, though I did, on occasion, lose focus.

I have finished a couple of library books: Galahad at Blandings & A Damsel in Distress by Wodehouse and The Ivory Grin by Ross MacDonald. Next up is The Unbearable Lightness of Being…

I've finished another book from the library that I've been meaning to read for a while - Illumination in the Flatwoods: A Season with the Wild Turkey by Joe Hutto.

I borrowed The warlord trilogy from my sister's library as an experiment with audiobooks in English, but I didn't like the characters, so I quit. I won't keep the printed versions either, to me it's not a successful version of the Arthurian legends.

I just finished The Dry by Jane Harper.
I loved it - eerie setting, suspense, twists, and surprise ending I didn't see coming.

I've read Summer by Edith Wharton, which I enjoyed. It is the first work by Wharton that I have read recently which does not feature rich people.

Two books I wanted for the March Culture Cat arrived at my library in time for this month. Tears We Cannot Stop and The Hate U Give. This turned out to be an awesome pairing that was randomly created by hold availability. Sometimes the stars align.

I went to the library and stocked up on Graphic Novels. I was able to get all the following:

March: Book One by John Lewis
March: Book Two by John Lewis
March: Book Three by John Lewis
War Brothers by Sharon McKay
The Encyclopedia of Early Earth by Isabel Greenberg
The One Hundred Nights of Hero by Isabel Greenberg

I finished Flight in Yiktor and Bird Brains, and am goung to give Mirror Dance a whirl. All three are library books.

I finished Hex, by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, a horror novel from the new releases shelf. Interesting in that it was translated from the Dutch and relocated to New York state, but not entirely successful.

Murder at the Vicarage / Agatha Christie
4 stars

This is the first Miss Marple book. Mr. Protheroe is found murdered at his desk. Very soon after, two different people confess to the murder. Miss Marple lives not far away, so she must have seen or heard something! What could have really happened?

I am always mixed on Agatha Christie’s books. I decided, this time, to try the BBC dramatization instead of the book itself, and I’m certain that made a difference for the higher rating. I think it made it a bit more interesting to me, and I am glad that’s the version I listened to. I do like Miss Marple.

I finished another library read, this one from a hold: Universal Harvester by John Darnielle. If you like ambiguous, mind-bending books, this is one for you. Also fits next month's RandomCAT, as surprisingly to me, it's very much about mothers.

>92 sturlington: You got me. I've been eying this one anyway, but now I have to read it.

>93 RidgewayGirl: You can read it in a day. I'm very interested to hear your take on it.

>92 sturlington:, I have a copy of this one, perhaps I can get to it sooner than later. Glad to see your favorable review.

finished another library book -

Turning Angel by Greg Iles.
Pretty gritty but face-paced and interesting turns in the plot.
And now I really want to visit Natchez someday! Mississippi is one of about 5 states I haven't been to yet.