Library Loot: January 26 to February 2

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader 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!

Marg has Mr Linky this week


I've currently got 32 items checked out on my card and another 15 on my husband's card. I'm going to show screenshots of our account pages instead of typing it all out or spending time selecting which get mentioned.





My most recent trip to the library was Monday from which I lugged home another large bag. This after having just suffered the drawn out agonies of sending a couple dozen back over the last two weeks which I'd barely glanced at since a few days after their arrival in late fall.

From the moment NaNo started November 1st to New Years I was over committed without the huge bundles of books I kept sending for.

Yet I kept sending for them.

For several weeks now the final due dates of books renewed twice for a total of 63 days or nine weeks have been implacably arriving and I've been frantically perusing the pages of the batch due next. This might give me three days with twelve books or seven days with three books.

I did manage to advance my bookmarks in several of the NF books so I don't feel their stay with me was completely unproductive. I'd just hoped to get farther in more and possibly actually finish more. I make a habit of creeping my bookmarks through the NF but I truly hate when I've miscalculated and start a novel only to discover I haven't the time to finish. This has happened a dozen times or so in the last six months. I usually have to begin the novels again once I get them back.

I was stressed to the snapping point over the last two weeks as those due dates approached and passed and I tried to get as much as I could out of the batch going back next while maintain a good pace on the baby afghan and continuing to post daily and ... and ...

And yet I brought home another large batch Monday. There was another one on the 10th.

Here are some of the mostly first timers that have come home in the last month which I'm the most excited by:


I'm in dire need of advice that works regarding stress, time-management, productivity, organization as my sister well knew when she practically jump out at me via facebook and shook me by the shoulders to tell me I had to read this. I immediately checked the library and got in queue.


I am endlessly fascinated by the competing theories regarding the true authorship of Shakespeare's plays. Have had this out before but didn't get much further than scanning the chapter titles and dipping into a paragraph or page here and there. My typical pre-read for a NF.

Update: I was informed by a reader that the controversies discussed in this book have nothing to do with the authorship controversies. I guess my radar for the authorship controversy caused me to make a hugely unwarranted assumption based on the word 'controversy'. I blush.

Ah well. This doesn't lessen my interest in the book as its still about Shakespeare and his work.

I should clarify that my interest in the authorship theories is just that, interest. I'm not qualified myself to judge the validity of the arguments but I find it quite fascinating that they exist at all.


This was one of the surprises I found on the large print shelves Monday. I saw on the cover the author was born in Jakarta to Chinese parents and then studied at Stanford. I love stories influenced by multiple cultures. Then spotting the word 'fable' on the inside flap sealed the deal for me.


Actually I sent for this one several weeks ago after watching the movie on DVD. It will be a re-read for me if I get to it. This is one of the few books I've already read more than twice. Once in Junior High again in high school and yet again shortly after I was married.

And of course when this one came up during my search for Gone With the Wind I had to have it too. A re-examination of the Gone With the Wind story both book and film in light of the modern consensus of the role of women.





Saw this on Sheila's Book Journey and was intrigued. A story in which story itself figures. My favorite kind of story.


A re-telling of Bram Stoker's Dracula from the point of view of the woman who was pursued by the monster instead of the several men self-appointed as her protectors. Is it possible she resented their protection?

And then there is this which I sooooo wish I'd had last weekend for Bloggiesta: