I think it's been a little while since I've shared library finds (aside from my lost in the stacks books, of course), but it's not for a lack of having them sitting around. As a matter of fact I have a much larger pile of library books than shown here, but these are the books I am most likely to read (given due dates and such). This is a combination of public library books and books from the library where I work. Between the two places I think I can check out something like 60 books. Imagine that. Not that I check that many out at once, of course.
I think I must be one of the last readers to pick up Alan Bennett's The Uncommon Reader, which I hear is a really delightful story. I've read a number of reviews of it, mostly recently Annie at The Senior Common Room wrote about it. I'm very much looking forward to this one, and it has the added benefit of appearing to be a nice, quick read. Considering how slowly I've been moving along lately it will be a nice change of pace to finish a book in a timely manner.
Robert Goddard's Found Wanting was a book I came across when I was browsing the new books shelves. I had never heard of the book or author previously, but he seems to have garnered high praise. One blurb calls him "one of Britain's finest thriller writers". I'm always up for a good thriller, so will see how this one measures up. Has anyone read him?
The Secret Lives of Baba Segi's Wives by Lola Shoneyin is one of the Orange Prize longlist titles. I really didn't know much about it before requesting it, and I might not have picked this one up otherwise, but after reading the description it sounds like an interesting read. It's about Baba Segi, "a plump, vain, prosperous middle-aged man of robust appetites" and his four wives.
I'm very much looking forward to Mary Renault's The Friendly Young Ladies, which is set in 1930s London. It is a "romantic comedy of off-Bloomsbury bohemia". I don't remember now exactly where I saw this book mentioned--in relation to something else I suspect, but it's yet another book from that era I've been so curious about for a while now.
I hadn't planned on picking up Kate Mosse's The Winter Ghosts until a coworker recommended it to me. It's another book set in the 1930s but moves back in time to WWI. Mosse, you might know, is one of the founders of the Orange Prize.
I've read a few of Susan Vreeland's novels, which are always about artists, and I love books about art. As I have a couple of her books on my shelves unread I hadn't planned on reading her newest for a while, but someone in an online reading group I belong to raved about it, so I decided not to wait. Clara and Mr. Tiffany is about the Louis Comfort Tiffany workshop and is filled with lots of artsy and historical details.
I do love library books, but my current library read, Instruments of Darkness by Imogen Robertson, may have to go back to the library unfinished as I can't renew it (I can only renew books that no one else is waiting to read). I have enjoyed what little I've read but I don't want to incur more library fines (as well as the wrath of the person next in line after me), so I will have to get back in line again.
The up side is, I guess I can pick one of these books to read in its place!