I think my current library book pile is at least twice this size, but these are the most recent and the books most on my radar at the moment (and also the newest--as opposed to those 're-borrows'--the books I had out once before, had to return and get in line for again . . . ). Most are from the public library but a few are books that crossed my desk where I work and I had to bring them home--books I hadn't heard of before or hadn't given much thought to. I love those serendipitous finds!
So, top to bottom:
A new reissue of an old book. Have you seen these 'British Library' mysteries? Or, to give the proper title, British Library Crime Classics. A Scream in Soho by John G. Brandon was originally published in 1940. It's set in Soho during the blackouts of WWII. I'm quite keen on this one and I suspect period detail will be excellent. What better way to learn about what life was like there and then but by reading a book written there and then!
Elizabeth Wix tempted me with Damon Galgut's Arctic Summer which I was very curious about. It is a fictional biography of E.M. Forster (an author who I admire greatly and count a number of his novels as favorites of mine). Rather I think it is about one year of his life, 1912. I may have to break down and buy this one.
Elizabeth Lord's The Chandelier Ballroom is one I came across purely by chance. It sounds a little bit like a ghost story or mystery about a tragedy concerning a young woman who committed suicide in the ballroom of a great house. The story follows the various inhabitants of the house over the decades.
I love these big compendiums of short stories that are edited by Otto Penzler. I have checked out others in the series (most notably a collection of ghost stories that I enjoyed dipping into). The Black Lizard Big Book of Locked-Room Mysteries is said to be "the most complete collection of impossible-crime stories ever told". A few authors I have to look forward to reading--Stephen King, Dashiell Hammett, Agatha Christie, Georges Simenon and Dorothy L. Sayers. Lots of fun here I think.
I really love biographies but I read far too few of them, and I think I haven't even managed one at all this year. I'm not sure I will get to Kirstin Downey's Isabella: The Warrior Queen as it is a hefty hardcover, but I will at least dip into it and see how it reads. This is not the only biography I have brought home of late, but I am saving the other as I think it (along with this one) is going to set me off on another reading path.
I am now fantasizing about upcoming holidays and long weekends and many (hopefully) free hours to spend with my books. It's November and the countdown has begun. And so have the reading piles and lists!