One night a couple of weeks ago I got quite despondent about the approaching winter which will surely be a long and rather depressing one. So I decided to cheer myself up by spending some time reserving books from the library. Not that I need books from the library as I have so many unread books of my own (and Jack’s) there’s no danger of running out of reading matter, but I hate the thought that the libraries might close down completely again over winter. Some of the books have arrived and a couple of others will be along time in turning up as there are over 40 people in front of me waiting for them! At the moment my library books are:
A Book of Book Lists by Alex Johnson
An Impossible Marriage by Pamela Hansford Johnson
The Holiday Friend by Pamela Hansford Johnson
Murder by Matchlight by E.C.R. Lorac
Wild Harbour by Ian MacPherson
Gerald and Elizabeth by D.E. Stevenson
Baby Knits by Susie Johns
A few of these books have been published by The British Library. which I just typed into the search box in the library catalogue and lots of interesting publications that I didn’t know about appeared, but I reined myself in – for now.
Have you been using your local library recently?
Murder by Matchlight is one of my top favourites of all the ones the BL has produced. Hope you enjoy it!
FictionFan,
I’ve enjoyed the few Lorac books that I’ve read so I’m really looking forward to this one.
Katrina, I am frustrated and saddened by what we have in my area for a local library. Compared to others in our state, ours is very poorly funded, so almost anything I try to find in their system isn’t there. We formerly had access to other libraries in the area, but now there is a charge for their use. Argh…..I have complained about it, but I guess I haven’t complained loudly enough to the right people!! Today, I went by to pick up a book and couldn’t get it because it is being used as a voting place, so it was packed with cars and people. Sounds like your library system is a good one, so enjoy!
Paula,
I suppose we are lucky in Fife as we can use any library in the county and return the books to any library too, but if a book isn’t in the Fife catalogue we have to get an inter-library loan from another county and we have to pay for that. It’s usually almost as cheap to buy the book secondhand online. Sixteen libraries were closed down a few years ago to cut costs despite a big campaign by locals to keep them open, we also had support from local authors Val McDermid, Ian Rankin and James Robertson – to no avail. But it could be worse I suppose!
I read Murder by Matchlight and enjoyed it. I’m about 3/4 of the way through Gerald and Elizabeth.
I haven’t yet started using the library again. There are a few new books that I’d normally reserve from the library, so I may start using it again.
Joan,
They are very careful in the libraries here, we just drop the returned books into a box at the door and they don’t touch them for days and they wipe them before giving any books to you or putting them on the shelves, so it seems safe enough. I’m glad you enjoyed Murder by Matchlight, I hope you’re enjoying Gerald and Elizabeth too.