One night a few weeks ago, it was probably some time past midnight, and for some unaccountable reason I had the urge to request several books from the library. I suspected that the winter was going to be a long hard one and the thing that would cheer me up was the prospect of plenty of decent books to read – while ‘coorying doon’. So that is why I ended up going to the library yesterday to pick up eight books! Don’t ask me why I feared I might run out of books of my own to read as that’s just never going to happen. Shamefully I don’t even recognise most of the books that I got, but I do know that several of them were recommended by fellow book bloggers – so it may well be your fault!
The first three books were completely my choice.
1. Anna, Where Are You by Patricia Wentworth
2. The Case of William Smith by Patricia Wentworth
3. The Peppermint Tea Chronicles by Alexander McCall Smith
I really enjoy Patricia Wentworth’s Miss Silver mysteries so these should be nice murderous comfort reads for me, and the Alexander McCall Smith book is a continuation of his 44 Scotland Street series, I’ve read all the others and I’m a bit of a completist so I’ll read it although a few of them have been a bit hit and miss. They come under the heading of comfort reads too.
4. The Children’s Book by A.S. Byatt. It’s a mystery to me as to why I requested this one although it was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, often a reason to avoid a book for me! I have a horrible feeling that I tried reading a book by Byatt before and abandoned it fairly quickly, and I rarely abandon books. I see it has a worrying 617 pages.
5. The Arms Maker of Berlin by Dan Fesserman. I have not a clue who recommended this one but I think they loved it, I hope I do too.
6. In the Light of What We Know by Zia Haider Rahman. It’s another chunkster at 556 pages. Have any of you read this one?
7. The Lotus Eaters by Tatjana Soli. I have a feeling that it might have been Helen at She Reads Books who enjoyed this one. I borrowed it a while ago but had to return it before I got around to reading it as someone has requested it. It’s a James Tait Black winner and I have a project on the go to read all of those winners. It’s a hard task as so many of the books are going to be nigh on impossible to track down, but I’m giving it a go, albeit very slowly.
8. Personality by Andrew O’Hagan. I was attracted to this one while reading some blurb or a blog, the words ‘Scottish island’ jumped out at me so I decided to give it a go. However I’m not sure about it as I believe it is loosely based on the life of Lena Zavaroni, the young Scottish singer who had such a sad and tragic life.
Have you read any of these ones?
