Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Library Loot LX

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! 

If I haven't screwed up my roman numerals along the way, this is my 60th Library Loot post since I started participating in this meme in August 2009. I promise you I've been to the library way more times than 60 in that time span, though. Sometimes I go just to return something and then look but don't borrow. Sometimes I go with my daughters who borrow books but I don't. Sometimes my library loot post includes books from three different libraries that I've visited in a week's time. In any case, I've become a huge fan of looting libraries in the last few years and I don't plan on stopping!

The House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros
I'm down to the wire with less than a month left to wrap up a few of my reading challenges for this year. I chose to read this book for the last requirement for the What's In A Name 5 Reading Challenge. I started reading it already and will likely finish it tomorrow. It's acclaimed by critics and even considered a modern classic, but I'm not exactly sure why yet.

Sputnik Sweetheart by Haruki Murakami 
This is my second year participating in the Haruki Murakami Reading Challenge and this is the book I chose to read this year. (I'm participating at the one book level.) Last year I read after the quake: stories and liked it, but didn't feel it was quite enough to say I've really sampled Murakami's writing. I hope I like Sputnik Sweetheart!

Great Expectations: The Graphic Novel by Charles Dickens, 
       adapted by Jen Green
Go ahead and laugh at me for reading this classic novel in graphic novel format, but at least I'm reading original text and learning about a classic that I know nothing about and would probably not read otherwise. My motivation to read this one comes from the fact that my daughter is reading the novel in her high school lit class right now and I thought it would be fun to read it along with her. In my modified, short cut version, anyway. I highly recommend the Classical Comics line of graphic novels for reluctant high school readers or busy grown ups like me who want to be enlightened but don't have the time or interest to read the original novels.

Head Over Heels by Jill Shalvis
I grabbed this one on the way out of the library the other night. This is the third book in the Lucky Harbor contemporary romance series. I read the first two a while back and while I'm not sure I want to continue with the series (there are at least five books now), I at least want to finish this one to complete the original trilogy. The first three books feature three sisters who have been reunited in Lucky Harbor after growing up separately who all find love and happily ever after as adults. This is Chole's story. If I don't finish this one by the end of the year, it will likely be one of my first few books of 2013.

Food in Jars by Marisa McClellan
I re-looted this great little cookbook on home preserving. I'm kind of hoping Santa brings me my own copy, but in any case, I wanted to check out Marisa's marmalade recipes because I'm thinking of making up a batch or two to give as Christmas gifts to friends. Let's see if I can make that happen.

Have you read any of these books? 

What are YOU reading from your library [or bookshelves]? 

Are you cramming to read any particular books to meet your 2012 Reading Challenge goals? 

9 comments:

  1. I'm way behind on the Western Genre challenge. I'm not even going to try to finish it. I still need to read Pride and Prejudice by the end of the year.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I'm lucky that I have a great library just a few blocks from my work. I've recently been checking out books about running. But I need to get better about checking if books are at the library before I buy the book. And I just discovered my county library system has a great electronic book check out system too. I had no idea about that one.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Head Over Heels looks great, I have been meaning to read this author!!! Hope you enjoy your books, looks like some good finds!! :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Christine! Am I one of those friends? :) Seriously, I wished I lived closer to you!! :) and I do hope you get your own copy!

    Nice loot. There are at least 6 books to the Lucky Harbor series by the way :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Head over Heels was my favorite one of the first 6, I think.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Good luck with your books and your challenges!
    I get you on the Lucky harbor thing, and I kind of like that that series is kind of self contained in trilogies so you can skip books if you want. Chloe's wasn't my favorite story of the bunch but i understand the need to finish a trilogy :D

    Good luck ;)

    ReplyDelete
  7. Oh, The House on Mango Street by Cisneros is part of my personal library at home. :) Ms. Cisneros is a wonderful writer and I believe conducts writer's workshops in NYC every so often. Hope you enjoy it.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Linda, Will you rejoin the Western Challenge next year? I think I'm letting go of a few, myself. Like the Ebook challenge. I don't think I'm meeting this year's goal, but that's not why I'm ditching it. I figure it doesn't really matter whether I'm reading print or ebook--they are both all kinds of awesome and I am just thrilled to be reading books. The end. lol!

    Good luck reading Pride and Prejudice by the end of the year. I'm still hoping to finish Anna Karenina by the end of the year, myself. I'm way behind schedule. Oops.

    Samantha, Nice! Do you walk over to the library at lunchtime? I could see myself doing that. And being late coming back every time! ;)

    I use the Overdrive app on my iphone and ipad to borrow ebooks from the library system. It's great.. but sometimes the wait list for the ebook is longer than the paper book at the library! Ha!

    Lover of Romance, Jill Shalvis's books are very sweet romances. Hope you give her a try.

    nath, Of course you are one of THOSE friends. ;) I wish you lived closer, too! We'd have so much fun. :) And of course we could then borrow books from each other! haha!

    Oh wow. Lucky Harbor is up to six books!? I think I'm stopping at Head Over Heels. They're fun, sweet romances, but not MUST READs to me and Lord knows I have more than enough MUSTs to get to!

    Lisa, Yay! Glad to know you loved it.

    Alex, Thank you, sweetie! :) I hope I like Chloe's book!

    Hilcia, So nice to hear you think so highly of Cisneros. I might email you when I've finished reading The House on Mango Street.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I was interested and excited to hear how much your love Food in Jars. I'm starting to really get into canning (I actually just spent this afternoon making pink grapefruit marmalade) and am always on the look out for great books on the topic!

    ReplyDelete

Leave a comment! I love to hear what YOU think.
[I apologize, but I've had to disallow anonymous users to comment on my blog due to an influx of spam. I'll change it back as soon as I can. Thanks for understanding.]