It’s been awhile, and I owe you a Library Summer update.  I’m still plugging away at my library stack over here.  This is less of a hardship than it seemed early in the summer, because my own books still haven’t surfaced after the big move.  (I know where they all are – in boxes in the new home office.  But it will be awhile before I go through those boxes; I have to get my clothes unpacked first.)

Here’s the current checkout status:

Due back 9/12: Ten Years in the Tub: A Decade of Soaking in Great Books, by Nick Hornby (currently reading)

Due back 9/19: A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir by Lady Trent, by Marie Brennan (completed, awaiting return)

Due back 9/24: Shadow and Bone (The Grisha #1), by Leigh Bardugo (not yet started)

Due back 9/29: Packing for Mars: the Curious Science of Life in the Void, by Mary Roach (not yet started); Perfectly Miserable: Guilt, God and Real Estate in a Small Town, by Sarah Payne (currently reading)

On hold: The Golem and the Jinni, by Helene Wecker; The French House: An American Family, a Ruined ‘Maison,’ and the Village that Restored Them All, by Don Wallace

So, as you can see, a couple of things: (1) I’ve whittled the stack down to a much more manageable amount, but (2) it’s still going to occupy me all through September and probably into October.  After I get through the final two holds (both of which I had previously checked out, but which I had to return without reading because other people reserved them before I could get to them) I am going to try to read more from my own shelves.  I really do miss my own books.  Especially Fairacre.  I’ve been feeling a renewed need for Fairacre lately and it’s been bugging me that I haven’t had time for a visit.  I’d like to sit in Miss Read’s garden, or Miss Clare’s pretty kitchen, sipping tea and plotting how to avoid helping out at the next church event.  Alas, the towering stack of library books… not to mention the crushing work deadlines and the piles of still-packed boxes in every room in my house – have not permitted such indulgences.

So here’s the plan for the rest of September:

• I really do need to get through Shadow and Bone.  I’m out of renewals.  I’ve been more in the mood for non-fiction this past week (and have been plugging away at a few fiction books, including The Visitors, which I finally finished – loved – and returned, and A Natural History of Dragons) but I need to discipline myself and read this one because (a) I want to, and (b) I’m out of renewals.
• I can probably renew all the rest of these, so I’m just going to read in order of what I feel like – starting with Ten Years in the Tub, which I really want to read.
• I may return Packing for Mars without reading it.  It’s short and looks interesting, and I’ve never read anything by Mary Roach, but I was more attracted by the picture of the astronaut on the cover than anything else.  (Since you asked, yes, I am actually an eight-year-old boy.)  But I just don’t know if I’m feeling it.  We’ll see.

That’s the plan.  It’s really no plan at all, other than “keep on keepin’ on” and “get to Shadow and Bone already!”  Having finished The Visitors was a huge weight off my mind – I mean that; it’s a hefty tome.  So now I do feel like I can exhale a bit, and I am looking forward to the rest of the books on my (finally!) dwindling list.

What are you reading lately?  Any library holds catastrophes?  I can commiserate.