Library Loot

I kept telling myself on the way to the library I was only going to borrow three books. One on the Middle East, one on China and a little something for Rose City Reader’s European Reading Challenge. But after the dust cleared I walked out of there not with three books but eight. As we all know when it comes to libraries I have no self control. 

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading to encourage bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write-up your post, steal the Library Loot icon and link your post using the Mr. Linky on Sharlene’s blog.  

• Last Boat Out of Shanghai: The Epic Story of the Chinese Who Fled Mao’s Revolution by Helen Zia – After recently finishing Rana Mitter’s Forgotten Ally: China’s World War II, 1937–1945 and Jonathan Kaufman’s The Last Kings of Shanghai: The Rival Jewish Dynasties That Helped Create Modern China I’m in the mood for more books about China. 
• Between Man and Beast: An Unlikely Explorer, the Evolution Debates, and the African Adventure that Took the Victorian World by Storm by Monte Reel – It’s always hard for me to pass up a staff recommendation whenever I visit the library. This one felt right the second I picked it up.
• The Wife’s Tale: A Personal History by Aida Edemariam – Someone in one of my Facebook groups raved about this 2018 book. I’ve always had a bit fascinated with Ethiopia. 
• Dying for Heaven: Holy Pleasure and Suicide Bombers―Why the Best Qualities of Religion Are Also Its Most Dangerous by Ariel Glucklich – Like Between Man and Beast, another book that felt right the moment I held it. 
• Your Fatwa Does Not Apply Here: Untold Stories from the Fight Against Muslim Fundamentalism by Karima Bennoune – I read the first chapter back in 2018 or but got distracted and wound up returning it to the library. I wanna give it another shot. 
• The Great Arab Conquests: How the Spread of Islam Changed the World We Live In by Hugh Kennedy – Another book someone praised on Facebook. After seeing it on the library shelf year in and year out perhaps it’s time to finally read it.
• The Return: Fathers, Sons and the Land in Between by Hisham Matar – Matar’s novel In the Country of Men easily made my year-end list of Favorite Fiction back in 2017. (No small achievement considering just how many great works of fiction I read that year.) I’m hoping this Pulitzer Prize-winner is just as good. 
• Threading My Prayer Rug: One Woman’s Journey from Pakistani Muslim to American Muslim by Sabeeha Rehman – Yet another staff recommendation. I’ve been tempted to grab this one on several occasions.  

With the Omicron variant projected to loosen its grip on America I look forward to once again sitting in a pub with a pint of beer and my nose in a good book. Luckily for me, I now have no shortage of quality reading material.