Library Loot

Even though still I’m working my way through Fareed Zakaria’s Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present as well as Moudhy Al-Rashid’s Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History and Alexandra Richie’s Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising that didn’t stop me from dropping by the library this week and borrowing three more books. As always I hope to be apply these towards a number of reading challenges. Looks like that towering stack of library books by my reading chair isn’t going away anytime soon and just got a bit taller.

A Bookseller in Madrid by Mario Escobar (2025) – I want to apply this historical novel towards a number of reading challenges but especially the Bookish Books Reading Challenge.

The Book of Lost Names by Kristin Harmel (2020) – Another book I hope to apply towards multiple reading challenges. I’ve had my eye on it for the last couple of months and I think now’s the time to finally read it.

Some People Need Killing: A Memoir of Murder in My Country by Patricia Evangelista (2023) – Another book I’ve had my eye on.  I’ll be reading Evangelista’s first hand account of authoritarian rule in the Philippines for the Southeast Asia category of Book’d Out‘s Nonfiction Reader Challenge.

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.

Library Loot

Even though I’m working my way through Fareed Zakaria’s Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present, Kim Leine’s The Colony of Good Hope and Gordon Corera’s Russians Among Us: Sleeper Cells, Ghost Stories, and the Hunt for Putin’s Spies that didn’t stop me from dropping by the library the other day and borrowing a couple more books. As always I hope to be apply these towards several reading challenges. Looks like that towering stack of library books by my reading chair isn’t going away anytime soon and just got a bit taller.

Warsaw 1944: Hitler, Himmler, and the Warsaw Uprising by Alexandra Richie (2013) – One of my many reading goals of 2026 is to read a book or two about the Warsaw Uprising. Looking to apply this one towards both the European Reading and Nonfiction Reader challenges.

Early One Morning by Virginia Baily (2015) – For whatever reason or reasons this one caught me eye. Set in Italy during World War II and a few decades after looks like something for both the European and Historical Fiction reading challenges.

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 Claire’s blog.

Library Loot

Even though I’m working my way through Elyse Graham’s Book and Dagger: How Scholars and Librarians Became the Unlikely Spies of World War II as well as Kim Leine’s The Colony of Good Hope, and about to start Fareed Zakaria’s Age of Revolutions: Progress and Backlash from 1600 to the Present didn’t stop me from dropping by the library the other day and borrowing more books. As always I hope to apply these towards a number of reading challenges. So add four more to that towering stack of library books by my reading chair.

A Bookshop in Berlin: The Rediscovered Memoir of One Woman’s Harrowing Escape from the Nazis by Françoise Frenkel (2019) – I’m looking to apply this one towards multiple reading challenges including the Bookish Books and Immigration reading challenges.

Between Two Rivers: Ancient Mesopotamia and the Birth of History by Moudhy Al-Rashid (2025) – Years ago I used to get a lot of ancient history. I think I’d like to start doing that again.

The Ottomans: Khans, Caesars, and Caliphs by Marc David Baer (2021) – One of several books about the Ottoman Empire and Turkey I’m hoping to read in 2026.

An Honorable German by Charles McCain (2009) – Another piece of historical fiction for The Intrepid Reader‘s Historical Fiction Reading Challenge. Something about this book just made me wanna grab it.

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 Claire’s blog.

Library Loot

Not only am I STILL working my way through Jostein Gaarder’s Sophie’s World: A Novel About the History of Philosophy and Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language I recently started Andrey Kurkov’s Penguin Lost and Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt Tyranny of the Minority: Why American Democracy Reached the Breaking Point. But did that stop me from dropping by the library and borrowing a few more books? Of course not. As always I hope to apply these towards a number of reading challenges including the Library Love Reading Challenge. So add four more to that tower of library books stacked by my reading chair.

The Boy Detective: A New York Childhood by Roger Rosenblatt (2013) – This memoir intrigued me immediately. Can’t wait to read the adventures of an imaginative nine year old boy wandering the streets of 1950s New York City.

I Am Hutterite: The Fascinating True Story of a Young Woman’s Journey to Reclaim Her Heritage by Mary-ann Kirkby (2010) – This one immediately intrigued me as well. I know nothing about the Hutterites but I have a weakness for memoirs by women who’ve left cults or high control religious communities.

Black-Owned: The Revolutionary Life of the Black Bookstore by Char Adams (2025) – What could be cooler than reading about left-wing Black bookstores? I saw this one and simply had to borrow it.

Honestly, We Meant Well by Grant Ginder (2019) – Finding novels set in Greece for Rose City Reader‘s European Reading Challenge is harder than you’d think. Recommended by the library staff, I’m looking forward to this book’s humor.

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.