Earlier this summer, in June, I maxed out my library card.
The box which usually holds my borrowed books was so full that it was bookish-Jenga to remove one (and forget trying to add one).
A neighbouring table was also commandeered. Even, for a time, the floor space between box and table.
It’s no exaggeration to say that it’s taken all the weeks between then and now to get that sorted.
It’s also not rocket science to posit that I’ve learned nothing from that experience.
For the time being, I’ve got a (relatively) tidy stack.
Nazanine Hozar’s Aria (2019) is in my stack because Margaret Atwood tweeted that it’s an Iranian Doctor Zhivago. Earlier this year I spent some time with Iranian women writers’ works, inspired by Nilofar Shidmehr’s Divided Loyalties (link to my piece in The Temz Review) and I’m looking for more.
Tope Folarin’s A Particular Kind of Black Man (2019) is here because he won the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2013. (So have No Violet Bulawayo, E.C. Osundu, Brian Chikwava, and Leila Aboulela, among others.) He’s also a judge for a short story contest I’d like to enter: it’s important to have a sense of what a judge might value in fiction.
Aminatta Forna’s The Memory of Love (2010) has been on my TBR since it was longlisted for the Women’s Prize for Fiction. After that, she attended the International Festival of Authors in Toronto and I still didn’t get to her work. Recently, I heard her interviewed on the Guardian Books podcast and was re-inspired. Podcasts are great for fanning a dimming flame.
Guy Gavriel Kay’s A Brightness Long Ago (2019) is a return for me. I used to love his books so much that I cut into my grocery budget to buy them in hardcover, which meant more nights of boxed macaroni and less actual food, living on my own as a young adult. With the exception of Ysabel, I’ve lost track, but my recent rereading of the Fionavar stories was amazing: I’m curious.
Nell Freudenberger’s fiction has been on my TBR since The Dissident was longlisted for the Women’s Fiction Prize in 2007 (her collection Lucky Girls had been put forward for their New Writers award some years before that, too), and The Newlyweds (2012) caught my attention because of its focus on love and marriage (also, I love the birds on the cover).
It’s ironic, but the last of Thomas King’s books which I have yet to read, is the first of his books I bought, back when I was working in a department store and regularly perusing that department on my breaks. This is a replacement copy of Medicine River (1989), a paperback from 1991, which lists his previous book-length publication as A Coyote Columbus Story. Time flies!
Linda Hogan’s Solar Storms (1995) is on my shelves because I absolutely loved Power, a coming-of-age story set in Florida chronicling the experience of a young indigenous girl. I’ve enjoyed some of her essays (in Dwellings, for instance) and I’ve found a second-hand copy of Mean Spirit in a Little Free Library recently, but this will mark my return to her fiction.
Zalika Reid-Benta’s Frying Plantain (2019) is in the stack because I live a few blocks from Little Jamaica, where the book is set. I’m smack between two public libraries; it takes me four minutes longer to walk to the Little Jamaica branch. It’s worth the extra time. (And, yes, I know, normal people don’t make those journeys often enough to calculate those stat’s.)
Julio Cortázar’s Hopscotch (1966; Trans. Gregory Rabassa, 1987) has been on my shelves for more than twenty years, since I fell in love with his “A Continuity of Parks”. I loved that story so much that I carried a photocopy of it in my security pouch for that retail job I mentioned above. Because you never know what emergency could arise which would call for a short story.
Carellin Brooks’ One Hundred Days of Rain (2015) was a Toronto Word on the Street purchase from two or three years ago. It’s a story about breaking up and rebuilding and there’s a blurb from Caroline Adderson on the back (whose work I’ve loved since A History of Forgetting). All that’s to-the-good, but, really, I bought it because I loved the title.
Oh, oh, I love the title “One Hundred Days of Rain” and I have a copy that I haven’t read yet. Have you started it?
Me too! Not yet…I’m thinking probably mid-week (but I just learned I can’t renew Aria so I’m going to have to focus on that for a spell!)…would that work for you?
Yes!
Love spending time at the library and/or bookstore. I love the library just for finding older books I’ve forgotten about. Hope you enjoy your stack. I have a little one but am putting some books on hold so I’m sure I’ll be going back soon!
I returned eleven books this morning and there are seven more en route: it’s a constant cycle for me!
Oohhh ok. I’m currently reading Aria right now, it’s our August book club pick, and really enjoying it. Frying Plantain is also on my bookshelf, but lord knows when I’ll have time to read it. And! I had no idea you were a writer yourself, good on ya! Enterting short story contests sound terrifying, only because I think writing short stories is the hardest form of writing. Good luck!!!
Glad to hear that Aria is enjoyable. it looks pretty long in this moment! I’ve read some of the Plantain stories and like them. The Astoria imprint hasn’t disappointed me yet. Thank you: I don’t think my work will fit his style very well (I liked his book though, quite a bit) so I don’t think I’ll enter after all (fees are steep: I don’t enter many contests) but I”ll take the luck anyway and press it in other directions!
Ah, I miss those days when I could come home from the library with such a towering stack. In spite of the “guilty return” phenomenon, I always went back for more. These days I’m grateful for e-books and aiming to re-acquaint myself with my personal collection. Buying books definitely needs to be a rare occurrence, alas.
I’m not sure what you meant about the GG Kay book. Did you return it because you tried it and it didn’t work for you, though you used to love his work? Is Ysabel a favorite? I’ve really liked some of his but been meh about others. This new one looked intriguing but I wonder what you (as a longtime fan) thought of it.
With only three chapters left to read, now, in the new Kay novel, I can safely say that it’s a return to reading his books more devotedly. It wasn’t something I’d intended to stop doing – and when I lucked into a copy of Ysabel I really loved it (it reminded me a little of Mists of Avalon but more finely crafted voice) – and now I will be concertedly filling in the gaps. What were your ‘meh’ experiences? This new one takes place in the Sarantium timeline (but I don’t know if it’s directly connected to families/stories mentioned in the two earlier Sarantium books).
Are you not near a public library anymore? Or have you simply changed reading habits for some other reason?
I grew up in King County, Washington State, which has a terrific library system and spoiled me for life. I then lived in New York State where I also had access to an enormous network. When I moved to New Hampshire my rural library was comparatively tiny (that’s when I started with e-books) and now that I live in Switzerland English-language libraries are tough to find!
I loved the first Sarantium book and then was a little disappointed in the second — same with Under Heaven and River of Stars. Can’t put my finger on why, maybe it just became too much of the same. I would still try a new Sarantium novel though! Glad you’re enjoying it.
That all makes sense. Hopefully it’s just a matter of settling in and finding new communities and resources for books in your new surroundings. I’m concerned with the amount of time I spend reading on a screen, but I know that, if I were in your situation, I definitely would have to juggle my priorities, because I know e-reading would become a cornerstone for sure!
Same in that you enjoyed the first of the Asian-ish stories but then not the second? Or that you were just so-so on all of them past the second Sarantium book? I’ve finished rereading the Fionavar books this summer (I used to reread The Summer Tree and then would become overwhelmed and stop – in a good way) and absolutely loved them all over again. Now that I’ve read the newest, I’m going back to Tigana, then maybe I’m not sure…maybe another newer one? But, first, I’ve got some other reading to do. wink, wink, nudge, nudge
You have some great reads in this stack, and quite a few are also on my to-read list. If you’re looking for more Iranian fiction, I hope you’ve read or will be able to read Disoriental by Negar Djavadi. One of my favourites of the past while. So very good.
Oh, right: I did mark that on my TBR but it had slipped my mind. I definitely do want to read that one. Thanks for the reminder!
An Iranian Doctor Zhivago! That definitely grabs my attention as well. And the new Guy Gavriel Kay is on my radar as well. It looks like a pair of fun piles in any case.
And maxing out your library card is an achievement in itself. I’ve been feeling like I should use the library more the last few years, but I haven’t got there yet!
Phew, so you probably don’t know exactly how many books that entails (if you are trying to convince yourself to use it more)!
Doctor Zhivago is one I only read a couple of years ago and I didn’t exactly love it but somehow this pull-quote whispers positively to me all the same (thanks to Hollywood, obvs).
Oh, but I do know how many books that is! I maxed out my hold list once (before the new save list feature) but I’ve never had them all (or half, as the case may be) here at once…
I’ve read Zhivago a few times, and while most days of the week it’s not my favorite Russian novel, it’s up there. Curiously I prefer the first translation, though; I have no Russian, but I don’t think it’s one of P&V’s better efforts.
Thanks for not blowing my cover! Before they increased the number of holds (and before that lovely list-making feature), I used to be constantly at the limit of my holds, especially from September to December with the Canadian literary prizes (and a limited book-buying capacity). Now, it’s a breeze!
Ahhh, I deliberately sought out that translation (because of their reputation for Anna K., which I read years ago). Maybe I would have enjoyed the original more. But I think I was scarred from having experienced the whole story as a love story on the screen. So the rest of the book seemed unnecessary with those expectations securely in place. (Quite unfair, I know.)
I love my local library, but I tend to try to restrict my borrowings – I find they end up sitting on the side and getting ignored in favour of all those books on my TBR! Though they can be helpful when you have a bookish itch and you can borrow instead of buying! 😀
Yes, that’s it exactly: I’ve had to substantially reduce the number of books I buy in recent years and the library has been wonderful for that.
You’ve got such a wonderful collection – it would rival the library systems’ offerings in many instances, I do believe! (Especially for paperback classic editions, which don’t hold up so well in public institutions after all, although they fit so perfectly in one’s hands.)
I applaud your efforts to get your library stack down to ‘reasonable’ levels! My library’s policies curb me somewhat, though if I already have my requisite 15 I tend to just use my husband’s library card instead 😉 And then he stocks me up with university library books from time to time (I think 25 is the limit there). I’ve been reading a lot of new releases that are requested after me, which forces me to read them within three weeks. That’s usually not a problem: I just divide up the page count by the number of days until the deadline, stick in a marker at the daily target, and off I go. In the meantime, I’m also trying to do better with the books I own. 20 Books of Summer has been a good way to make a dent, and I will try to keep it up for the rest of the year, too.
I’d like to read more by Freudenberger, and mean to try again with Forna — I didn’t get far with her latest, Happiness.
Forna’s definitely seems to require more focus; I’m saving Freudenberger for afterwards, as something of a reward. And, yes, that’s exactly how I manage those duedates too (and, in this case, with Kay and Folarin and Hozar all in the same batch, I can’t be lazy about it, or I’ll miss the ending of one of them). But you know we are odd that way, right? 🙂
So if you add all that up (and, of course I do laughs) we are looking at similar numbers. (Except that if I brought in other family members’ cards, I would be looking at triple-digit opportunities. Now I will put THAT thought back in a dark recess of my reading brain before something horrible happens.)
I’m also super pleased that all my loans in recent memory have been work-related. (You will relate to that distinction!) No more of that whimsical borrowing (which usually just ended in guilty returns anyway because I had other things that I felt compelled to read which claimed every spare moment anyhow) because I was hanging out in a library on a humid, hot day. That was harder some days than others. sighs
I always love your enthusiasm for your library. They must know you well down there?
I haven’t read any of those books, though I have been tempted by The Memory of Love, I know a lot of people rated it.
I am currently reading a 600 page Persephone book National Provincial which I am really enjoying.
Haha, yes, they do know me, or, at least, my card number. They are short-staffed and over-worked. So some are friendly and some are not (because I do add substantially to their workload and it’s quite a way from their seats to my hold shelf – and, yes, sometimes my books occupy almost an entire shelf hangs heads).
I liked the sounds of the Persephone from what you said on Twitter. Definitely one I would love to try. (The Memory of Love is good. I see what people admire about her.)