Where Bloggers Live: My Last 10 Library Books I Read (and 5 I Did Not Finish)
- sallyinstpaul
- 7 hours ago
- 8 min read
Welcome back to the monthly edition of Where Bloggers Live! I am lucky to have joined a terrific group of bloggers who give a peek into the places and spaces where they spend their time.
Today's topic is The Tabs That Never Close: My Essential Websites...and for a similar topic in 2023, I wrote about my favorite weather website, which I used routinely for years. (Now that I am not working, I find that I spend less time tracking the weather forecast, and I find myself just looking at the Weather app on my phone most of the time!)
For this post, I am turning my attention to a site that has become increasingly necessary to me in the last few years - my local library cooperative's OverDrive website, where I check out books for my Kindle. (There is also an app called Libby, but I don't use it.)
If you're not familiar with OverDrive/Libby, it's a platform where you can use your local public library card or student ID to borrow free ebooks, audiobooks, and other digital media. Apparently the vast majority of public library systems in the US use it, so if you have not started getting ebooks or audiobooks with your library card, you should give it a try!
I don't have a clue what the arrangement is between various library systems and the OverDrive company, so your experience may vary, but using my St Paul MN library card, I can borrow up to 15 items at a time for 21 days.
One thing I have noticed in the last year or so is that it's become harder for me to find books that are immediately available to borrow. Every book has a certain total number of "copies" that are available to me. Often all the copies are checked out, so I can:
(1) Put the book on my Wish List (which has a limit of 5,000 items! I use it as my to-be-read list) and check back later to see if it's available; and/or
(2) Put the book on my Holds list (which unfortunately also has a limit of 15 items) and wait for my turn to come up. I think I have a couple days to claim the book when it's my turn, then it moves on to the next person on the list (but I don't lose my place in line so I will be first when a copy becomes available again).
But since I have an entire TBR (to-be-read) folder with pages and scraps of paper with book titles/authors on it going back to 2001 or so, I have added a lot of them to my Wish List, and I can always find something to borrow immediately even if the most recent releases require a wait.
Because I use a Kindle, my Amazon books page includes all the library books I've checked out...which is useful because sometimes a book sounds interesting but it turns out I've already read it!
That means I can share what are the last 10 books I've read through the library, and for fun, the last 5 books I checked out but did not finish.
#1: Dream Girl by Laura Lippman
This book has an interesting premise, but I was expecting something more like Lippman's more traditional mysteries rather than the "Misery meets #MeToo" psychological thriller that this book offers. It's quick read and I was curious enough about the story to finish it, though I felt pretty meh by the end. 3/5
#2: Carl's Doomsday Scenario (Dungeon Crawler Carl Book 2) by Matt Dinniman
If the idea of a man and his ex-girlfriend's Persian show cat playing a live-or-die real-life dungeon crawler/role-playing game against the lone few million survivor's of an alien's takeover of Earth appeals to you at all, this will be even better and funnier and somehow more emotionally touching than you expected. Princess Donut for the win! 5/5
#3: A Drop of Corruption (Shadow of the Leviathan Book 2) by Robert Jackson Bennett
Sherlock and Watson as officers of a magical fantasy universe's imperial department of criminal investigation gives you a first approximation of what you're in for, but it's weirder and more original than that. The first book blew me away because the world felt so strange and novel, but I still thought the second book was great too...and hints that the third book will reveal something about the greatest mystery in the series: what the heck is the deal with Ana, the superior officer? 4.5/5
#4: The Last One at the Wedding by Jason Rekulak
Come for the mystery, stay for the 100% on point Dad energy of the main character! This book made me realize how infrequently we get stories focusing on "regular Dad of an adult daughter whose gotten into a weird situation." 4/5
He's a polarizing author due to the formulaic nature of his thing, but I do enjoy the books (and Netflix mini series) as providing reliable entertainment. This was not my favorite of his books (overall, I think the Myron Bolitar mysteries-in-the-sports-world series wins that one), but it was interesting...and I probably would gotten more from it if I had read the first book about the character Wilde before reading this one. 3.5/5
#6: The Mercy of the Gods (The Captive's War Book 1) by James S. A. Corey
This book captured my attention and imagination from the beginning. It's a bit of a slow starter, but my time in grad school has me interested in the machinations of academia so I kept with it, and I was greatly rewarded when the aliens showed up, the stakes were raised, and things got mysterious and complex. (It's actually amusing to compare this one to Dungeon Crawler Carl because they are both superficially about people captured by aliens and forced to play a game of survival...which I guess is a premise I like!) This was my first book by this author, but it won't be my last. 4.5/5
#7: Hidden Pictures by Jason Rekulak
A woman becomes the babysitter for a young boy loves to draw...but soon his drawings start to become strange, ominous, and impossibly technically sophisticated (as we see for ourselves)...the work of dark supernatural forces? Eerie/spooky but not terrifying, with an ending I didn't see coming. I can't guarantee that I read it literally in one sitting, but it certainly felt that way. 4/5
#8: The Raven Scholar (Eternal Path Trilogy Book 1) by Antonia Hodgson
Let me say up front that I am not a fan of the evolution of fantasy to romantasy, so there are a lot of books in this general category that I just couldn't finish or don't even start. But this one worked for me because (1) the romance was between two exes, which is less annoying than many other tropes (e.g., enemies-to-lovers) and (2) it was not the driver of the story. There was plenty of uncomplicated political intrigue, sword-fighting, mythology...or is it reality?, and murder to satisfy. And the Raven doesn't lie: they are magnificent. 4.5/5
#9: Winterkill (Dark Iceland Book 6) by Ragnar Jonasson
I hate to say that I am glad that this series is wrapped up because while I have no beef with the mystery plot of this book and I have enjoyed the setting and atmosphere throughout the series, I am tired of the protagonist...and I feel like the author is too because there was a bit of a rushed feeling about this whole book. 3.5/5
#10: The Circle by Dave Eggers
A dystopian story about a woman who goes to work for a giant cult-like tech firm, this book probably felt more satirical when it came out in 2013 than it does today. The lavishness of the employee perks at the over-the-top company campus are very 2010s, but several aspects of the technology are pretty close to our reality...disturbingly so. I am basically ambivalent about this book. 3.5/5
Did Not Finish #1: A Gambler's Anatomy by Jonathan Lethem
I liked the premise, but I just couldn't get into it. It's hard to be riveted by a description of two people playing backgammon when you don't know what any of those words mean (I haven't played backgammon in over 30 years). The whole literal vs. figurative blindness thing got old for me fast, too.
Did Not Finish #2: Becoming Madame Mao by Anchee Min
I hated the universe of this book, I hated the main character, I hated everything about it. The fact that it was based on a real time, place, and person just made it worse.
Well this was a disappointment! Surely it's exactly the kind of book I would like so why didn't I like it? First, I think the whole "romantasy" problem strikes again. The characters start out as vicious academic rivals who hate each other, and I found them unpleasant (but not in an interesting way). I could tell that I was going to be deeply annoyed by how that relationship would play out, and I feared that was going to be the real story of the book. Second, the tone felt rather light and jocular, which I wasn't expecting. I was hoping for something darker with greater weight. I guess if I'd thought more about it, the set up of "two grad student rivals who hate each other have to delve into the pits of hell to rescue their advisor and secure a letter of recommendation" is definitely a cozy academic satire enemies-to-lovers romance wearing a fantasy setting ("academia is hell" wink-wink) that would not be my thing. The book cover is really cool though.
Did Not Finish #4: Morning Star (Red Rising Book 3) by Pierce Brown
I'm sad to report that I liked the first book a lot, liked the second book okay...and the downward trend continued here with a book I just couldn't get into. Twice. I tried this book two different times and nope, I was done this story and with these people. I think the scope of the story got wider with each book in a way that didn't work for me.
Did Not Finish #5: Murder Your Employer by Rupert Holmes
Fun premise, and I may have enjoyed this book...if I could read it. The typesetting of the "journal" sections is a hard-set aspect of the book that I couldn't change with my Kindle, and right off the bat, the font used for the first student was too light for me to comfortably read it. So I really can't recommend the Kindle version, but perhaps the print version would be OK?
Next month's topic is Things You'll Always Hear Me Say...and "oh that romantasy enemies-to-lovers book sounds so great, it's just my thing!" is clearly not one of them.
In the meantime, visit these lovely bloggers as they share about their essential websites:
Bettye at Fashion Schlub
Daenel at Living Outside the Stacks
Em at Dust and Doghair
Jodie at Jodie’s Touch of Style
Iris, always in our hearts, from Iris' Original Ramblings
Now to you: do you check books out from your public library? Physical books, ebooks, audiobooks? What books have you read or couldn't finish lately? What websites are essential for you these days?
Blogs I link up with are listed here.
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