A Walk in the Sun

This week, I treated myself to a much needed library day at the Barbican Library. It’s quite a nice little oasis in the middle of the urban jungle which is the City of London. Unfortunately, I picked the hottest day of the week to make the 20 minute trek and I almost melted into a puddle by the time I got back to the office. You won’t catch me complaining about the heat, however, as we’ve been waiting for summer to come to Britain for quite sometime.

It was a pleasant walk (even in the heat) and I managed to find quite a few books that look interesting. I will let you know!

                  

Library Day

Library Day has come back around. And yes, I’m aware that I’ve capitalised it as though it’s a holiday. Even though I only get an hour, it’s like a short holiday away from work. I returned 5 books and came out with 6. That’s fairly typical with me. The worst part about Library Day is that I get super excited about the books I bring home and want to dive into them right away. This is problematic because I still have 4 books at home that I have to read.

So, why, you ask, do I go to the library to get more books if I already have some at home to read? Two reasons.

1) I have a fear of finishing my last book and then having my library trek postponed for some reason and being without a book to read. Obviously, this would never ever ever happen as we own a reasonably large amount of books. But what if some apocalyptic event happened and I was stuck in my flat with no new books to read? Or if I came down with some illness that left me bedridden? So many things could happen. It’s best to be prepared.

2) I am a book addict and I HAVE NO SELF CONTROL!

That’s actually the main reason. Also, it’s because they’ll let me. I think that I’m allowed to take out up to 12 books. Or is it 16? It doesn’t really matter. I pick up as many as I can comfortably carry on a 15 -20 minute walk back to work.

Some of today’s collection are on my TBR list (which on Goodreads is up to 128 at the moment) and a couple I just picked up because they looked interesting. So here they are:

               

Have you read any of these? If so, did you like it/them? (No spoilers please!)

 

Library Day

So, it’s been a pretty craptacular week. Nothing specific has happened; it just seems like nothing has gone my way causing frustration upon frustration. Yes, poor me.

The one bright spot in my week was going to be my trip to the library. I can’t begin to tell you how much I love the library. There’s a really nice one which is only a 20 minute walk from work and it’s my favourite place to go during my lunch hour. (Yes, I will walk quite a distance for a good library and no, I don’t go every day.) However, things  at work conspired to keep me from going there until yesterday.

Off I went, a skip in my step, headphones firmly in place as I anticipated the joy I would feel as I entered the building. Alas, it was not meant to be. Books just weren’t leaping off of the shelf at me. I was only able to find four and I wasn’t too excited about them. (I say ‘only’ because I usually bring home 6 -8 and have to ruthlessly decide between which ones must be left behind.) I decided to ask a member of their staff for help on finding one of the books I wanted. That was a mistake. He was really surly and condescending and talked to me as though I had never been to a library before. I’m no library rube! I practically have a cot set up in the sci-fi/fantasy section.

Perhaps I ruined my trip with the negativity I’ve felt all week and should have waited until today to go. (I’m in a much better frame of mind today, you’ll be pleased to know.)

At any rate, here are the four books I found:

Genesis by Karin Slaughter

Life as We Knew it by Susan Beth Pfeffer

Shaka the Great by Walton Golightly

Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty by Karl Shaw

I’ve just consulted my TBR list on Goodreads and have discovered, in this very moment, that the Genesis that is on my list is by Bernard Beckett not Karin Slaughter. I’ve picked up the wrong book… I did wonder, yesterday when I was looking at the book, why I had put it on my TBR list. Not that I don’t like thrillers. Who knows? It might be good. I’m actually much more excited about my selection now that I’ve purged the negative thoughts that plagued me for the past four days.

What a week.

Anyway, I will be finishing up at least one of my current books this weekend and will post my thoughts about it on Sunday. Hope to see you then!