Library Loot: March 10th

Library Loot!  Hosted by Eva and Marg.

So this is a couple trips’ worth of library books.  I can see that a flurry of renewals and re-renewals are ahead of me, but I’m excited about the loot all the same.

Four of the books were through Maryland’s state-wide interlibrary loan system (yay Marina!).

The Dud Avocado by Elaine Dundy – I can’t believe this book was written in the 1950’s.  The writing voice is so fresh.  It’s about a young American woman living it up in Paris, or at least trying to.  I’m about halfway through this book now.  The writing is brilliant and contains such sharp observations about people.

Stasiland: True Stories from Behind the Berlin Wall by Anna Funder

This book is about people who lived in a “surveillance state.”  Funder talks both with people who resisted and to former Stasi men.  I don’t think I’ve read much about life behind the Iron Curtain – I know about it, but not many details.

I’m on the lookout for a new urban fantasy series to latch onto (though a new Mercy Thompson book is coming out this month – yay!).  Here are two books that are the first in their series:

Storm Born by Richelle Mead – From the back cover: “Eugenie Markham is a powerful shaman who does a brisk trade banishing spirits and fey who cross into the mortal world. . . Hired to find a teenager who has been taken to the Otherworld, Eugenie comes face to face with a startling prophecy–one that uncovers dark secrets about her past and claims that Eugenie’s first-born will threaten the future of the world as she knows it.”

Skinwalker by Faith Hunter – The protagonist of this one sounds similar to Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson character: shapeshifter, last of her kind, of Native American descent.  Mercy can only shift into a coyote while this character – Jane Yellowrock – can change into any creature she wants.  So we’ll see how she measures up.

Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica by Sara Wheeler – I love me some travelogues and I’ve heard good things about this one.

The next two books were strangely picked up as a result of finishing Robin McKinley’s Sunshine that morning.  The main character envisions her new powers like a growing tree inside of her and somehow that really stuck with me.  I wanted to read about trees and nature. So:

Swampwalker’s Journal: A Wetlands Year by David M. Carroll

A Year in the Maine Woods by Bernd Heinrich

I’m originally from Maine so the fact that the first book is written by a New Hampshire resident and the second is (obviously) about my home state makes me excited.