the last ten books i checked out from the library

Top Ten Tuesday is a meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, where we all get to exercise our OCD tendencies and come up with bookish lists.  If you’d like to play along, check out this post.

I tweaked this week’s topic a bit – it was supposed to be ten recent books you acquired.  I can’t remember the last book I got in the mail (not because it was so long ago, but because my memory is bad!).  So, I decided to take the cheating cheater’s way, and use the last ten books I checked out from the library.  They were all helpfully listed on my online library account, so that I didn’t have to go chasing plastic-jacketed copies under the bed.  Yes, I’ve already run up library fines on some of these titles.  That's life.

The Last Ten Books I Checked Out from the Library

1. Fallout by Gwenda Bond – I've heard good things about this title for months now.  I decided to skip the signing line at BEA and added it to my library holds list instead.  I need to carve out some time to read it!

2. Fika: the art of the Swedish coffee break, with recipes for pastries, breads, and other treats by Anna Brones & Johanna Kindvall – I saw this title on the publisher's website and asked my library to purchase a copy.  I have Scandinavian heritage but that didn't come through in family recipes, so I'm always curious about traditions and food from that part of the world.

3. Adventures with Waffles by Maria Parr – Translated Norwegian children's book.  Waffles.  Yeah, I'm in.

4. Uprooted by Naomi Novik – Reviews called Novik's book an homage to Robin McKinley, and that is a surefire way to pique my interest.  I'm already a couple of chapters in and liking what I'm reading.

5. Crimson Bound by Rosamund Hodge – Hodge was a fantastic blogging discovery from last year.  Her novel Cruel Beauty and novella Gilded Ashes put her firmly in my auto-read category.  I can't really emphasize how much I'm looking forward to a book that the author compares to Patricia McKillip's Alphabet of Thorn.

6. Shadowshaper by Daniel José Older – There's a lot of positive hype behind this diverse urban fantasy, and I want to see what all the fuss is about (plus, I'm always in for diverse SFF).

7. The Crossover by Kwame Alexander – It won the Newbery Award.  I don't need to say anything else, but I will.  The author is a DC-area local.  Yep, need to read this one before I see him speak at the National Book Festival.

8. Above Us Only Sky by Michele Young-Stone – Can't remember where I heard about this title.  Maybe Kirkus?  Anyway, wherever it was, I put it on hold immediately.  It's not YA but I assume that there's some crossover potential due to the themes and age of the protagonist.  And I love magical realism, so.

9. Shadows Cast by Stars by Catherine Knutsson – SimonTeen Canada put together a Canadian YA reading list on Tumblr for Canada Day on July 1, and I added several of the books from it to my to-read list.  Book discovery happens when you least expect it!

10. Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff – I really loved Graff's A Tangle of Knots when I reviewed it two years ago.  I haven't kept Graff on my radar, but this one was featured in the LA Times' summer reading list.  I'm looking forward to it!

Honorable Mentions (i.e., ebooks currently checked out from the library): Bone Gap by Laura Ruby, Cartwheeling in Thunderstorms by Katherine Rundell, Life After Life by Kate Atkinson, and Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire.

What’s the last book you checked out from the library?