Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. If you’d like to participate, just write up your post-feel free to steal the button-and link it using the Mr. Linky any time during the week. And of course check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

 

Hello from day 3 of COVID19-no-school-for-three-weeks-or-possibly-more.

The county I live in is under lockdown until April 7 and so all libraries are closed!

Today we will be trying out something new – piano class via FaceTime! The music school location is closed for the same two weeks so the piano teacher is trying out online classes for now. Hopefully it works. Our piano is located in the part of our house which has the worst wifi signal, although the husband added a repeater so we will see how that goes!

How are things going in your part of the world? Are you working from home? Are your kids (if any) home?

Meanwhile, link up your library loot here or let me know in the comments. Stay safe, stay healthy!

My first Sanderson. Not sure if this is the right one to start with? Oh well, that’s what I’ve borrowed!

The Final Empire (Mistborn #1) – Brandon Sanderson

Where ash falls from the sky, and mist dominates the night, evil cloaks the land and stifles all life. Criminal mastermind Kelsier teaches Allomancy, the magic of metals, to another Mistborn, urchin Vin 16. The unlikely heroine is distracted by rich Venture heir Elend. Can Kelsier’s thieving crew take on the tyrant Lord Ruler and bring back colour to their world?

The Pomegranate Lady and her Sons – Goli Taraghi

Rich in characters both whimsical and deeply poignant, humorous and real, the stories of Goli Taraghi have made her one of the world’s most beloved contemporary writers from Iran. A best-selling author in her native country and widely anthologized in the United States and around the world, Taraghi’s work is now made fully accessible to an English-speaking audience in this standout and long-awaited volume of selected stories.

Drawing on childhood experiences in Tehran during the reign of the Shah, her exile in Paris, and her subsequent visits to Tehran after the revolution, Taraghi develops characters and tales that linger in one’s mind. In the title story, a woman traveling from Tehran to Paris is obliged to help an old woman–the Pomegranate Lady–find her way to her fugitive sons in Sweden. In “The Gentleman Thief,” a new kind of polite, apologetic thief emerges from the wreckage of the revolution. In “Encounter,” a woman’s world is upended when her former maid becomes her jailer. And in “The Flowers of Shiraz,” a group of teenagers finally manages to coax a shy schoolmate out of her shell–only to once again encounter tragedy.

Reminiscent of the work of Nadine Gordimer and Eudora Welty, Taraghi’s stories capture universal experiences of love, loss, alienation, and belonging–all with an irresistible sense of life’s absurdities

 

As for the kids’ loot, I’m going digital this week, although I don’t like having them read ebooks too much. And you may think I’m paranoid but I think it’s important right now to just stay home, keep to ourselves, practise social distancing.

 

What did you get from your library this week?