Library Loot: May 18-24

Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire (The Captive Reader) and Marg (The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader) that encourages bloggers to share the books they've checked out of the library. If you'd like to participate, just write up your post, feel free to steal button, and link up using the Mr. Linky on Claire's site this week. And, of course, check out what other participants are getting from their libraries.

Here's my haul for this week:
Howards End is on the Landing by Susan Hill: One day British novelist Susan Hill went to the bookshelves in her home looking for a copy of Howards End. She didn’t find it (at least not at first), but she did come upon several other books she had never read. That started her thinking: Why not devote a year’s reading time just to the books on her own shelves? This delightful bibliophile’s memoir records her experience, both the browsing and the reading. Along the way, she developed a kind of second project: If she could only keep 40 books, which ones would they be? The list of 40 appears at the end, and it’s a charmingly eccentric batch of books, but the real fascination in reading Hill’s ruminations isn’t about the list but, rather, about how she reads and how living with books enriches her life. Those who collect books in any fashion will be lost in their own memories as Hill muses on “things that fall out of books,” or defends writing in books, or, best of all, argues against overorganizing the books on her shelves (no more wonderful surprises). Just try to read this book without nosing around your own shelves. --Bill Ott

The Religious Body by Catherine Aird: "Sister Anne," said the Mother Superior unperturbed, "died on Wednesday evening sometime after supper, probably in the corridor leading from the Great Hall to the kitchens. Her body was put into the broom cupboard and later thrown down the cellar steps. "Who would want to kill a cloistered num? But, astonishingly, someone had. It was as much of a surprise to the sisters of the Convent of St. Anselm as it was to Inspector C. D. Sloan, Criminal Investigation Department. But now it was up to the Inspector to find the motive and the murderer.

The Highly Effective Detective by Richard Yancey: Following the death of his mother, Theodore "Teddy" Ruzak fulfills a long-held dream of setting up a private detective agency in his hometown, Knoxville, Tenn. He soon gets his first case—who drove the mysterious black SUV that mowed down a row of baby geese crossing the street? As Ruzak sets out in his own remarkably indirect way to uncover the culprit, he slowly discovers he may have landed way over his head. Ruzak, reminiscent at first of both A Confederacy of Dunces's Ignatius J. Reilly and of Columbo, fast becomes his own uniquely realized character. After starting as an especially well-drawn out shaggy dog story, the narrative takes unforeseen, utterly believable twists that wind to an extremely satisfying close. By turns touching, suspenseful and hilarious... [Publishers Weekly]

And a couple of finds in the Library Book Store:
Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen
A Stranger in My Grave by Margaret Millar

Leftover Loot:
The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
The Bloody Wood by Michael Innes
The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield