a century too late

Most of the first half of this year was given over to a much longer than expected job search and its attendant stresses. I’m finally set to become a Midwesterner again after spending all of my young adulthood so far in the Deep South. For one thing, I’m so happy to return to the Ohio public library system! I’ve been getting tired of borrowing most of the books I read from Open Library — a great resource, but not my preferred format. Looking forward to the wondrous bureaucratic excellence of Ohio’s Interlibrary Loan system…after having most of my ILL requests denied here.

(Related aside: The library field is super saturated and more competitive than I expected. Even with some archival experience and lots of office work under my belt, I didn’t get an interview with any of the libraries I applied to. Turns out there are way too many underemployed people with MLISes.)

Anyway, I’ve found it hard to focus on books these past few months when so much of my spare time has been devoted to applying for jobs, and worrying. The only book I really loved in this period was Celia by E.H. Young (maybe more on that later). I’m not sure I can totally pick up my reading until we’ve actually moved and settled into our new place, but I’m going to try. First, by participating in the BookTube Spin. Here are my 30 choices from books I already own and books on Librivox:

1. The Education of Harriet Hatfield by May Sarton
2. The Moon-Spinners by Mary Stewart
3. Another book by Mary Stewart that’s already packed whose title I forget
4. Miss Bianca by Margery Sharp
5. Miss Mole by E.H. Young
6. The Death of the Heart by Elizabeth Bowen
7. The Man in the Wooden Hat by Jane Gardam
8. The Dispossessed by Ursula K. LeGuin
9. After the Divorce by Grazia Deledda
10. Pictures of Perfection by Reginald Hill
11. Nami-ko by Kenjiro Tokutomi
12. Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
13. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
14. A Lost Lady by Willa Cather
15. Iza’s Ballad by Magda Szabó
16. The Corner that Held Them by Sylvia Townsend Warner
17. Consequences by E.M. Delafield
18. Adam Bede by George Eliot
19. Silas Marner by George Eliot
20. Felix Holt, the Radical by George Eliot
21. The Echoing Grove by Rosamond Lehmann
22. The Romantic by May Sinclair
23. Passing by Nella Larsen
24. Quicksand by Nella Larsen
25. New Grub Street by George Gissing
26. The Odd Women by George Gissing
27. Beware of Pity by Stefan Zweig
28. The Black Tulip by Alexandre Dumas
29. Pointed Roofs by Dorothy Richardson
30. Hester by Margaret Oliphant