Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Marg from The Adventures of an Intrepid Reader that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out from the library. To participate, just write up your post 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.

It’s been a while since I did a Library Loot post and as I’ve got quite a pile of books out right now I thought I’d do one today.

There are three books I have on loan that I’m thinking of taking back to the library without finishing reading, all of which I’ve renewed a few times – Dominion by C J Sansom, The Assassin’s Prayer by Ariana Franklin and The Idea of Perfection by Kate Grenville. It’s a shame because I’ve enjoyed other books by these authors, but each time I start reading these books I lose interest and put them down and am in no hurry to pick them up again. Of course, it could just be that it’s not the right time for me to read these books.

I have actually got up to page 154 in The Assassin’s Prayer, which has 414 pages and maybe it’s just me at the moment but it seems so boring, with Adelia, Henry II’s anatomist accompanying his daughter to Sicily, lusting after Bishop Rowley and once more regretting refusing to marry him.

I haven’t read much of Dominion, but have gone off the idea of reading an alternative history of what could have happened if Britain had made peace with Germany in 1940. Similarly with The Idea of Perfection, the beginning chapters are just not interesting me – too much about bridges. It may be the large print edition that’s putting me off too.

I have finished Elly Griffith’s Dying Fall which I enjoyed despite its being written in the present tense. It’s the fifth of her Ruth Galloway books. In this book Ruth travels from her home in Norfolk up to the north of England – Lancashire, to be precise Blackpool, Lytham, Pendle, Preston and Fleetwood – because Dan Golding a friend from university has died in a house fire. He had written to her just before his death with news of an amazing find. It turns out that Dan was murdered and Ruth and Inspector Harry Nelson are instrumental in discovering the truth. It’s yet another book I’ve read about the whereabouts of King Arthur’s Bones – this time it seems he’s the Raven King. A satisfying if undemanding read.

Then there are the books I haven’t started yet, although I have dipped into them. They are:

In the Woods by Tana French – a while back book bloggers were writing enthusiastically about this book, so when I saw it on the shelf I thought I’d see if I like it too. It’s a psychological thriller, so I hope it’s not too scary!

Two Cornish mysteries by Carola Dunn – Manna from Hades and Valley of the Shadow, Cornish village murder mysteries, featuring Eleanor Trewynn recently widowed who runs a charity shop from the ground floor of her house. They’re set in Port Mabyn a fictional village sometime in the 1960s and 70s. I’ve read and enjoyed a few of the Daisy Dalrymple books set in the 1920s, so I’m hoping these will be good too.

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh, described on the jacket as Waugh’s most celebrated novel mourning the passing of the aristocratic world Waugh knew in his youth. I missed this when it was serialised on TV and I’ve not seen the film either, so I thought I should read this.

And last but not least a non-fiction book –  Britain’s Last Frontier: a Journey along the Highland Line by Alistair Moffat. The Highland Line marks the furthest north the Romans advanced, dividing the country geologically and culturally, marking the border between Highland and Lowland, Celtic and English-speaking, crofting and farming. This won’t be a quick read as it includes history, myth and anecdote as Moffat makes a journey both in imagination and geographically tracing the route of the Line.  I hope I’ll be able to renew this book.