After a busy week, enjoying a sunny morning and vignettes from Italy for the #1961Club
21 hours ago
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Posts by Claire - The Captive Reader
Yes, libraries are invaluable for their collections and services they offer, but also social contact without the expectation to interact with anyone or spend money is so important to so many people
5 days ago
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Cycling adventures both fictional and real, a gastronomic journey around France, a season for an amateur sports club, exile in a remote castle, and an awkward German professor. All found in this week's Library Loot! thecaptivereader.com/2026/04/08/l...
1 week ago
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Anything by Jane Robinson.
The Unwomanly Face of War by Svetlana Alexievich
Women of the Raj by Margaret McMillan
Women of the Klondike by Frances Backhouse
2 weeks ago
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Cover of The Game of Kings by Dorothy Dunnett, the first book in the Lymond Chronicles
The #1961Club is coming up (April 13-19) so you know what you need to do: find a copy of The Game of Kings and start reading.
2 weeks ago
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Badge advertising the 1961 Club, 13-19 April 2026. Background is an image of a library in the 1960s.
Not long to go until the #1961Club!
2 weeks ago
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3 weeks ago
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Happy birthday!
3 weeks ago
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Saw EPiC, the Elvis concert movie, today and it's wonderful. Absolutely one to see in theatres, ideally with someone who will dance in their seat alongside you.
Source: YouTube share.google/KjYTJ5bbi9Dk...
1 month ago
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I am finally reading again! Always such a relief to come out of a slump. thecaptivereader.com/2026/02/26/l...
1 month ago
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So nice of you to reach out! I'd recommend starting with the plays. The Dover Road, Mr Pim Passes By, and The Ugly Duckling are three of my favourites. The Rabbits stories have also recently been collected into a single volume, which would be another great place to begin.
2 months ago
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Perhaps a nod to Norway's historic dominance of winter games?
2 months ago
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When all but 8 teams are tied with 0 medals, it's time for anarchy in the Globe & Mail medal count list. Who needs alphabetization?
2 months ago
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Beautiful frosty, foggy morning with hopeful signs of spring
3 months ago
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3 months ago
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Letter from Walter Gropius to Martin Wagner from 1934 describing Gropius' first impressions of England. To Gropius, as to modern visitors, the British aversion to efficient heating and good food is incomprehensible but he finds "the humaneness here is so attractive."
Excellent epigraph to start Owen Hatherley's The Aliention Effect, about Central Europeans who came to Britain between the wars and the impact they made
3 months ago
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Twelve excellent months of reading and it all boils down to this: my Top Ten Books of 2025 thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/31/t...
3 months ago
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I'm devoted to the Quo Vadis Trinote
3 months ago
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Twelve excellent months of reading and it all boils down to this: my Top Ten Books of 2025 thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/31/t...
3 months ago
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The Victoria Glendinning bio is excellent!
3 months ago
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Paperback copies of three novels by Diane Pearson: Csardas, Voices of Summer, and The Summer of the Barshinskeys
What fun you can have for less than $10 at a good used bookstore! I went in looking for Csardas (all fine bookstores have at least one copy), was delighted to find favourite Voices of Summer (about an operetta festival in an Austrian village), & picked up the Barshinskeys because why not?
3 months ago
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Well this is lovely!
3 months ago
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Christmas Eve Library Loot, featuring my favourite seasonal reread: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis
thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/24/l...
3 months ago
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My stacks of library books at home are approaching danger-to-health levels...so I added a few more thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/17/l...
4 months ago
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You came to the right person! I lived there for 2.5 years (it's where I was when I started blogging)
4 months ago
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