Having spent much of May reading books which weren’t actually a part of my Library, I am beginning June with a pile already pulled from my shelves. I feel this is the only way to Read My Library.

Currently, I have Dodie Smith’s 101 Dalmatians for a gentle bedtime read. Last time I read this, I read it aloud to Tiny 1 during evening feeds. The problem with the copy we have is that we’re missing the final pages, and don’t therefore have 101 Dalmatians, but only 100. The hundred and first turns up on the very next page after the last one in our copy. But if you paid attention to earlier in the story, you can guess who he is. And I found a copy in the charity book bin of our local Co-Op the other day, so I snatched it up. I don’t think it counts as Adding to the Library if it’s a spare, complete, copy of one already in it. Anyway, now I know for certain who the hundred and first Dalmatian is.

I was right, but that’s besides the point.

And it reminds me that I’d really like to read its sequel, The Starlight Barking. I’m fairly sure at some point I had a copy, but I haven’t seen it in a long time, so I suspect either I imagined it or it returned to a charity shop whence it originally came. Probably not the same one, but hey ho. I think somewhere I have Dodie Smith’s I Capture A Castle, which is good fun, and I look forward to a reread. But back to this month’s pile.

Also queued up are Jim Eldridge’s Murder at the Natural History Museum and Elizabeth McCracken’s A Long Game, although that looks like it’s the sort of book for dipping in and out of. A collection of writing tips, rather than an explanation of her process (which is how I tend to think of books on writing, especially by well-established authors. I know I have Terry Pratchett’s A Slip of the Keyboard and Stephen King’s On Writing somewhere on the shelves).

Let’s see how I get on with these three. They seem like being a Good Start.