Library Loans - 3rd July 2021

 I am so enjoying being able to go into my local library again and browse the books. The libraries did a fantastic job during lockdown to keep the country reading but it is so nice to be able to approach choosing books by browsing the shelves in person.

As you all know, I am a big advocate of libraries and I definitely adhere to the 'use it or lose it' school of thought. How about you? Do you think libraries are an essential part of society? What was the last book that you borrowed?

Here are the four that I borrowed on this visit. Quite an eclectic mix.

Agent Sonya by Ben Macintyre

In a quiet English village in 1942, an elegant housewife emerged from her cottage to go on her usual bike ride. A devoted wife and mother-of-three, the woman known to her neighbours as Mrs Burton seemed to epitomise rural British domesticity.

However, rather than pedalling towards the shops with her ration book, she was racing through the Oxfordshire countryside to gather scientific intelligence from one of he country's most brilliant nuclear physicists. Secrets that she would transmit to Soviet intelligence headquarters via the radio transmitter she was hiding in her outdoor privy.

Far from a British housewife, Mrs Burton - born Ursula Kuczunski, and codenamed 'Sonya' - was a German Jew, a dedicated communist, a colonel in Russia's Red Army, and a highly trained spy. From planning an assassination attempt on Hitler in Switzerland to spying on the Japanese in Manchuria and helping the Soviet Union build the atom bomb, Sonya conducted some of the most dangerous espionage operations of the twentieth century. Her story has never been told.

Agent Sonya is the exhilarating account of one woman's life; a life that encompasses the rise and fall of communism itself, and altered the course of history.

The Witches of Cambridge by Meena Van Praag

Amandine Bisset has always had the power to feel the emotions of those around her. It’s a secret she can share only with her friends – all professors, all witches – when they gather for meetings on the college rooftops. Although lately she senses the ties among her colleagues beginning to unravel. If only she had her student Noa’s power to hear the innermost thoughts of others, she might know how to patch things up.

Mathematics professor Kat is struggling with unrequited love, but refuses to cast spells to win anyone’s heart. Her sister, Cosima, is not above using such magic, sprinkling pastries in her bakery with equal parts sugar and enchantment. But when Cosima sets her sights on the love of Kat’s life, she sets off a chain of events that turns each of the witches’ worlds upside down ...

Us Three by Ruth Jones

When they are eight years old, best friends Lana, Judith and Catrin swear an oath on a Curly Wurly wrapper that they'll always be there for each other, come what may.

For years, they keep their promise - the invisible triangle connecting them remains balanced, equilateral, never two against one... until betrayal and tragedy strike, and the childhood bond that they once shared is broken.

But when a life-changing event brings the three women back together, they have the chance to rekindle their age-old friendship. The question is whether they want to ... or even whether they can.

Mothering Sunday by Rosie Goodwin

1884, Nuneaton.

Sunday Small has been in the workhouse since she was abandoned on its front steps at birth. The housemother's regime is cruel. If it were not for the kindly Miss Beau who comes in every week to teach the inmate children their letters, and her dear little friend Daisy, Sunday's life would barely be worth living. But as Sunday grows into a comely girl, she begins to attract the unwelcome attention of the workhouse master, who will stop at nothing to get her alone and won't take no for an answer.

It's time for Sunday to leave behind everything she knows and strike out alone in the world. She's driven on by the promise she makes to come back for Daisy, and her secret dream of one day being reunited with the long-lost mother who gave her away. But she's about to discover that, try to escape as she might, the brutal world of the workhouse will not let her go without a fight...