Claire - The Captive Reader
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Claire - The Captive Reader
@thecaptivereader.bsky.social
Reader.

thecaptivereader.com
Beautiful frosty, foggy morning with hopeful signs of spring
January 18, 2026 at 7:57 PM
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
January 11, 2026 at 7:28 PM
Reposted by Claire - The Captive Reader
Twelve excellent months of reading and it all boils down to this: my Top Ten Books of 2025 thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/31/t...
Top Ten Books of 2025
2025 marked a new and hopefully not to be repeated milestone: I only wrote one book review here for the entire year.  On the plus side, that means this will be a more exciting list than usual …
thecaptivereader.com
December 31, 2025 at 2:15 PM
Twelve excellent months of reading and it all boils down to this: my Top Ten Books of 2025 thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/31/t...
Top Ten Books of 2025
2025 marked a new and hopefully not to be repeated milestone: I only wrote one book review here for the entire year.  On the plus side, that means this will be a more exciting list than usual …
thecaptivereader.com
December 31, 2025 at 2:15 PM
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?
December 29, 2025 at 5:12 PM
Well this is lovely!
I am finishing Gyles Brandreth's new biography of A A Milne - and look at the acknowledgements, @thecaptivereader.bsky.social !!!
December 28, 2025 at 11:08 PM
Christmas Eve Library Loot, featuring my favourite seasonal reread: Doomsday Book by Connie Willis

thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/24/l...
Library Loot: December 24 to 30
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out fr…
thecaptivereader.com
December 24, 2025 at 4:29 PM
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...
Library Loot: December 17 to 23
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out fr…
thecaptivereader.com
December 18, 2025 at 12:11 AM
Reposted by Claire - The Captive Reader
Happy birthday to Jane Austen, and to this very on-brand Economist chart
www.economist.com/christmas-sp...
December 14, 2025 at 12:48 PM
This week's Library Loot (delayed by Margaret Atwood, disturber of schedules) thecaptivereader.com/2025/12/10/l...
Library Loot: December 10 to 16
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out fr…
thecaptivereader.com
December 11, 2025 at 4:15 AM
Who needs a top 10 list when you could have almost 400 book recommendations? Always deadly for my TBR.
npr.org NPR @npr.org · Nov 25
More is more. We’ve got 380 (or so) of our favorite new books, right here:
Books We Love
Here are 380+ great reads from 2025 handpicked just for you by NPR staffers and trusted critics.
n.pr
November 29, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Was my top priority on my vacation day travelling to a neighboring city, signing up for their library system, and borrowing a single book - all to avoid the months-long wait across all the other library systems I'm part of?

Obviously.
November 21, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Reposted by Claire - The Captive Reader
THREAD. A collection of photographs of excellent cattle I have met on walks.

You will find the captions to each photo in the alt text.
November 15, 2025 at 8:38 AM
I did not anticipate that the highlight of my weekend would be a 41-year-old history of Ottawa around the time of confederation but here we are
November 2, 2025 at 10:28 PM
Reposted by Claire - The Captive Reader
flip.it/FchnW8

Candidate for the most French story ever reported.
Cyclist falls down 130-foot ravine in France, survives 3 days by drinking wine he had in shopping bag
A helicopter airlifted him to hospital, with a rescue doctor calling his survival "a miracle."
flip.it
October 31, 2025 at 5:24 PM
I spent a fantastic week in Iceland earlier this year (during a heatwave!) and finally shared some photos and thoughts
thecaptivereader.com/2025/09/29/e...
Europe 2025: Iceland
Cool fall weather – and rain! glorious rain! – has finally arrived here after a long, warm summer and I am delighted. But summer felt especially long for me as it began in, of all place…
thecaptivereader.com
September 30, 2025 at 3:32 AM
Reposted by Claire - The Captive Reader
This feels such a loss, a fine athlete and by all accounts I ever heard, a fine man.

Part of a generation of hockey fans’ memories. That image, as the P.M. says here, of him casually leaning, from a great height, on his stick.

Those Habs were ‘my’ team, he was their bulwark. Rest In Peace, sir.
Prime Minister Mark Carney’s tribute to Montreal Canadiens legend Ken Dryden:
September 6, 2025 at 1:17 PM
A journey to Hell, a Byzantine slave, a classic Western, an Icelandic mystery, a frustrated music teacher, and life in the south of France: this week's Library Loot thecaptivereader.com/2025/09/03/l...
Library Loot: September 3 to 9
Library Loot is a weekly event co-hosted by Claire from The Captive Reader and Sharlene from Real Life Reading that encourages bloggers to share the books they’ve checked out fr…
thecaptivereader.com
September 3, 2025 at 2:16 PM