They say that every cloud has a silver lining.

And if the cloud is a hospital appointment at Treliske (nothing serious, but a cloud nonetheless) then the silver lining is a jaunt to Truro and a trip to the lovely library there.

It’s always lovely to browse some different shelves and what makes it even better is that Truro library houses the literary collection for the county.

I was exceeding restrained and brought home just four books: la creme de la creme!

Two from fiction downstairs:

The Opposite of Falling by Jennie Rooney: I loved her first novel and this, her second, had been on my radar for a while. In Victorian England an orphan from Liverpool becomes the travelling companion of an adventurous lady and finds herself travelling to Niagara Falls… I love the cover and I am enchanted by the opening chapters.

The Music at Long Verney by Sylvia Townsend Warner: A fairly recently published collection of “lost” short stories from the archives. This has been on my wishlist for so long but I hadn’t quite got round to buying a copy and, because I wanted a copy of my own, I hadn’t checked the library catalogue to see if I could order it in. I still want a copy of my own, but that didn’t mean that when a library copy appeared before me I wasn’t going to bring it home.

And from the collection upstairs:

Sculptor’s Daughter by Tove Jansson: I didn’t know that this one even existed and I was thrilled to find it. Vignettes from childhood, a mixture of the real and the imaginary. What could be more wonderful?!

Out of The Woodshed: The Life of Stella Gibbons by Reggie Oliver: A biography written with the full cooperation of Stella Gibbons’ family – indeed Reggie Oliver is her nephew – and with access all of the archives, including two unpublished novels. Intriguing to say the least.

A wonderful haul of books – now I just need to find a little more reading time.