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Member: avaland

CollectionsYour library (3,030)

Reviews184 reviews

Tagsfiction (1,050), science fiction (417), poetry (222), women's studies (166), mystery (159), literary fantasy (158), New England (156), literary reference (151), arc (147), short fiction collection (144) — see all tags

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GroupsAll Things New England, Anglophiles, Atwoodians, Board Room, BookMooching, Clarissa's Cottage, Club Read 2009, Crime, Thriller & Mystery, Dystopian novels, Fans of Russian authors — show all groups , Feminist SF, Feminist Theory, Girlybooks, Historical Fiction, I Lock My Door Upon Myself: Fans of Joyce Carol Oates, In Translation, Mainers, Needlearts, Reading Globally, Science Fiction Fans, The Prizes, The Red Room, Workspace B

Favorite authorsChimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Louisa May Alcott, Patricia Anthony, Margaret Atwood, Trezza Azzopardi, Anita Rau Badami, Juliana Baggott, Elizabeth Bishop, Martin Booth, Charlotte Brontë, Anne Brontë, Emily Brontë, Octavia E. Butler, Angela Carter, Suzy McKee Charnas, Nancy F. Cott, A. J. Cronin, John Crowley, Emily Dickinson, Assia Djebar, Thomas Dublin, Carol Ann Duffy, Helen Dunmore, George Eliot, Nawal El-Saadawi, Buchi Emecheta, Karen Joy Fowler, Elizabeth Gaskell, Amitav Ghosh, Sandra M. Gilbert, Lisa Goldstein, Kate Grenville, Ursula K. Le Guin, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Elizabeth Hand, Thomas Hardy, Nathaniel Hawthorne, David Herter, Reginald Hill, Nalo Hopkinson, Arnaldur Indriðason, Gish Jen, Ha Jin, Gail Jones, Graham Joyce, James Patrick Kelly, Margo Lanagan, Margot Livesey, Amy Lowell, Ian R. MacLeod, Henning Mankell, Maureen F. McHugh, China Mieville, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Mary Beth Norton, Joyce Carol Oates, Yôko Ogawa, Sharon Olds, Boris Pasternak, Viktor Pelevin, Ian Rankin, Adrienne Rich, Kenneth Lewis Roberts, Mary Doria Russell, Robert Shearman, Elaine Showalter, May Swenson, Deborah Tannen, Sheri S. Tepper, Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, Jeff VanderMeer, Kate Douglas Wiggin, William Carlos Williams (Shared favorites)

Favorite bookstoresOld Number Six Book Depot, Toadstool Bookshop - Milford

Favorite librariesJ. V. Fletcher Library

About meMiddle-aged, married mother of three grown children. Former bookseller & journalist, published poet (nothing recent). Founder of Belletrista.com: an online, nonprofit web zine which celebrates women authors from around the world. See LT user "Belletrista."

Creator of the following live* LT Groups:

Reading Globally
Club Read
Atwoodians
I Lock My Door Upon Myself: Fans of Joyce Carol Oates
All Things New England
3 private groups

*not meant to suggest activity level, but meaning "not defunct/deleted."

CURRENT PICTURE: "A Walk in the Woods", Hollis, New Hampshire (USA)

MY READING: I enjoy ALL kinds of fiction, both international and domestic. I also enjoy poetry (contemporary and classic), women's studies, social history, New England history, art history, literary criticism, a smattering of science, nature and whatever else intrigues me at the moment. MY 2009 BOOKLOG is HERE. My 2008 booklog is on the 75 Book Challenge group HERE, if you're interested.

NOW READING


Speaking for Myself: An Anthology of Asian Women's Writing, By Sukrita Paul Kumar (Editor), Malashri Lal (Editor)
The Tongue's Blood Does Not Run Dry by Assia Djebar (short fiction, Algeria)

LAST READ



Death Rites by Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett (mystery, Spain)
Nectar in a Sieve by Kamala Markandaya (novel,India)
The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller (novel, Romania)
Hypothermia by Arnaldur Indridason (mystery, Iceland)
Little Bird of Heaven by Joyce Carol Oates
Jamilia by Chingiz Aitmatov (novella, Kyrgyzstani author)
The Hunter by Julia Leigh (novel, Australia)
The Mysteries of Winterthurn by Joyce Carol Oates (American gothic)
Last Rituals by Yrsa Sigurdottir (mystery, Icelandic author)
A Peculiar Grace by Jeffrey Lent (novel, US author)
Decapolis: Tales from Ten Cities, edited by Marsha Crossan (stories, international authors)
Genesis by Bernard Beckett (SF, New Zealand)
My Soul to Take by Yrsa Sigurdadottir (mystery, Iceland)
Prime Time Suspect by Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett (mystery, Spain)
Living, Loving & Lying Away at Night by Sindiwe Magona (short fiction, South African author)
Dog Day by Alicia Gimenez-Bartlett (mystery, Spain)
My Driver by Maggie Gee (UK & Uganda, UK author)
If Here be Treason: Translation and Its Dyscontents: A Memoir by Gregory Rabassa (memoir, US author)
Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason (mystery, Icelandic author)
The Robber Bride by Margaret Atwood (reread, novel, Canadian)
By the North Gate by Joyce Carol Oates (short fiction)
Four Freedoms by John Crowley (novel, WWII era)
The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (Japanese author)
Leaving Tangier by Tahar Ben Jelloun (novel, Moroccan author)
The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (novel, forthcoming Sept.'09)
The Seamstress by Frances De Pontes Peebles (fiction, Brazilian author)
Nadia by Assia Djebar (fiction, Algerian author, written when she was 20!)
Under the Frangipani by Mia Couto (fiction, Mozambique)
The Diary of Elizabeth Drinker, edited by Elaine Forman Crane (diary, 18th century American)
The Female of the Species by Joyce Carol Oates (suspense, short fiction)
The Black Path by Asa Larsson (mystery, Swedish author)
Flash Fiction Forward, edited by James Thomas & Robert Shapard (anthology)

I'd Like by Amanda Michalopoulou (short fiction, Greek author)
Stick Out Your Tongue by Ma Jian (short fiction, Tibet, Chinese author)
Dear Husband : Stories, Joyce Carol Oates (ongoing, short fiction collection)
De Niro's Game by Rawi Hage (fiction, Canadian-Lebanonese author)
The Quiet War by Paul McAuley (science fiction, UK author)
Enclave by Kit Reed (science fiction)
In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin (fiction, Pakistani author)
*A Good Master Well-Served: A Social History of Servitude in Massachusetts 1620-1750. Dissertation by Lawrence William Towner, 1954 (courtesy of UMich)
The City and the City by China Miéville (fiction, UK author)
The Ghost in Love by Jonathan Carroll (fiction, US author)
The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels (fiction, Egypt/Canada, Canadian author)
*The Coquette by Hannah Foster (fiction, late 18th C, US author)
Inside and Other Short Fiction: Japanese women by Japanese women by Amy Yamada et al. (short fiction anthology, Japanese authors)
Tinkers by Paul Harding (fiction, US author)
The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa (short fiction collection, Japanese author)
The Man who Smiled by Henning Mankell (mystery, Swedish author)

*research-related

The Last of 2008

A Pilgrim's Guide to Chaos in the Heartland by Jessica Goodfellow (poetry, US).
Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical by Robert Sherman (short fiction, UK)
The Imposter by Damon Galgut (fiction, South African)
The Situation by Jeff VanderMeer (fiction, US)
Firewall by Henning Mankell (mystery, Swedish author)
Delirium by Laura Restapo (fiction, Colombian author)
A Mercy by Toni Morrison (fiction, US author)

About my libraryavaland2: 2nd account opened exactly one year after the first for mostly children's books, mine or my grown children's, and other odds and ends of theirs.
dukedom_enough: husband, scientist and reader extraordinaire. Our libraries are quite married physically, but are separate on LT with overlap. He has much more data entry to do.
anguissette1979; Reeshy Daughter's accounts which are perhaps incomplete and not terribly active.

MY RATINGS
My ratings average high because I rarely finish a book I don't like. I find it difficult to rate some kinds of books (i.e poetry, memoirs), so I don't. My ratings for books read decades ago are current (since I came on LT in '06) and in relationship to my reading now, so they may not be accurate. I may have thought the book a five back in the 70's but looking back now, it might score a three...know what I mean?

MY COMMENTS/REVIEWS
I prefer to call these comments or feedback, not reviews as I don't aim to produce critical reviews. I do aim to tell you, as if you are sitting across the table from me, what I thought about a book. Some of my older recommendations may have been originally sent as bookseller recommendations to Booksense (American Booksellers Association). And those are just that, recommendations.

Homepagehttp:// www.belletrista.com

Also onBookMooch, Facebook

Real nameLois

LocationWestford (Northwest of Boston), Massachusetts, USA

Email

Account typepublic, lifetime

Connection NewsConnection News

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/avaland (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/avaland (library)

Common KnowledgeSeries (267), Awards (516), Characters (5207), Places (1119)

Member sinceOct 3, 2006