Member: Smiler69

CollectionsYour library (1,447), Wishlist (1,023), Folio Society (56), To read (899), TRRS Pile (12), Currently reading (6), Read (803), Read in 2013 (52), Read but unowned (415), Library Books (8), Children's & YA (267), Audiobooks (675), Visual Arts (134), Poetry (34), eBooks (5), Favorites (149), To Give/Trade/Sell (1), Reference (3), Cookbooks (28), Read in 2012 (187), Read in 2011 (286), Read in 2010 (55), Unfinished (34), All collections (2,944)

Reviews529 reviews

TagsFiction (1,334), Library Book (982), 20th Century (942), Audiobook (811), Literary Fiction (608), To Read (460), New (454), Guardian 1000 (438), English Literature (435), 21st Century (425) — see all tags

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Recommendations51 recommendations

About meCurrently reading, listening to, and occasionally browsing through:

      



My Threads:
75 Books Challenge for 2013



Once upon a time, seemingly a lifetime ago, I was a harried executive art director working in publishing. It was a good life, filled with excitement, adventures and plenty of travel, but it left no time for much reading or any hobbies of any kind. Then, though I'm still a relatively young woman, health problems intervened, and I'm now on indefinite leave from work, which leaves me time (though there's never enough of it somehow) to occupy myself with all my favourite activities; reading, taking art classes in drawing and painting, and generally acting like a woman of leisure. I now have three pets, Coco; the cutest toy poodle mix that ever was, who takes me outside every day for much-needed walks, and my cats Mimi and Ezra. It all sounds rather ideal, but of course, nothing is ever quite as simple as it seems. I have two now much-neglected blogs, one of which is dedicated to my artwork, createthreesixty5.com, though admittedly, it wants some refreshing, as does my other blog fromsmilerwithlove.com, which covers just about every topic under the sun. Somehow, these days I end up spending most of my time shopping for books and indulging in my most recent (and absolutely ruinous) addiction: hunting down the best deals for mint condition Folio Society volumes.



My rating system:
★ - hated it (probably didn't finish it)
★★ - it was just ok
★★★ - enjoyed it (good)
★★★★ - loved it! (very good)
★★★★★ - all-time favourite (amazing)



Favourites of 2012 (4.5 stars and up)
On Canaan's Side by Sebastian Barry (review)
Brazzaville Beach by William Boyd (review)
L'Assommoir by Émile Zola (review)
Études de Femmes by Honoré de Balzac (review)
Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (review)
The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins (review)
A Rage in Harlem by Chester Himes (review)
Troubles by J. G. Farrell (review)
Letter from an Unknown Woman by Stefan Zweig (review)
Fear by Stefan Zweig (review)
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman Stefan Zweig (review)
My Letter to the World and Other Poems by Emily Dickinson, Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (review)
Stettin Station by David Downing (review)
A Severed Head by Iris Murdoch (review)
River of Smoke by Amitav Ghosh (review)
Any Human Heart by William Boyd (review)
Being There by Jerzy Kosinski (review)
Angel by Elizabeth Taylor (review)
Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac (review)
Man with a Blue Scarf: On Sitting for a Portrait by Lucian Freud by Martin Gayford (review)
Part of the Furniture by Mary Wesley (review)
All Passion Spent by Vita Sackville-West (review)
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner (reread - review)
Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel (review)
Dandelion Wine by Ray Bradbury (review)
The Headmaster's Wager by Vincent Lam(review)

Favourite 2011 Books
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
The Tiger's Wife by Téa Obreht
Regeneration by Pat Barker
From the Land of the Moon by Milena Agus
Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day by Winifred Watson
Memento Mori by Muriel Spark
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (re-read)
Emma by Jane Austen
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman
The Subtle Knife by Philip Pullman
War Horse by Michael Morpurgo
The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo
The Arrival by Shaun Tan
Un Lion a Paris by Beatrice Alemagna
Madlenka by Peter Sís

Favourite 2010 Books (most link to my reviews):
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
The Yacoubian Building by Alaa El Aswany
The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
Jim Dine Flowers and Plants by Marco Livingstone
The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver
The Road by Cormac McCarthy
Hotel du Lac by Anita Brookner
The Tenth Man by Graham Greene
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Lucian Freud On Paper by Sebastian Smee
The Rock of Tanios by Amin Maalouf
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
The Shipping News by Annie Proulx
Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt
Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood

10 All-Time Favourites as of 2011 (most link to my reviews):
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon
The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway
The Moon and Sixpence by W. Somerset Maugham
Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie
The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Nana by Émile Zola

Which book am I?

You're Watership Down!
by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

About my libraryWith limited storage space in my home and a propensity for purchasing books faster than I can shelve them, I try to hold on to a relatively small collection, and give away paperbacks I have no intention of reading again. Nonetheless, the book piles have grown relentlessly these past few years, especially since joining the 75ers group here on LT. Most of my library therefore in one giant tbr pile, with art books and Folio Society volumes as part of my permanent collection. My library here on LT is a different story, as I try to keep track of my growing collection AND everything I've read over the years, so I keep adding books whenever they're retrieved from memory. I discovered audiobooks a couple of years ago and was delighted to find I could read while busying myself with other things like commuting and doing chores, so that collection also keeps growing exponentially, mostly thanks to the local library and Audible.com. I challenged myself to review everything I read for a number of years, but as of 2013, this practice has fallen by the wayside, though I hope to pick it up again. My ratings are based on my impression at the time of reading, which might be very different from one reading to the next.

Groups2013 Category Challenge, 75 Books Challenge for 2010, 75 Books Challenge for 2011, 75 Books Challenge for 2012, 75 Books Challenge for 2013, Audiobooks, Booker Prize, Books off the Shelf Challenge, Folio Society devotees, Iris Murdoch readers —show all groups, Orange January/July, The 11 in 11 Category Challenge, The 12 in 12 Category Challenge, Virago Modern Classics

Favorite authorsMargaret Atwood, Paul Auster, Pat Barker, William Boyd, Charlotte Brontë, Philippe Claudel, Robertson Davies, Charles Dickens, Neil Gaiman, Romain Gary, Anna Gavalda, Graham Greene, Ernest Hemingway, Tahar Ben Jelloun, Jonathan Lethem, Amin Maalouf, Cormac McCarthy, Carson McCullers, Michael Morpurgo, Haruki Murakami, George Orwell, Philip Pullman, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Muriel Spark, John Steinbeck, Shaun Tan, Mary Wesley, Oscar Wilde, Émile Zola (Shared favorites)

VenuesFavorites

Favorite bookstoresChapters - Sainte-Catherine, Indigo - Place Montréal Trust, Librairie Bibliomanie / Bibliomania Bookshoppe, Librairie Olivieri, Nicholas Hoare, Paragraphe Bookstore, The Word Bookstore

Favorite librariesBibliothèque Atwater Library, Bibliothèque et Archives nationales du Québec - Grande Bibliothèque, Bibliothèque Georges-Vanier

Homepagehttp://fromsmilerwithlove.com

Also onWordpress

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

Real nameIlana

LocationMontreal, Quebec, Canada

Emailfromsmilergmail.com

Account typepublic, lifetime

URLs http://www.librarything.com/profile/Smiler69 (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/Smiler69 (library)

Member sinceNov 25, 2007

Currently readingAvedon Fashion 1944-2000 by Carol Squiers
Clouds of Witness (Lord Peter Wimsey, Book 2) by Dorothy L. Sayers
The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, Volume One: Visions of Glory, 1874-1932 by William Manchester
The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty by Eudora Welty
The Pink Fairy Book by Andrew Lang
The Natural History of Selborne by Gilbert White
show all (6)