Member: avatiakh
CollectionsYour library (6,002), Wishlist (174), Currently reading (5), Read in 2013 (52), To read (470), Read but unowned (204), Favorites (7), No Longer Own (64), All collections (6,534)
Reviews20 reviews
Tagsfiction (3,094), children's (1,822), nonfiction (1,067), new zealand (982), picturebook (641), young adult (525), australia (213), jewish (206), 12 in 12 (161), israel (155) — see all tags
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Recommendations91 recommendations
About meMy 75 books in 2013 thread
My 2013 Category Challenge thread
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April TIOLI
May TIOLI
Jenny Williams'illustration from the first edition of Margaret Mahy's A Lion in a Meadow
About my libraryI collect modern classics, fairytale anthologies, children & YA literature, Middle Eastern history, politics & religion, a little science fiction, fantasy, and some design and art books.
Groups1001 Books to read before you die, 1001 Children's Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up, 2013 Category Challenge, 75 Books Challenge for 2012, 75 Books Challenge for 2013, Australian States and Territories Challenge, Author Theme Reads, Book Nudgers, Booker Prize, Bug Collectors —show all groups, Children's Fiction, Children's Literature, Club Read 2011, Club Read 2012, Club Read 2013, Comics, Diana Wynne Jones Fans, Everything Illustration and Comic Art!, Fairy Tales Retold, Folio Society devotees, Fourth Place, Golden Age Illustrators, Group Reads - Literature, Infinite Jesters, Jewish Bibliophiles, Jewish Fiction, New Zealand Thingamabrarians, Non-Fiction Challenge / Journal, Orange January/July, Patrick White 100th Anniversary Challenge, Read YA Lit, ReadaThing, Reading Globally, Reading Globally II, ROOT - 2013 Read Our Own Tomes, Sandman, Short Stories, Spanish Civil War, The 12 in 12 Category Challenge, THE ANYTHING CULINARY BOOK GROUP, The City and the Book, The Prizes, Time Travel, Alternate Histories and Parallel Worlds, Travel and Exploration literature
Favorite authorsJane Austen, Paul Auster, Fleur Beale, Bernard Beckett, Isobelle Carmody, Ken Catran, Michael Chabon, Joy Cowley, Dorothy Dunnett, Vince Ford, Jostein Gaarder, Neil Gaiman, Maurice Gee, Peter F. Hamilton, Diana Wynne Jones, D. H. Lawrence, Margaret Mahy, Melina Marchetta, Katerina Te Heikoko Mataira, Glenda Millard, Michael Morpurgo, Donna Jo Napoli, Amos Oz, Mal Peet, Chaim Potok, Anthony Powell, Ian Rankin, Philip Reeve, Alastair Reynolds, Marcus Sedgwick, Darren Shan, Jonathan Stroud, Nigel Tranter, Scott Westerfeld (Shared favorites)
VenuesFavorites | Visited
Favorite bookstoresBrowsers Quality Secondhand Bookshop, Classics and such-like Books, Cook The Books, Dominion Books, El Ateneo - Grand Splendid, Evergreen Books, Hard To Find Books (Onehunga), Jason Books, Mad Hatter Books, Pegasus Books, Readaway Books, Shakespeare & Company, The Dorothy Butler Children's Bookshop, Unity Books
Favorite librariesAuckland Central City Library, Botany Library
Other favoritesAuckland Writers and Readers Festival, Storylines Festival of New Zealand Children's Writers and Illustrators
Also onBookMooch, Facebook, FictFact, Photobucket, Pinterest, Tumblr, WikiThing (LT)
Membership
LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway
Real nameKerry
LocationNew Zealand
Account typepublic, lifetime
URLs
http://www.librarything.com/profile/avatiakh (profile)
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/avatiakh (library)
Member sinceSep 8, 2007
Currently readingTender At The Bone - Growing Up At The Table by Ruth Reichl
Questions of travel by Michelle De Kretser
The selected poetry of Yehuda Amichai by Yehuda Amichai
Time and Chance by Sharon Penman
Skagboys by Irvine Welsh
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posted by Polaris- at 3:49 am (EST) on May 15, 2013
posted by system at 4:24 pm (EST) on May 14, 2013
Casaloma
posted by casaloma at 9:37 am (EST) on Apr 28, 2013
Thanks for adding your favourites to A Child's Book Tour of Scotland. The 'Tobermory Cat' book looks lovely.
Casaloma
posted by casaloma at 10:07 pm (EST) on Apr 26, 2013
I just passed on your page following a link LT gave me..to people with 'similar libraries'. Yours looks like a bigger version of mine. Cool :-)
Have a nice day!
posted by Ennys at 4:32 pm (EST) on Apr 7, 2013
I just saw you read Crusade in jeans last year, I am glad you liked it!
Anita
posted by FAMeulstee at 3:12 pm (EST) on Jan 27, 2013
posted by PaulCranswick at 10:16 am (EST) on Nov 11, 2012
My idea is for names to be drawn out of who is interested and whoever is designated the giver, makes a list of 10 books they are willing to part with, and the receiver picks the one most to their liking. All done through private messaging once I have drawn and allocated the people involved.
Me (megan)
You
Cushla (cushlareads)
Lisa (KiwiFlowa)
Paul (PaulCranswick)
Leonie (kiwinyx)Alex (roundballnz)
Prue (PrueGallagher)
Wookie?
OK, now I need help. Who else have we got out there in the region?
posted by Ireadthereforeiam at 3:33 pm (EST) on Oct 20, 2012
posted by Faradaydon at 4:03 pm (EST) on Oct 15, 2012
posted by Faradaydon at 7:49 pm (EST) on Oct 5, 2012
posted by lilbrattyteen at 10:51 am (EST) on Sep 16, 2012
I am with you on the Pullman book. Any book or author that arouses as much controversy with churches as he does gets bumped up on my reading list. I might get to it next month. This Biblical fiction thing is being extended, since the folks over at Historical Fiction have given me way more title ideas (and now you have! Thank you). I think I'll focus on Hebrew Bible for now. Maybe I can even knock off Thomas Mann's 1400-page Joseph and His Brothers.
While you're on religion and literature, have you read any Chaim Potok? I read The Chosen a few years ago, a coming of age story of two Jewish teens in Brooklyn. Despite being both Jewish, they were a very different and unlikely pair, as one was Hasid and the other was more mainstream (I think Conservative). The movie was good too.
posted by lilbrattyteen at 10:50 am (EST) on Sep 16, 2012
My review:
Like Saramago's book, this retelling of the myth of Samson is written not by an author trying to instill religious faith, but a well-known secular novelist who wishes to look at this culturally influential text. Unlike Saramago, Grossman is not writing a philosophical polemic, but rather a look into the psyche of Samson.
And what a lot of psyche is there. Samson is one of those Biblical characters whose presence in the Judeo-Christian imagination is much larger than the scant space he occupies in the canon - only four chapters in Judges. I can't think of any other character in the Bible who combines such zealous holiness with a comically exaggerated virility, sexuality, and physical prowess. Yet Grossman sees in Samson a man perpetually alienated from those around him, seeking intimacy in which to reveal vulnerability. But it always eludes him. His oafish and loafish father is bewildered and cowed by his son, and his mother knows the secret of his strength but can't possibly understand it. So Samson seeks a woman to share his secret with.
So why does Samson always choose women of the Philistines, Israel's oppressive enemy? From his wife from Timnah, to the Philistine prostitute, to Delilah, he somehow wants his intimacy to be with someone completely foreign. The tragedy is that both his wife and Delilah betray him. One can imagine Samson's despair and sadness that drives him to send the burning foxes' tails into Philistine land. This despair is deepened after his second betrayal, when the Delilah he placed so much hope in turns him over to the enemy. Grossman speculates that Samson told her the secret of his strength because he saw no point to living in a world where nobody could truly love him.
So Samson dies as he lives: alone, in a place where he has no home. His life is a tragedy, even though as a judge he is a wild success who destroys the Philistine elite in his dying act. Just as the four chapters about him in Judges remain opaque for us, Samson was such a riddle to those around him, both a riddle-poser and a riddle himself. Grossman's look at this man set apart from birth gave me a lot of insight into this long-haied powerhouse.
posted by lilbrattyteen at 3:54 am (EST) on Sep 16, 2012
posted by lilbrattyteen at 12:35 pm (EST) on Sep 15, 2012
posted by lilbrattyteen at 4:12 pm (EST) on Sep 2, 2012