Member: bhowell

CollectionsYour library (6,437), Wishlist (1), Currently reading (1), To read (35), All collections (6,437)

Reviews370 reviews

Tagsfiction (4,601), coll (1,402), Crime Thriller & Mystery (1,268), history (795), pol sci (556), British mystery (510), barb read (499), give away (332), historical fiction (281), science (279) — see all tags

Cloudstag cloud, author cloud

GroupsBook Nudgers, Books Compared, Crime, Thriller & Mystery, Early Reviewers, Historical Fiction, I Lock My Door Upon Myself: Fans of Joyce Carol Oates, Signed books, The Brontës, Trollope lovers unite or fight, What Are You Reading Now?

Favorite authorsPeter Ackroyd, Rennie Airth, Boris Akunin, Julia Alvarez, Gail Anderson-Dargatz, A. Manette Ansay, Kate Atkinson, Margaret Atwood, Jane Austen, Trezza Azzopardi, Beryl Bainbridge, Honoré de Balzac, Joan Barfoot, Pat Barker, Simone de Beauvoir, Constance Beresford-Howe, Sandra Birdsell, Joan Brady, Dionne Brand, Charlotte Brontë, Geraldine Brooks, Bonnie Burnard, Sharon Butala, Caleb Carr, Kate Chopin, Colette, Wilkie Collins, Edwidge Danticat, Margaret Drabble, George Eliot, Marian Engel, Carolly Erickson, Sheridan Le Fanu, Patricia Finney, Antonia Fraser, Flora Fraser, Marilyn French, Esther Freud, Elizabeth Gaskell, Kaye Gibbons, Ellen Gilchrist, Katherine Govier, Barbara Gowdy, Germaine Greer, Lillian Hellman, Christopher Hibbert, Alice Hoffman, Sheri Holman, Janette Turner Hospital, Khaled Hosseini, Nancy Huston, Kazuo Ishiguro, P. D. James, Elizabeth Jolley, Barbara Kingsolver, Margaret Laurence, Doris Lessing, David Liss, Frank McCourt, Ian McEwan, Denise Mina, Rohinton Mistry, Nancy Mitford, Deborah Moggach, Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Dorothy Parker, Julie Parsons, Caryl Phillips, Marge Piercy, Richard Price, Salman Rushdie, Georges Sand, C. J. Sansom, Susan Fromberg Schaeffer, Christina Schwartz, Alice Sebold, Desmond Seward, Carol Shields, Anita Shreve, Jane Smiley, Sid Smith, J. M. Synge, Reay Tannahill, Audrey Thomas, William Trevor, Anthony Trollope, Henri Troyat, Sigrid Undset, Salley Vickers, Alice Walker, Jeannette Walls, Minette Walters, Alison Weir, Fay Weldon, Edith Wharton, John Edgar Wideman, Oscar Wilde, Virginia Woolf, Richard B. Wright, Margaret Yorke, Émile Zola (Shared favorites)

About meI am an avid reader and collector, having been reading since the age of 4. I am a litigation lawyer and I have practised full time for about 30 years. I am taking more time for my books now as I am winding down and it is a delight. I started collecting 1st editions about 20 years ago and it has become a dominant interest. I would be interested in hearing from other members who are collectors as well as readers. I must also admit that I have become a bit of a LibraryThing junkie. I visit the site frequently and I am endlessly interested in what other members say about books. It has broadened my knowledge of books and authors. I also find that members' ratings and comments are pretty astute with respect to the readability of books. If a book is boring you will read that here. You can also read reviews that are so literate and knowledgeable that you wonder what these people do in their real life.

About my libraryMy library is large but it is a family library so not all areas reflect my interest. My interest is mainly modern fiction and history though I read some science books (biology) as well. I also have some favourite mystery writers(mostly British) and I indulge myself in that area and historical fiction. I am a Trollope nut and for awhile was a member of the Trollope Society which published his books through the Folio Society. So far as I know I have read every book by him, about 65 of them. When I started out it was difficult to get all of his titles but thanks to Dover reprints and the Folio Society I think I have them all.

The Early Reviewers program introduces me to new authors and widdens my horizon. I have been trying to keep track of my ongoing reading and what I thought about each book by writing at least few lines of a review for every book I now read. I am keeping an ongoing list of the books I have read in 2008 and have started a new list for 2009.

Books read in 2008:

Case Histories by Kate Atkinson
Saving the World by Julia Alvarez
Losing It by Jane Asher
Year of Wonders by Geraldine Brooks
Claire's Head by Catherine Bush
Death comes for Peter Pan by Joan Brady
The Cranberry Queen by Kathleen DeMarco
City of Shadows by Ariana Franklin
The Bookshop by Penelope Fitzgerald
The Translator by Daoud Hari (Early Reviewers)
Loving Frank by Nancy Horan
The Dress Lodger by Sheri Holman
Memoirs: Laughing and Dancing Our Way to the Precipe by Felice Harcourt
Fault Lines by Nancy Huston
Imperium by Robert Harris
A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hossein
Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro
When we were Orphans by Kazuo Ishiguro
Dark Angels by Katherine Koen
Germ by Robert Liparlo
The Last Breath by Denise Mina
Things I want My Daughters to Know by Elizabeth Noble(early reviewers)
Laura by Hilary Norman
Uncensored: Views & Reviews by Joyce Carol Oates
Alphabet by Kathy Page
The Foreigners by Caryl Phillips (early reviewers)
Saraminda by Jose Sarney (Early reviewers)
The Finishing School by Muriel Spark
The Lost Garden by Mary Stanley
Olive Kitteredge by Elizabeth Strout (early reviewers)
Farewell My Queen by Chantal Thomas
Uncle Jack by Tony Williams
The Lover by Laura Wilson
A Little Death by Laura Wilson
Hello Bunny Alice by Laura Wilson
Nowhere's Child by Francesca Weisman
Every Past Thing by Pamela Thompson (early reviewers)
Revenge by Marry Morris
Ideas of Heaven by Joan Silber
Hunger by Elise Blackwell
Enchantress of Florence by Salmon Rushdie (early reviewers)
Call the Dying by Andrew Taylor
The Ghost Writer by John Harwood
The Successor by Ismail Kadare
America, America by Ethan Canin (early reviewers)
Missing Mom by Joyce Carol Oates
Fortunate Son by Walter Mosley
A Changed Man by Francine Prose
Mister Sandman by Barbara Gowdy(early reviewers)
The Custom of the Sea by Neil Hanson
Alice in Exile by Piers Paul Read
The Small Hours of the Morning by Margaret Yorke
Sophia Regent of Russia 1657-1704 by Lindsey Hughes
The Scroll of Seduction by Gioconda Bell
The American Plague by Molly Caldwell Crosby
The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith
A Week in October by Elizabeth Subercaseaux (early reviewers)
I, Elizabeth by Rosalind Miles
The Fat Woman's Joke by Fay Weldon
Whitehall Palace by Cecil Whitaker-Wilson
Suspect by Michael Robotham
One Under by Graham Hurley
The Whiskey Rebels by David Liss(early reviewers)
A Likeness in Stone by J Wallis Martin
The Judas Heart by Ingrid Black
Winter in Majorca by George Sand
The Light of Evening by Edna O'Brien
Ivan the Terrible by S. P. Platonov
The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
A Long Way Down by Nick Hornby
The Black Violin by Maxence Fermine
Memory by Philippe Grimbert
The Sixth Wife by Suzannah Dunn
Angel of Light by Joyce Carol Oates
Iraq Through A Bullet Hole by Issam Jameel (early reviewers)
The Great Karoo by Fred Stenson (early reviewers)
No Such Creature by Giles Blunt (early reviewers)
The Forest of Souls by Carla Banks
Weaving Shadows by Margaret Murphy
The 6th Lamentation by William Broderick
Running With Scissors by Augusten Burroughs
The Guilty Heart by Julie Parsons
Alexandra the Last Tsarina by Carolly Erickson
The Depths of Solitude by Jo Bannister
No Birds Sang by Jo Bannister
Dry by Augusten Burroughs
When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

Read In 2009:

The Girl With the Dragon Tatoo by Steig Larsson
Human Croquet by Kate Atkinson
One Good Turn by Kate Atkinson
By the Time You Read This by Giles Blunt
The Private Patient by P.D. James
Orpheus Lost by Janette Turner Hospital
Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson
Testimony by Anita Shreve
The Darkness of Wallis Simpson by Rose Tremain
A Mercy by Toni Morrison (early reviewers)
Tambourlaine Must Die by Louise Welsh
The Birthday Present by Barbara Vine
Life Class by Pat Barker
Felony: The Private History of the Aspern Papers by Emma Tennant
A Thousand Lies by Laura Wilson
The Thirteeenth Tale by Diane Setterfield
Daniel Isn't Talking by Marti Leimbach
Gentlemen of the Road by Michael Chabon
Portobello by Ruth Rendell
The Monsters of Gramercy Park by Danny Leigh
Revelation by C. J. Sansom
My Lord of Canterbury: Cranmer by Godfrey Turton
House of Meetings by Martin Amis
No Good Deed by Manda Scott
Mutiny on the Bounty by John Boyne (early reviewers)
The Litvinenko File: The Life and Death of a Russian Spy by Martin Sixsmith
The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littel
Restless by William Boyd
The Long Close Call by J Wallis Martin
Dirty Little Angels by Chris Tusa
Incantation by Alice Hoffman
A High and Hidden Place by Michelle Claire Lucas
The Book of Negroes by Lawrence Hill
The Risk of Darkness by Susan Hill
Grave Goods by Ariana Franklin
The Glass of Time by Michael Cox
Annie's Ghosts by Steve Luxenberg (early reviewers)
The Carhullan Army by Sarah Hall
The Likeness by Tana French
Still Alice by Lisa Genova
The Various Haunts of Men by Susan Hill
The Last Days of the Romanovs by Helen Rappaport
Self's Deception by Bernhard Schlink
Therapy by David Lodge
Thorn by Vena Cork
A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrich
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows
After This by Alice McDermott
Junping the Cracks by Victoria Blake
My Best Friend by Laura Wilson
Paula Spencer by Roddy Doyle
Havoc In Its Third Year by Ronan Bennett
The Dark Room by Rachel Seiffert
The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
The Embers by Hyatt Bass (early reviewers)
My Home Sweet Home by Val Stevens
My Sister's Keeper by Jodi Picoult
Lush Life by Richard Price
Almost The Truth by Margaret Yorke
At Risk by Alice Hoffman
Skin and Blister by Victoria Blake
In the Woods by Tana French
The Art of Dying by Vena Cork
The Greatest Gift by Danny Leigh
Raven Black by Ann Cleeves
Chaucer by Peter Ackroyd
The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Strangers by Carla Banks
The Darkness Inside by John Rickards
Hen's Teeth by Manda Scott
Lost Souls by Michael Collins
The Resurrectionists by Michael Collins
Emerald Underground by Michael Collins
Death of a Writer by Michael Collins
The gardens of the Dead by William Broderick
Ghost by Robert Harris
A Stain on the Silence by Andrew Taylor
Gone Tomorrow by Lee Child
Keep Me Close by Clare Francis
Dead and Buried by Quintine Jardine
Michael & Natasha: The Life and Love of the Last Tsar of Russia
Crow Stone by Jenni Mills
I saw you by Julie Parsons
The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill
Surveillance by Jonathan Raban
The Mortal Sickness by Andrew Taylor
Acts of Revision by Martyn Bedford
High Chicago by Howard Shrier (early reviewers)
Transgressions by Sarah Dunant

Books on my reading list:

March by Geraldine Brooks
Through Black Spruce by Joseph Boyden
Sapphira & The Slave Girl by Willa Cather
Slammerkin by Emma Donoghue
The Gathering by Anne Enright
The Climax of Rome by Michael Grant
Late Nights On Air by Elizabeth Hay
All Night Awake by Sarah Hoyt
Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Letham
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
Italian Fever by Valerie Martin
The Winter Vault by Anne Michaels
The Black City by George Sand
Tomorrow by Graham Swift
The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
Big Women by Fay Weldon

Membership LibraryThing Early Reviewers/Member Giveaway

LocationEdmonton, Alberta, Canada

Emaillordawsonshaw.ca

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

Common KnowledgeSeries (635), Awards (620), Characters (10823), Places (1855)

Member sinceSep 28, 2006

Currently readingSalvador by Joan Didion