“Reading with Avia Tadmor” in Shelf Awareness
Shelf Awareness for Friday, October 9, 2026
Avia was featured in Shelf Awareness for Friday, October 9, 2026. See a glimpse of the questions and answers below:
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“On your nightstand now:
Other Paths for Shahrazad: An Arabic/English Anthology of Contemporary Poetry by Arab Women, edited by Jennifer Jean, a fellow Tupelo Press author, because of the gorgeous polyphony of women, collaborating across cultures and conflicts. This anthology voices such tenderness, brave survival, and hope.
Favorite book when you were a child:
James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl. As a child, I was beyond mesmerized by Dahl's quirky, wondrous, and amusing world--the wingspan of its imagination, its coming to life. So much so that my best friend and I built a humongous papier-mâché Empire State Building with a peach on its spire. For fun. Also, especially for any readers living in New York: how amazing it is that what is first mistaken for a bomb (the peach) ends up feeding the children of New York City and housing the protagonists (James and his insect friends eventually make a home of the pit, free of rent, in Central Park)!
Book that changed your life:
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein. If only giving, throughout our lives, was as naïve and yet profound as everything about this wonder of a book.
Favorite line from a book:
‘It's like a lighthouse, except that, as one swims towards it, it backs away,’ by Louise Glück, from her essay ‘Education of the Poet’ in Proofs & Theories. Glück attaches this line to the writing process and to poetry, though it reflects every one of life's most meaningful longings: for language to mean and not only signify, for love to bring unity of bodies or minds, for peace to arrive, and stay.”’
