RAE’S READS

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This year (2025) finds me with 53 years of teaching “under my belt.” I have taught all levels from pre-K “(library lady” or “book lady”–volunteer) to juniors, seniors, and graduate students enrolled in my Advanced Writing class at the university where I have just completed 34 years. My first paying teaching job was junior high, and I spent 13 years with ages 12-13, the “difficult years.” I had some of the “funnest” experiences with this age group. When I was no longer the “young, fun teacher,” I taught in an elementary school setting before sixth graders went on to junior high, teaching language arts blocs, an assignment that was a “dream-fit” for me. After completing graduate school in my 40s, I went on to community college, then university teaching. This past fall I accepted a part-time teaching job at Apogee Gulf Coast Schools in its first year at the Alvin campus. After my Better Half died n 2022, I achieved a lifelong dream: opening a bookstore of my own, Rae’s Reads. A year later, I sold the house we had lived in for 47 years and moved into the bookstore. My goal is to circulate and repurpose books. Just as teaching is “in my blood,” so is a passion for reading, writing, libraries, and everything bookish. This blog will be open to anyone who loves books, promotes literacy and wants to “come out and play.”

TUESDAY TEASER

Tuesday Teaser is “a bookish tag hosted by The Purple Booker” which I found first on Brainfluff.  I do not post it every week, but this week I am posting a teaser from a wonderful book all bibliophiles will love: The Library Book by Susan Orlean, a new author to me. (You can be sure I will investigate her other books; she is an exceptional writer.)

The book describes the historically catastrophic fire at the Los Angeles Public Library on April 28, 1986, but it is much, much more. It is a work of non-fiction, and the author put herself right in the story:

Teaser: “On April 28,1986, the day the library burned, I was living in New York. While my romance with libraries had not been renewed yet, I cared a lot about books, and I am sure I would have noticed a story about a massive fire in a library, no matter where that library was. The Central Library fire was not a minor matter, not a cigarette smoldering in a trash can that would have gone without mention. It was a huge, furious fire that burned for more than seven hours and reached temperatures of 2000 degrees… More than one million books were burned or damaged.”

I can’t wait to read further, intrigued by the cover teases that the fire was probably arson and that the author brings herself to burn a book (She chooses a paperback copy of Fahrenheit 451, then describes what it feels like to destroy a book. It is a perfect essay describing several emotions (I read this “chapter” first.)

When Friday First Liners rolls around, I will copy the first line(s) of this amazing book.

HAPPY READING!

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2 responses to “TUESDAY TEASER”

  1. Deb Nance at Readerbuzz Avatar
    Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

    I was fascinated with how Orlean juggled several different storylines in this book.

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    1. Rae Longest Avatar
      Rae Longest

      Me too…great book!

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