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.”

NATIONAL READ A BOOK DAY

I didn’t read a whole book today, I finished one. I chose this book from the Alvin library because Carla of Carla Loves to Read put me on to this great, new-to-me author, thus finishing the challenge of 20 in 20–books recommended by blogging friends. It also fits in with my “Celebrating Color” challenge as my yellow book.

If I were doing “Austin in August” this year a la Deb Nance of Readerbuzz, and if it weren’t already September, this would fit a third challenge. LOL

This 2017 novel by Katherine Reay is for all Austin fans and anyone who loves a good, clean love story. Mary Davis, the main character, an engineer at a company she helped start, is contacted by Isobel an estranged childhood friend. Isobel offers a free two week stay in a gorgeous manor house in England. Mary, at the urging of her father, agrees although she doesn’t know why because Isobel and she have little in common any more. While in England, Isobel has an episode where she believes she is actually in Austin’s England, not just dressing in costume and pretending to live in the time. The “costume-clad guests” at the manor house are appreciative of her knowledge of Austin, and she entertains them with specifics as the Lit major that she is. During this time, “hard truths about the women’s pasts” come out, and Nathan, “the man who stands between them” joins them in England, as this fantasy themed vacation takes on a series of misunderstandings that almost wreak havoc in the women’s already troubled friendship.

This is a great story and a great read. I finished it today on National Read a Book Day, September 6, 2020.

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One response to “NATIONAL READ A BOOK DAY”

  1. Deb Nance at Readerbuzz Avatar
    Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

    I’m always amazed to see how many people love Jane Austen, and to see how many of those Austenites are people you’d never expect to be so crazy about Jane. There are oodles of Jane Austen-inspired books of fan fiction, too, and these always seem charming. This looks like one of them.

    P.S. Look at you…adding labels to photos!

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