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.”

  • COMMONWEALTH by Ann Patchett: A Review

    This 2016 bestseller ties for second place on my list of ” Favorite Books Published in 2016″ (ties with The Swans of Fifth Avenue), after Gentleman in Moscow (reviewed in an earlier post), which still claims first place.  It was so good that I made time to read it and finished in two days.  The book begins in California and is also set in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the states where I was born and raised in, respectively.  Maybe it was because of this “personal connection”, or more likely the denseness of characters and plot  that I became hooked by the end of the first few chapters.

    We meet Beverly and “Fix” as the novel opens with the “…dissolution of their marriage and the joining of two families.” This connecting of families through marriage and caused by divorce creates a “tribe” of children, four girls, two boys, the Cousinses and the Keatings, and the book carries these characters through the next fifty years. There is much intertwining of plot and relationships, and this intrigues the reader as he/she progresses through the novel. All of the characters are memorable; I couldn’t choose a favorite because the author makes me feel attached to and care about every one of them.

    Perhaps I enjoyed Commonwealth so much because I am especially fond of character-driven novels, but I suspect the main reason was because of Patchett’s great writing abilities.  I highly recommend this novel.

  • TUESDAY TEASER

    Open what you’re reading now, pick a random couple of sentences and post them (scroll way down until you see the words “Leave a Reply” and enter your sentences, title and author in the box) as your Tuesday Teaser to tempt us to add your book to our TBR list. Here’s mine from The Bone People, truly a classic by Keri Hulme, the 1985 winner of the Booker Prize:

    A father holding his son in his arms says, “You are still too thin, but you”ve always been slight ..and it’s been better since Kerewin (the female protagonist) arrived. Well, not so much arrived as you discovered her…I wonder what she really thinks of us.”

    This is one of the strangest books I’ve ever read–both horrible and beautiful at the same time.  I am only on page 172 out of 437 pages, but I am anticipating the ending with awe and almost fear.  It is a strong book dealing with a strong issue and peopled by strong characters.  Anything could happen.

  • Monday Morning Musings

    What’s on my mind this morning?  The same thing that’s on my mind almost all the time-BOOKS.

    Sunday’s newspaper was full of lists of “The Year’s Best “, but the one I read every word of was the one titled, “A Look Back at the Year’s Best Titles.” In her introduction, Alyson Wood, the writer, said, “What did you miss?  What should you buy now with that bookstore gift card? It’s impossible to read every worthy book published last year, but don’t leave 2016 without at least one or two of these titles.”

    Well, I have read one, The After Party by Anton DISciafani, and I loved every moment I spent reading it.  I purchased it in hardback as soon as it came out and will enjoy lending it to friends for a long time to come.  Ann Patchett’s Commonwealth also made the list, and it is sitting on my dresser, borrowed from the local library, ready for me to start.  I am a bit hesitant because another blogging friend, who is a personal friend as well, said it was “all right.”  Faint praise from someone who seems to enjoy the same type books I do quite often makes me wonder if I want to just send it back.  Have any of you read it and really liked it?

    Some of the others that made the list I have read ABOUT, and I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to invest my reading time in them: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead: I’m Thinking of Ending Things by Iaian Reid, the title alone turns me off; The Mothers by Brit Bennett deals with abortion, and although praised strongly would be brutal reading for me.

    The YA read, aimed at middle schoolers sounds worth putting on my TBR list.  It is Raymie by Kate DeCamillo, and it deals with girlfriend friendships as well as a dad who has exited his daughter’s life.  I enjoy stories about women’s friendships regardless of the women’s ages. Perhaps this is because I have so many special “girlfriends” whom I travel through vicariously, are my support group ,and keep my  life interesting.

    Night Sky With Exit Wounds by Ocean Vuong was selected as the poetry book to read, and because it is described as a “slim volume”, that  places it on my TBR list.  I’m overdue to read a collection of poetry,  Definitely to be added to the list as well are: Before We Visit the Goddess by Chitra Banerjee; a possible consideration is the memoir included on the list, Please Enjoy Your Happiness by Paul Brinkley-Rogers and the non=fiction, March by Andrew Aydin.  Ones I will have to read about on Goodreads or Amazon before putting on my list round out the Best of 2016  List: What is Not Yours Is Not Yours,  and Truevine, a memoir or something like one and a true-crime story, respectively.

    What are some of the best books you’ve read that were published in 2016 ?  Maybe you couldn’t list ten you read that you really liked and would recommend to me, but give me five or three or one, anyway.  I am making up my Published in 2016 To Be Read list soon.  Let me know.

    And, as a recommendation as the best book published in 2016 I’ve read is Gentleman from Moscow by Amor Towles (reviewed her a while ago).  It is a large book, but worth reading even if you pick it up and put it down and read other books in between for a year!

    HAPPY NEW YEAR and  HAPPY READING in 2017!

  • Sunday (Evening) Post

    Here it is Christmas Day evening, and I am so full of good food, I can hardly strike the keys! Quickly, because I need a nap, here is my look at the week back.

    What I finished last week:  Nothing!  I was gifted several new books and have been reading in little bits and pieces on the four (or so) books I have going that I am “right in the middle” of things.

    What I watched last week: Movie: The Big Fish. I watched this on my DVD player that hooks up to my laptop which arrived by FedEx yesterday (one day service, yet!), Christmas Eve.  While my husband was watching football (His team won by a hair.), I thoroughly enjoyed this movie and will recommend it to my spouse as well.  Everything Tim Burton has a “hand in” is always magical, and this film is no exception.

    TV: Two episodes of “Scorpion”, which still keeps me on the edge of my chair, holding my breath–so many twists and turns!  Two Christmas specials: Dolly Parton’s “Circle of Love” and “I Want a Dog for Christmas” Charlie Brown special.( We got to know Snoopy’s brothers). The “Timeless” episode where the team gets involved with Bonnie and Clyde and the sub-plots thicken. “People of Earth” a weird, quirky, thirty minute sit com which has a strange abduction premise and many (often in inappropriate language) zingers and laugh-out-loud-one-liners. The season finale of “Grey’s Anatomy” and a few more “mindless TV” shows.  I learned that it’s easy to bake, cook, and clean while “watching” TV.

    I think Christmas night calls for no more food and enough reading to keep me from nodding off before eight o’clock.

  • REMEMBERING CAPTAIN MIDNIGHT

    We adopted our first cat in 1968, when we moved to a small town in Texas, the first time we lived in a rent house rather than an apartment in Houston, where we were not allowed to have pets.  When Christmas came, we put up a table top tree, which lasted a full twenty minutes before Prissy climbed it and brought it down.  This Christmas I am remembering the many cats we’ve had. One of the most outstanding was a black male we named Captain Midnight. This is a piece I wrote about him and share this morning with  cat lovers everywhere.

    He sits on the ottoman opposite my easy chair waiting for me to lower the newspaper so that he can hop into my lap.  His once sleek black hair is sprinkled with grey.  I read once that when a cat’s skin is scratched badly, the hair follicle is scarred, and the replacing hair grows in white.  Captain Midnight has been neutered many years ago, but he still scraps with intruders who foray into his yard.  “Someone” has removed what would be his eyebrow, for a dime sized circle of white scalp shines above his right eye.  He has the pointed muzzle of a Siamese rather than the flattened face that would indicate Persian blood, and  the slight kink of his tail reflects his Siamese heritage.  He is pure alley cat, a Tom, and the biggest baby of our three cats.

    Eight years ago, some junior high students rescued him from the busy traffic outside our school, and we put him into the glass-walled-enclosed courtyard until “someone” could take him home.  I slipped away at lunchtime to play with him, and when I gathered him up, he nuzzled the fleshy part of my ring finger and began to “nurse.” I was hooked.

    At first, I thought since it was so close to Halloween, I would name him Count Dracula, but I couldn’t see myself going to the door and calling, “Here, Dracula; come here Drac.” When my husband came up with the original name of Midnight, I hated to veto it, but  I wanted something a bit more creative.  We looked at each other and intoned in the voice of the fifties TV announcer, “Cap…tain…Midnight!”

    Even now, my husband will enter the room and see me with 15 pounds of tomcat sprawled across my lap, smacking away, nursing on my finger for security. “Be a man, Cap; be  a man,” he chides. Captain’s only reply is “Smack…slurp…sma-ck.”

  • TUESDAY TEASER

    Even if you don’t see this on Tues., please leave us your teaser.  Open the book you’re reading to a random page and copy a couple of lines or sentences to tempt us to read the same book.  Give the title and author, so we can add it to our TBR (To Be Read) pile, list, shelf, as the case may be.

    My book came in the mail yesterday, Swans of Fifth Avenue, a novel by Melanie Benjamin, published earlier this year.  It is the story of the society matrons and Truman Capote, their darling and their nemesis. I only read to page 15 last night before getting sleepy, but here is where I left off:

    “I had the most marvelous childhood!”  Truman exclaimed to Slim, to Gloria, to C.Z., at their parties , where they would surround their new discovery, these glamorous wives of glamorous men, while their husbands looked on in confusion, for they’d never seen a Truman Capote before, and hoped, at first, never to see once again. This tiny effeminate creature dressed in velvet suits, red socks, an absurdly long scarf wrapped around his throat, trailing after him like a coronation robe, who pronounced after dinner, “I’m going to sit over here with the rest of the girls and gossip!” This pixie who might suddenly leap in the air ,kicking one foot out behind him, exclaiming, “Oh what fun, fun, fun, it is to be me! I’m beside myself!”

  • MONDAY MORNING MUSINGS

    This morning I am musing about the reason for the season, and would like to share these three things with you.

    First, the lines from Hamlet Act 1, scene 1:

    “Some say that ever ‘gainst the season comes

    Wherein our Savior’s birth is celebrated,

    This bird of dawning singeth all night long;

    And then, they say, no spirit dare stir abroad,

    The nights are wholesome, then no planets strike,

    No fairy takes, nor witch hath power to charm,

    So hallow’d and so gracious is the time.”

    Secondly, the words to the song heard years ago on the Southern Gospel Circuit as a Christmas song, performed by Steve Haupt and Becky Kelly, inspired by grandson, Spenser Reijgers and written by Steve Haupt and Chris Leech. Steve tells that the question posed was asked by his grandson which led him to write these lyrics:

    “Where’s the Line to See Jesus?”

    Christmas time was approaching,

    Snow is starting to fall,

    Shoppers choosing their presents,

    People filling the mall.

     

    Children waiting for Santa,

    With excitement and glee,

    A little boy tugged at my sweater,

    Looked up and asked me.

    (chorus)

    Where’s the line to see Jesus?

    Is He here at the store?

    It’s Christmas time; it’s His birthday.

    Why don’t we see Him more?

    Where’s the line to see Jesus?

    He was born for me.

    Santa Claus brought me presents.

    But Christ gave His life for me.

     

    As I stood in amazement,

    At this message profound,

    I looked down to thank him,

    he was nowhere around .

    Little boy at the mall might have well have had wings.

    As the tears filled my eyes,

    but I heard him sing.

    (chorus)

    In the blink of an eye,

    at the sound of His trump,

    We’ll all stand in line at His throne.

    Every knee shall bow down,

    every tongue confess,

    that Jesus Christ is Lord.

     

    Where’s the line to see Jesus?

    Is He here at the store?

    It’s Christmas time; it’s His birthday

    Why don’t we see Him more?

    Where’s the line to see Jesus?

    He was born for me.

    Santa Claus brought me presents.

    But Christ gave His life for me.

     

    And finally, a poem scribbled on the back of a church bulletin by a dear friend one Christmas week when I was her Sunday School teacher, many Christmases ago:

     

    Silent night, holy night,

    Not a Santa Claus in sight.

    O’re the heavens near and far

    Shines a bright and heavenly star

    Beckoning all to come and see.

    Kings and shepherds bow the knee

    Before a feed trough in an animal shed

    To the King of Kings on his straw-filled bed.

    The only glitter, the Wise Men’s gold.

    The only music the angels told.

    The only gifts to Him were given.

    The only light sent down from heaven.

    Silent night? Holy night!

    (Not a Santa Claus in sight.)

    The only reason to celebrate,

    The birthday of One so great.

     

    Let’s keep the Christ in Christmas.

     

     

  • SUNDAY (EVENING) POST

    Well, it’s good to get back to this venue.  I did not do a Sunday (Evening) Post last week (12/11/16) because life got in the way, a planning meeting at school popped up (after the fact of the semester), and I was busy finishing up things, as you will see.

    Finished last week:  Ali Smith’s How to be Both, which you will find reviewed here previously.  It was one of the hardest books to review, but one which gave me a great deal of pleasure to attempt.    Astray, a book of short stories by the award winning author, Emma Donoghue, also reviewed previously on this blog.    A cozy mystery, reviewed last week also, The Cat, The Quilt and the Corpse, which was my escape from the craziness of the two-weeks-before-Christmas-hurry-up-and dos.    Conor Kelly and the Four Treasures of Eirean, my first attempt to read a book on my kindle app. (It was easier and more pleasant than I expected.)

    Finished on TV:  The season finale of “This Is Us” ,which left me all feel-goody until the cliffhanger at the end.   ” The Big Bang Theory” for this past week.  If this was not the season finale, it should have been.  The baby is here! and (spoiler alert) she takes after Howard’s Mom, judging from her wails and complaints in the nursery.

    Continuing to read: The Bone People–disturbing and beautiful at the same time.  I have a luncheon date set for before-going-back-to-school with the friend who recommended the book to me, to discuss it. She re-reads the book every year or so, and I am finding out as I read, why.    Coming of Age in Mississippi, again on the kindle app, and even though I am only on chapter five, I already see why it is a classic and required reading in some classes.

    Started: Barely started —Jealous Heart, the sequel to James Lee Burke’s Wayfaring Stranger. We are in River Oaks in Houston, Texas, in the 1950’s and I’m just starting to see the connections with the first book, which are very interesting and promise another great read from Burke.

    And, I watched a movie, Max Lucado’s (my favorite inspirational author/see the review of his Before Amen last week) “The Christmas Candle.”  I expected it to be sentimental and smalchtzsy, and in one sense it was, but everyone should watch a Christmas movie and wipe away a sentimental tear or two.  After watching the movie, I have lost my “Bah Humbug” attitude toward Christmas and believe in Christmas miracles, as I told the Sunday School Class this morning.

    Which brings me to the last thing on the post (This WAS a long one!).  I had the privilege of subbing for my Sunday School class since our teacher was out with laryngitis and the “Texas crud”, and one thing that really struck home was this:  We were studying Psalm 119 which is an acrostic poem that proclaims the wonders of God’s Laws, precepts, commandments.  Last week I  taught as well, and the lit major in me had a field day with the poetry “angle.”  Today the psalmist was exalting in the good life one was blessed with which made one WANT to obey God’s laws.  One commentator said,” Reading [and meditating on] God’s precepts doesn’t make us sinless, but it makes us sin less.”

     

  • Conor Kelly and the Four Treasures of Eirean: A fantasy adventure

    Ali Issacs’ Tir na Nog trilogy begins with this fast paced, breath-holding adventure.  The cover describes the hero, Conor Kelly as “Descended from gods/Raised by mortals/Friend of the Fae”, but a less likely hero you will never meet. This novel will have special appeal to the YA audience because Conor is a late teen, trapped in an unresponsive body.  He can not move or talk, but he can think, and his crafty thinking skills serve him well.

    At the beginning of the story, Conor, alone in his wheelchair in a deserted hospital hallway meets up with Annalee, a Sidhe Princess who kidnaps him, transporting him to the Land of Tir na Nog, a land of Irish legend and myth and the home of the Sidhe, a benevolent fairy folk. Soon Conor has reason to wonder, Can Annalee be trusted? Is she friend or foe? and What does she expect of Conor?  Early on Conor discovers he is related to Lugh, god of lightening and has special powers.  His quest is nothing less than the restoration of the Four Treasures hidden away and also sought by Bres, a powerful and evil king.

    The multi-stranded plot, many twists and turns, and cliffhangers at the end of almost every chapter keep the reader invested throughout to its conclusion.  This reader, for one, is looking forward to the second book in the trilogy.

  • ASTRAY by Emma Donaghue: A Review of a Short Story Collection

    As I read the stories in this 2012 published collection, several seemed familiar, and I finally realized where I had originally read them. I had encountered them in The New Yorker over a period of time. Although I did not recall the author’s name, her style and type of topic her stories are based on was what rang a bell. Many of the stories are based on newspaper clippings or snippets of history.

    The Houston Chronicle referred to it as “one of the best books of the year” in 2012, and every story is of “New Yorker quality”, whether a longer piece or a very short, short story. The book is divided into three sections: “Departures” (My favorite of this section was “The Widow’s Cruise” where a scheming lawyer decides to take advantage of a grieving widow, only to have his plan boomerang on him.), “In Transit” (My favorite of this section was “The Body Swap” which tells of a little known plan to steal and hold for ransom Abraham Lincoln’s corpse.  Its denouement is a humorous, “gotcha” ending which made me chuckle.), and “Arrivals and Aftermaths,” more or less miscellaneous stories (My favorite  of this section was the shocking and true story, “Daddy’s Girl.”).

    The author chose her title expressed in the front from a thought in Virgil’s Aenid:

    “…We wander, ignorant of men and places,

    And driven by the wind and the vast waves.”

    Indeed, all of the characters in all of the stories have gone adrift or “astray” in some way or another.

    It is a masterful collection.