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.”

  • BRIDESHEAD REVISITED by Evelyn Waugh: A Review

    My January/February 2022 selection is Brideshead Revisited

    This 1944, WWII publication, has been described as a “memory drama.” Judging from the photos on the cover, it has been made into a good movie, which I wish I’d seen as well as read the novel. The narrative opens as Charles Ryder, a British officer, approaches the estate of Brideshead, to determine its suitability for billeting troops. He does not, at first, tell his fellow officers that he has been there before.

    I wish I had seen the movie.

    Waugh’s dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church, much like his dissatisfaction with the funeral industry in The Loved One, is expressed through satiric humor, which makes many somber philosophical points. Death, in general, is also satirized humorously as in the scene near the end of the old man’s death, presented in dark-humored detail. Waugh cleverly presents the conflict between the demands of religion and the narrator’s physical desires. The descriptions of the countryside, and especially, architecture, are stunning and provide pleasure to the reader. The love triangle between Charles Ryder, Sebastian, and his sister, Julia is a strange and complicated one. The characters, including the mother are complex and carefully developed. This “elegant, lyrical novel” demands the reader stay alert to the narrator’s “entanglement with an Anglo-Catholic family.”

    It was a challenge to read for me because the pace was slow, and I was often impatient with the Brideshead family’s treatment of the protagonist, as well as with the protagonist himself, often wishing for Charles to cut the ties to this privileged family and get on with his life.

  • A fun meme to participate in

    I haven’t attempted one of these in a very long time, but I’m in the mood to do so today. The meme asks the blogger/reader to share WHAT they have finished reading, WHAT they are reading now, and WHAT they are going to, or wanting to, read next.

    Here’s my WWW Wednesday for February 9, 2022:

    A former popular televangelist who held healing services all over the U.S. and had a huge ministries organization wrote this book about the promises in the Bible, from Genesis to the New Testament promised healing for those who ask.

    Benny Hinn was an Israeli-born, Greek-ethnicity, televangelist whom many Christians supported financially. His healing services, shown on religious TV stations were supposedly faked, but still many people traveled great distances to be healed. This book was probably a give-away with a donation of a certain amount to his ministries, which I received from a friend whose mother followed Hinn on TV back in the 70s. Although his ministry damaged the “Christian Cause” more than helped it, the book itself is a gold mine of scriptures assuring Christians that God promises in His Word physical healing. And, I could sure use some healing at this point. The book is divided into daily meditations, which I read, ignored the disgraced author who wrote them, and allowed the meditations to guide my prayer life until I finished the book. Isn’t it great how we can take and use ideas/things from a book and be helped by them without accepting the entire premise of that book?

    A quick-read novel about surviving the loss of a spouse

    DEELIGHTFUL, true story

    I started this once before, and I am trying it again.

    I have misplaced this book and may have to get a library copy to finish it!

    This is the 2020 version. I am reading the 1997 edition.

    This was another hand-me-down from the same friend’s mother who sent me Benny Hinn’s book. It has the month and day, so I am able to apply its reading to this year easily, and all the devotional are new to me. LOL Seriously, it is often just what I need for a particular day.

    Something I really WANT to read and finish

    I really MUST set aside about three hours to get further involved in this book. Reading it in bits and pieces, dribs and drabs, setting it aside for days at a time does not do it justice! The writing is experiential and wonderful. I need to immerse myself in the experience of reading it–soon! Maybe a Readathon is called for here!

    I hope this week is a good reading week for you. I know we all have busy schedules, (yes, I’m back in school) but SET ASIDE SOME TIME TO READ.

    HAPPY READING!

    Thanks, Evin, for the sign off.
  • And so I begin, again: My first blog post in two years and life during a pandemic

    And so I begin, again: My first blog post in two years and life during a pandemic

    From one of my favorite librarians and leader of my book club–a look at the pandemic years.

  • SOME GOOD ADVICE

    An Aspiring Writer, a fellow blogger, came up with these wise words,

    Advice to be taken both literally and figuratively:

    “Turn the page.

    Turn the page of the book you are reading.

    Turn the page of the book that is your life.”

    “Even when you don’t want to.

    Especially when you don’t want to.

    Move on right now.

    Start that next chapter.

    Turn the page already!”

    It’s a new month, a new year, a new start–TURN THE PAGE!

  • Caturday funnies — cat bowling edition

    bluebird of bitterness's avatarbluebird of bitterness

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  • FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

    FRIDAY FIRST LINERS ARE THE FIRST LINE OF A CURRENT READ YOU THINK OTHERS MAY LIKE.
    It’s cold out today, too cold to go for a walk, just right for leaning back and reading.

    Here is the first line of a book I’m reading now

    The cover of an advance copy, from a Little Free Library of a friend
    The final cover of the book which came out in 2018

    Here are the book’s first lines:

    “His wife had died in June and there was to be a memorial service for her in two weeks at the end of the summer…(The actual cover shows Gene, the widower, walking on the beach, seeking inspiration for his eulogy at the service.) He hadn’t been able to find his swim trunks that morning, so he was wearing a pair of pants Dary (his daughter) had chopped off at the knee.”

    I am on page 155 of the novel, and so far, the reader has seen Gene grieve, muse over the memories of his wife, and endure the funeral service. Another character has been introduced, Adele, his housekeeper, and things are “moving fast.”

    I hope to do a good deal of reading today after I finish grading the last of the Essay # 1’s from Wednesday’s class. I wish it were sunny and warm, so I could sit outside, put my feet up, and goof off. Very few places in the U.S. fit that description today.

    ENJOY THE WEEKEND AND ATTACK THAT TBR PILE!

    Rae

  • HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR

    May the Year of the Tiger bring us all prosperity and good changes. Goodness knows, after 2021 we can use some!

    HAPPY LUNAR NEW YEAR TO MY FRIENDS WHO CELEBRATE IT AS’ TET’ OR CHINESE NEW YEAR! May the Year of the Tiger be a better year than the last one, and may Covid be a thing of the past.

  • THE MONK DOWNSTAIRS by Tim Farrington: A Review

    Another library book returned this month

    Rebecca, a thirty-eight-year old single mom, trying to hold her life together and raise her six-year-old daughter, Mary Margaret, decides to rent her basement apartment (the “in-law apartment”) to earn some much needed cash. And, who should apply but a monk, who has left the monastery after twenty years of contemplation and solitude.

    A delightfully light, but insightful at times, romance

    The book intersperses among the chapters that carry the narrative, Mike Christopher’s (the monk’s) letters to a monk/friend still at the monastery, chronicling his new life in the “outside world.” Most interesting are his musings on his new-found relationship with his landlady. Their relationship has its ups and downs, which keeps things interesting, and is refreshing and unique to the reader.

    Mike volunteers to grow pumpkins (in December!) for Mary Margaret in the back yard, which he miraculously pulls off. Completing the cast of characters is Rebecca’s mom, Phoebe, who precipitates a catastrophic event which turns all the character’s lives upside down. Dealing with life in general and hard times specifically brings out the characters’ inner selves in a way that endears each to the reader in an unforgettable way. One will be thinking about these people long after finishing the novel.

    HAPPY READING THIS WEEK!

    Rae

  • THE AWAKENING OF MISS PRIM by Natalia Sanmartin Fenollera : A Review

    This debut novel was published in 2014, but I did not hear of it until this year on a friend’s blog. The cover suggests, “[It]…will leave you undone, open to the beauty of the little things in life.” Those are strong claims for such a calm, comforting little read, but the novel itself is as “prim and proper” as the protagonist herself. It is a gentle story, sometimes sparked by the tiny rebellions and pop-up anger in our protagonist, Miss Prim, a librarian by occupation, and a thinker/philosopher by her own definition.

    Prim cover, prim character, prim read

    Prudencia Prim is intelligent, has a true knowledge of literature, and is hired as the private librarian of The Man in the Wing Chair. She arrives at the tiny, quaint village of San Ireneo de Arnois where she meets the village’s eccentric, quirky, well-drawn characters, whom you can’t help falling in love with. It is a village /colony set in the past, hidden from such horrors as progress and modernism. Its “exiles seek a simple, rural life” as they strive to protect themselves from the outside world. Poets, artists, philosophers, philanthropists, etc. make up the post persons, teachers, priests and a monk, the inhabitants of the village.

    The plot/action of the novel is full of “steaming cups of tea, baked cakes, and lovely company.” Hospitality is the name of the game in San Ireneo de Arnois. Reading this novel, returning to it after stressful, busy days was a comfort to me during the bleak month of January. I found myself rationing out the chapters I covered each time I opened the book to make it last longer. I especially enjoyed the feelings of peace and serenity it left me with. It made my heart sing and left me with a peace that comes from a book that feels like a conversation with an old friend. This was definitely a “darned good read.”

  • SATURDAY MORNINGS FOR KIDS ON SUNDAY MORNING

    Thanks for the meme, Carla.

    Late again! Yesterday was a very full, very busy day, and I am just getting around to recommending this wonderful book for kids and adults alike.

    The story is as special as its cover!

    Clara’s dad, Marc owns a very special cafe in Flowers, Kansas. Clara knows that the Van Gogh Cafe is where magic happens. Many special events happen that involve the whole town and that change the whole town: like the wayward sea-gull’s appearance, the possum’s visit, or the magic muffins which arrive just when they are needed most. Lively, warm, and magic, each chapter’s vignette adds to the revealing conclusion which helps the reader learn that the secret of the magic at the Van Gogh cafe is L.O.V.E.