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.”
I am at home after a six day hospital stay. I went in for one thing, and of course, “they found something”–a blood clot in my right lung. Finding it was certainly a “God Thing.” for I had no symptoms. This past Monday I was allowed to come home, and am being cared for by the best caregiver in SE Texas, My Better Half.
All is well in the eating, sleeping and bathroom “departments.” Between the two of us, we’re a team, all is well. I have the support of my church family (prayers, bringing in meals, etc.), the patience of my Advanced Writing students, many of whom are also praying, and the prayers of my hospital nurses who are now “new friends.” God is good. ALL the time!
I will not be reading blogs or posting on any of mine for a while; I am too busy getting well. It is a full-time job. LOL
These were my original plans for a weekend of reading.
THESE ARE SOME OF THE BOOKS I “READ ON” THIS WEEKEND.
I finished My Epic Spring Break (Up), a YA Romance that was a fast, interesting read and was chosen because it was set in NYC. Since Social Graces, also set in NY, is overdue at the library, I made an effort to “get it done,” but it is Sunday evening, and I covered pages 144-180 so far during the weekend. (The night is not over.) In Peterson’s The Message, I finished the story/book of Job after beginning on chapter 11. Our Sunday School lessons this quarter studied Job, and it ended today. Next up we’ll study one of the Wisdom books, Ecclesiastes. I think I’ll study it in the Living Bible version. Because I had two audio books checked out from the library, I did not even open The Heart’s Invisible Furies this weekend.The copy I am reading from is a personal paperback.
Along with Spring Break, I finished a novelette by Miss Read, whom I’ve just now heard of, The Fairacre Festival. It was a 104 page read and was very pleasant. It reminded me of a cozy mystery, but there was no murder. Instead, there was a calamity the townspeople of Fairacre had to face together.
I was able to finish the audiobook, About Grace by Doerr. I had listened to the point of 67% read before the weekend. It took me three tries to read All the Light We Cannot See, so I tried the audiobook this time. It has magnificent descriptions.
A re-read of this month’s Book Club selection; this month’s meeting is the 20th.
(Thanks to one of my young blogging friend for allowing me to “borrow” her graphic.)
I stalted Listening to audiobook Rules of Civility by Amor Towles, in an attempt to “read” four books set in New York by the end of the summer. p.s. I consider summer’s end to be Labor Day weekend. When do you say, “Summer’s over”?
I don’t think I started writing anything good until I accepted that rejection is par for the course. It made me less precious. It made me realise that revision is where the work gets done, that sometimes that thing you wrote sucks, and even if you throw work out, none of it is wasted if it gets you there. Raven Leilani
Are you pondering what book to choose for your vacation or staycation?
Are you in limbo trying to decide what ONE great book to read this summer?
Do you ever wish someone would just TELL you what book to read?
Are you looking for a list of trusted book review bloggers?
Do you spend more time thinking about which book to pack for your vacation than packing the clothes? (oh…just me?)
If you only have time to read ONE more book before summer’s end, what would you choose?
This is the time of year when readers in my hemisphere are looking for “Beach Reads.” (If you’re in the Southern Hemisphere, happy “winter reading!”) The term “Beach Read” is puzzling to me because I think any book you read at the beach or the pool is…
The idea behind Hoarding Books’ First Line Fridays is to copy the first line or two to introduce others to your current read.A lovely look at the Guilded Age
Today’s Friday First Liner comes from Renee Rosen’s The Social Graces, which I requested through my local library. I read about it on a friend’s blog.
“PROLOGUE/Society/New York 1876
They call us the weaker sex. Something we find flattering and maddening in equal measure.”
I have read through the end of chapter one, and am intrigued by the family diagrams of the Astors and the Vanderbilts. This promises to be a darned good read.
It was rather serendipitous last year that the first issue of MANIFEST (zine) came out just in time for International Zine Month! An auspicious debut and an amazing first year! So, today we celebrate! Happy Birthday MANIFEST (zine)…and many more!
Although I finished this challenge early in March, six non-fiction books, I have read nearly twice that many since January 1st.
I took on the challenge hesitantly because “Non-fiction has never been my ‘thing’” I now have to amend my statement, for I have come to love non-fiction and the benefits reading in this genre provide.
My latest “read” was John C. Maxwell’s
Maxwell is a well-known leadership coach and has written many excellent books.
This 2013 publication is timeless, its lessons ones that the reader can apply immediately to his/her professional and personal life. Maxwell believes that “every loss can become a positive learning experience.” He discusses examples of dealing with setbacks. Facing problems, failure, and losses, for business people and those in other leadership positions are difficult, but this inspiring “handbook” can be very helpful.
Just as I tell my Advanced Writing students, “Practice does not make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect,” Maxwell tells his readers, “Experience isn’t the best teacher, evaluated experience is.”
My favorite chapters were “Change: The Price of Learning,” which I recommend to all us Senior Citizens who tend to be ‘set in our ways’ and “Improvement: The Focus of Learning”, which can be applied to my teaching needs.
This is a quick, interesting read, one which any reader will come away from with something useful
This is a goal I set for myself to finish this summer.As part of my Madeline L’Engle Project, I determined to read her journals.
Reading L’Engle’s personal journals gave me an insight into her life and personality I did not get from any other source. I have read two biographies and a book of quotes about her so far, in an effort to read everything by and lots about her because she is one of my “heroes.” However, hearing her philosophy of life as expressed in Circle of Quiet made me respect her more than ever.
The Summer of the Great Grandmother was about her mother’s last summer at Crosswicks, the old farmhouse L’Engle and her husband renovated as their country home far from the hustle and bustle of NYC. Two Part Invention was the story of her husband’s illness and death, a devastating loss for L’Engle. Finally, The…
Thanks to Carla for the lovely meme above.A colorful kids’ version of a remarkable project
Although this lovely book was published in 2010, I didn’t come across it until it was donated to my Little Free Library…
My 69th BD present, a gift that keeps on giving
…by a teacher-friend who was “getting rid of excess books.” Biblioburro is the true story of Luis Soriano, who ives in a remote village in Columbia. I had seen the PBS documentary and heard of several individuals who were emulating his project, but this is the version relevant to and about the kids served by Luis and his burros. It is a colorful, inspiring read.
(First Line Friday meme borrowed from Hoarding Books)My June/July Classic Club “assignment” was The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
This week’s first lines come from:
“They say when trouble comes close ranks, and so the white people did. But we were not in their ranks. The Jamaican ladies had never approved of my mother, ‘because she pretty like pretty self.’ Christophine said.”
The mother mentioned in the first lines is the mother of non-other-than Rochester’s wife, “the madwoman in the attic” of Wuthering Heights, and this is her story. The other woman also has a large part in the narrative. Christophine is a Martinique woman, given to the mistress of the house as a young girl, who sees to her mistress and her daughter, and strongly influences them by her strong personality and island magic. The tales of Couliibri, the estate, are ones that make the reader wonder and tremble in fear. I finished the book last night after being pushed to turn pages rapidly and keep on reading far after I should have turned in for the night. It is an exciting, dramatic read.
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