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.”

  • THE QUICKENING by Michelle Hoover: A Review

    A former student sent me this book before Christmas, and it wasn’t until recently that I got to it. I finished it earlier this week and mailed it back because she confessed she hadn’t read it either. I think she will enjoy this debut novel as much as I did.

    The word “quickening” means a coming to life, specifically the sensation a woman has when she holds life inside her womb, and it stirs. Two women, Enidina and Mary, neighbors on the prairies of the midwest during the summer of 1915-the winter of 1950, are the main characters. Their stories and their strange relationship unfold throughout the hardships of farm life during the droughts, dustbowl and Depression of the U.S. Frank and Jack , their husbands are as different from one another as are their wives. The story is “gripping at its very core,” and deals in spousal and child abuse, infidelity, repeated miscarriages, and dark secrets that accompany the characters hardscrabble lives. The characters are all complex and authentic, perhaps because Hoover is “the granddaughter of four longtime farming families.” She captures the women’s voices in their dialog and their sense of self-preservation in their thoughts. The novel is a page turner, written in “elegant prose.” I recommend it as a darned good read.

  • FIRST LINE FRIDAYS

    Thanks to Hoarding Books for the use of their meme

    Today’s Friday Firstliner comes from Tanya Maria Barrientos’ Frontera Street.

    “DEE

    There are fourteen verb tenses in Spanish, so much more than the past, present, and future. That’s what it said in the first sentence of the paperback I bought, thinking I just needed to brush up.”

    I plan to start this one today.

  • 2021 First Non-Fiction Book Finished

    Grunge rubber stamp with word Finished inside,vector illustration

    As a thirty-something year veteran of the college-level classroom, one would think I didn’t need this book. They would be wrong. Several things, including tips on holding discussions, tips on grading, and relating to students, I found helpful even though this coming semester I will be teaching strictly online. This is a book I will keep, to loan out, and to refer back to when it is possible to return to hybrid or face-to-face classes. I’m glad I read this book, learned from it, and highly recommend it to anyone facing teaching at the college level for the first time.

  • even odd

    even odd

    Annette Rochelle Aben's avatarAnnette Rochelle Aben

    May your life be weird

    Random, weird and sometimes strange

    Tell logic goodbye

    Be open to happenstance

    And the whispers of strangers

    ©2021 Annette Rochelle Aben

    View original post

  • RETURNED TO THE LIBRARY

    This first new week of the New Year, I returned two books to my library:

    This weird cover would attract anyone!

    This debut novel by a well-known Irish musician has been described as “quietly brilliant,” and I would concur. It is about “two single, thirty-something men,” who are friends, and belong to the “uncelebrated [population] of this world.” In one word, they are nice.

    Unlike so many thirty-somethings of today, they seem to understand the meaning of life.

    Not much happens to either character, and not much happens in the book. “Hungry Paul sat slumped in the sitting room and stayed there for most of the evening, catatonic with failure and looking out the front window as car after car ran over a lost glove in the road.”

    One big thing happens to Hungry Paul:

    “President Mike (of the Chamber of Commerce) handed Paul a giant cheque for ten grand…[Paul] accepted the congratulations of his family, the Chamber of Commerce members, and other well-wishers.”

    A big thing happens to Leonard as well. After losing his mother and continuing to live in the empty house he and she had lived in, Leonard meets Shelly, then loses Shelly. How this eventually plays out, you will have to read for yourself.

    It is an engaging, fast read, bordering on the Minimalist style of writing. It is not an in-depth character, nor is there much action in the novel, but, overall, it’s a darned good read.

    Another book in the Minimalist tradition

    Perhaps because it is a translation from the original Japanese, this “fable-like tale” feels more like a connected collection of short stories than a novel. It deals with the unfolding of human relationships and missed opportunities. It has been described as both “mysterious” and “quirky”; I would have to agree.

    Four customers at an back-alley cafe in Tokyo travel through time when they sit in that chair when the ghost-lady leaves it once a day to go to the restroom. Rules govern their trips: they must sit in that seat and not leave it or they will return abruptly to the present; they must visit someone who frequents the cafe; they can not change the outcome of the present; they must return before the coffee gets cold. Interestingly, only one customer travels to the future.

    All in all, it is a “very charming read.”

  • “CELEBRATION OF COLOR” update

    I don’t know how it happened so quickly, but my personal challenge, “Celebration of Color” is finished. I had set no time to finish because I started it so late in 2020, August 24,2020. But, this morning I read the last book. Here is what I have read for this challenge since August:

    1. RED The Light Years (reviewed last summer)
    2. BLUE The Dalai Lama’s Cat (also reviewed)
    3. YELLOW The Austin Escape (reviewed)
    4. WHITE The Lions of Fifth Avenue (by my favorite author and friend, Fiona Davis) I liked this one so much, I asked my Third Tuesday Book Club to read it, and they enjoyed it too. (also reviewed)
    5. BLACK Vesper Flights one of the few audiobooks and the first non-fiction book of the challenge (reviewed)
    6. GREEN Tell Me Why, my first Aussie Noir, which I won in a blogger’s giveaway (reviewed)
    7. ORANGE Dear Mr. Knightley (reviewed as well)
    8. PINK Backward and in Heels another non-fiction book (also reviewed)
    9. PURPLE Klaws a gift from a friend (read on my Kindle)
    10. BROWN home body not the only book of poetry I read during this time, but my favorite (reviewed)
    11. A BOOK WITH THE WORD “COLOR’ IN THE TITLE Black is a Rainbow Color, written by Angela Joy; illustrated by Ekua Holmes
    This is a book you EXPERIENCE, not just read. It is for children, but this adult enjoyed it so much, she ordered a copy to give as a gift to another adult.

    12. A BOOK BY AN AUTHOR OF COLOR Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi

    As with so many books, I saw this book first on the Today Show on NBC as a “Jenna’s Book Club” pick


    This book is true “literary fiction,” which is my favorite genre, and one which is difficult to define. “Gifty,” the protagonist is a complex character, and the author makes us “feel” all of her complex emotions. She is a neuroscientist doing research on the brain, specifically seeking for the answers to what causes addiction and depression. Her brother, and her mother, and, in retrospect, her father all deal with these issues. One critic says, Gifty “turns to the hard sciences to deal with her family’s loss.” Her Ghanaian family has relocated in Alabama, finding life in a new place challenging; and thus, is an immigrant story as well.

    The novel is “powerful, raw, intimate,” and deals also with faith and the loss of it.

    That’s it! All twelve books in my “Celebration of Color Challenge…”

  • Cat Lady No. 6

    Cat Lady No. 6

  • SUNDAY SUMMARY

    I finished several books with the end of the old year.
    a memoir–recently reviewed

    The book I plan to include on my “Celebration of Color” for the category author of color–will review soon

    First book finished in the New Year

    ALSO FINISHED BUT NOT PICTURED:

    Leonard and Hungry Paul and Before the Coffee Gets Cold, both from the library and will be reviewed soon

    Beginning at the beginning and already taking notes

    borrowed from the library to start a new goal of reading about and from Madeline L’Engle

    took off my TBR shelf before the new year started and am continuing to read now

    a classic on college teaching I should have read long before now

    highly recommended by Deb Nance of Readerbuzz and started in the new year

    a really fun read
    Perhaps this…

    Binged watched a good deal

    Effie Gray–a depressing movie which thankfully had a happy ending

    George Clooney in The Midnight Sky–I highly recommend it.

    Three episodes of Emily in Paris

    An episode of The New Girl, thinking of giving this one up

    Three episodes of Girl Boss to finish off season 1

    Bridgerton, the latest from Shondaland, three episodes…I highly recommend it.

    In the Dark, two episodes

    Before long class will start and my viewing time will be cut back, so I’m enjoying watching while I can.

  • SATURDAY MORNING FOR KIDS

    THANKS TO CARLA FROM CARLA LOVES TO READ FOR THE IMAGE

    A hardback copy of Twice Upon a Time by Irwin Shapiro (and illustrated by Adrienne Adams) showed up in my Little Free Library this morning. I checked my search box because the title sounded familiar, and sure enough one Sunday Evening Post listed it as a book I had just finished. That said, I never reviewed it, so here goes:

    Twice Upon a Time is the tale of a “writer of stories,” Rambling Richard, who wandered all over the world. All he carried with him were an ink pot and a bundle of paper. He wanders into the walled city of Gib Gib, ruled by King Big Wig The Great. The king had a peculiarity–he wanted two of everything, and everything in his kingdom had to be bigger and better than anywhere else. However, the king was not happy. Richard was able to help the king change his attitude and attain happiness, but you will have to read the book to find out how!

  • FIRST BOOK OF 2021

    I had started this book last week but saved it to be the first book of 2021 I read.
    Rupi Kaur has become the favorite poet of many young women, worldwide.

    This is a book I have copied many poems into my Quote Notebook from, even making a poorly-executed copy of her illustrations:

    Not only is Kaur a spokeswomen for young women everywhere, she is old beyond her years in advice and thought. I first heard of her in a review from Hooked on Books’ Jee Wan, who was very impressed by this poet. Jee is an excellent poet herself, so I ordered a copy to form my own opinion. Impressed is a mild word to describe my reaction to Kaur’s poems–they are spot-on, often dealing with darker things women might not want to reflect on. But there is hope as well, always hope, offered in this slender volume.

    Two more poems from this collection that “spoke” to me are here:

    ‘you might have done

    the external work

    but your mind is starving

    for internal attention

    listen”

    and…

    “not everything you do has to be self-improving

    you are not a machine

    you are a person

    without rest

    your work can never be full

    without play your mind can never be nourished

    balance”

    In an effort to read more poetry, I plan to start January with a book of poems and continue to read at least one collection each month. As slow as I read poetry ( because I tend to slow down to digest it), it will take me all month to read each collection.

    Join me in this celebration of poetry and what it can do for us in 2021 if you wish.