Whatcha reading

I keep meaning to keep track of what I read, but never really manage to. I just returned a pile of the books to the library and thought now would be a good time to talk about them.

The first was John Crowley's Little, Big and I only wish I could create such a magical world. Even though it was a little otherworldy it really talked about family, love, passion and sacrifice. I normally read before bed and this book infiltrated my dreams.

The next was The History of Love by Nicole Krauss. I loved how she tied together a story along with the stories of people's lives. I highly recommend it.

The final book was Pure Style Living by Jane Cumberbatch and it was like eye candy for the soul. This book transported me from the dingy streets of Chicago to a villa in Italy. She had a lot of ideas that could be incorporated into my day to day living. I liked how she gave examples of paint colors and fabrics at the end. With that said overall I was disappointed. Not all of us can have a large house with lots of light in varying shades of white. I think her philosophy is great, but I can't implement everything she suggests. While I can aspire to some of it, I feel like I will just fall short.

I also read Lives on the Boundary by Mike Rose for class and this book was personally a real eye opener. I am taking Teaching Writing, one of the classes required for my community college teaching certification, and I'm glad it is required. I would not have thought about how to teach students to be better writers. I think in my mind they would just write and I would grade, but there is so much more to it then that. Rose's book discusses how it was a challenge to be in an poor immigrant family and get to college. While, I was not a second generation immigrant (more like 4th) I still encountered all of the challenges he did. He also talked about students who daydream because they weren't taught the basics and so they enter a class that builds on the basics and just space out. That was me! I never learned math and found it too difficult later on in school. There had to have been something wrong because I was in honors english, biology and history, but fundamentals of algebra. There were some flaws within the book which we critiqued in class, but overall I am grateful to have been introduced to the book.

My freetime reading has slowed down because I have to spend a lot of time reading for class, but there are more books that I am currently reading and that are in the pile to read. I actually have a spreadsheet where I keep track of the books I want to read. I love books! I've been good though and I've been using the library instead of buying them. Even the books I'm a little ashamed to be reading (chicklit, scifi) because it is too expensive to buy them and then I have a back log of books to give away because I have no space to keep them. Sigh. I'm going to go home and read. That is after I watch the season premiere of Gilmore Girls.