Tag: #20booksofsummer

The #20BooksofSummerChallenge Wrap-up

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Fall has officially descended here upon Southern Germany and I am happy to report that while I did not complete 20 books in 3 months, I did reach my personal goal of 10 before September 3rd.

My last three books were all super excellent!

#8 Running Home a memoir by Katie Arnold

I enjoyed this story a great deal. I don’t think you have to be a runner to enjoy it. Katie Arnold was the Leadville 100 champion last year and is in her mid-40’s, so I find her to be particularly inspiring as I deal with the declines of my 40s. But her memoir is about dealing with grief from the loss of her father, combined with new revelations about her childhood as well as postpartum difficulties from having a baby at the same time:  a perfect storm of mental health attacks. And it’s about how running, and time, and love and support saved her.

#9 Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I thought this was an excellent summer read! The story is about the time 15 years after the collapse of civilization and a band of musicians and actors that travel to survivors camps and towns to perform Shakespeare and play symphonies. The narrative jumps to that present time and back to the day or two before the collapse began with a wildly contagious flu. The main characters are expertly interwoven in their pre and post-collapse connections. While this book was a lot of fun to read, it was also a time for solemn reflection about what we will shortly face and what life might look like.

#10 The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls

Wow, this story is incredible. The level of neglect Walls and her siblings endured is eye-popping and hard to believe. Because you never doubt that her parents love her and her siblings. But the way they conducted themselves is purely criminal. However, if they had been caught, the children would have been split up and maybe this would not have a happy ending. At the same time, this book is a celebration of the American spirit. You do not have to be a product of where you came from in our country. You can still make your own way. Or at least, they were able to at the time and this story is inspiring as a result.

Now we’re back full-on in school mode and I’m reading several books for school and myself. For me, I’m reading I Have the Right to Destroy Myself which is more depressing Korean fiction and I’m reading Training for the Uphill Athlete. For school, I’m reading Things Fall Apart (for IB English) and Challenger Deep (for Middle School). According to Goodreads.com, I’m way behind on my annual goal of 30 books. I’ve only read 17. So we’ll see.

Happy reading!

Books 6 and 7 of the #20booksofsummerchallenge and a birthday book haul

~ erinhenkels ~ 1 Comment

Book number 6 ended up being something that wasn’t on my original list and the next few after #7 are going to the be the same since I got a stack of books for my birthday.

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#6 Eating Animals by Jonathan Foer

I saw this book on our shelf at home, left behind from our renters. I just picked it up and started and it was a quick-read to the end. I’m not sure why I felt compelled to read this. I’m already a vegetarian. I already know how horrific factory farming and animal-for-consumption-slaughter is. I’ve avoided fish even longer, realizing the damage we are doing to the ocean is a travesty. So, I’m not on the fence in need of further convincing. But what this book did give me is more data and reasoning behind my arguments. Not that I go around proselytizing. Quite the opposite–people attack me when they learn I’m vegetarian and I often find myself on the defensive these days. Because as soon as someone asks me “why?” then with my answers they automatically assume I must be judging them. I try to avoid these conversations because these decisions are moral and ethically motivated, so I don’t know how to respond without people feeling like I’m the one doing the attacking. But Foer makes a good point in that it’s not enough that I don’t eat meat. I should lean into these conversations and I think this book has given me some good ways to do that.

#7 Hag-Seed by Margaret Atwood

At first I was a bit skeptical about this book. It’s a re-telling of The Tempest and at first I thought that the main character directing The Tempest was just a little too much–too beating me over the head with it. BUT, I came to adore this story even long before the brilliantly clever ending. As the narrative points out, The Tempest itself is like a play within a play. And so this re-telling makes it a *Tempest* within a *Tempest* within a *Tempest*, as the themes and narrative are played out at multiple levels. At the same time, the theme of imprisonment in the actual play is re-told in an actual prison and so the level of further understanding one gains from the original play becomes so much more rich.

I loved the characters in this novel and the wry tone. I adored it that the prisoners were only allowed to use Shakespearean insults as their curse words. Insults ends up being one of my favorite lessons with students and so these parts were particularly entertaining. I loved Felix, the main character, and the magic he wove both with his drama program and with his revenge in making his enemies live The Tempest. This was so clever. I cannot wait to read this book again with students. As someone who loves Shakespeare, this re-telling was so special to me.

A little haul:

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For my 40th birthday, I had margaritas and then spent a good hour or so in the Boulder Bookstore. I also ordered a couple of books I had an eye on. So, my next current reads are Running Home by Katie Arnold and Training for the Uphill Athlete. 

It’s looking like maybe with my goal of 10 I was being a little too easy on myself this summer. Perhaps I can do more? I have well over a month to go….

Books #4 and #5 of the #20booksofsummerchallenge

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4. The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde

I really enjoyed this play and I’m excited to teach it next year. I love commentary on Victorian society and thought this play was hilarious and witty. There are so many zingers and excellent one-liners. I think it will be very fun to have students read parts aloud in their most affected Judy Dench accent.

5. The Fault in our Stars by John Green

I might be the last YA lit reader on planet Earth to have read this, but I’m glad I finally did. There are so many beautiful, poignant and honest observations about life as these terminally ill teenagers try to make sense of it all. Of course it’s sad. Yes, it’s heartbreaking. But it is truly beautiful and stands out in ways that other simply sad books can’t touch. I’m a better person for having read it and what it’s given me. IMG_5450

Book Review: Sula by Toni Morrison (#3 of the #20booksofsummerchallenge)

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It was so nice to revisit Toni Morrison. It has been a lot of years since I read one of her novels. I really liked the scope of this novel about a poor black community in an Ohio town, mostly during a 20 year span from 1920 to 1941 and with a check in in 1965. I’ve not taught a Morrison before, but I think this one would be excellent for the advanced literature classroom of upper school grades.

I loved how the character Shadrack’s mental illness and PTSD framed the story and led to town tragedy, and I appreciated the realness of the bickering, jealousy and dogma of the community. I found it true to human nature. I loved the touches of magical realism, too, like the robins that accompany Sula’s return and the deweys.

But of course, I loved Sula the most. She is a woman who doesn’t understand or own shame and refuses to apologize for being a woman and human. What the community took as “evil” people would now call “woke.” The relationship between Nel and Sula is so complex and beautifully imagined–two halves of the same person. Morally, neither better or worse than the other. I really appreciate how Morrison structured this look-in-mirror for one woman who always assumed herself to be “better.”

What I’m still grappling with and sorting through is the parade. The jazz funeral (or at least that’s how I see it) and what compelled people to join it and their real feelings about Sula. I also wondered for some time why narrative was spent on Nel’s childhood journey to New Orleans, but now I think it’s because of Shadrack’s parade, as well as revealing the depth of character of Nel and her mother, Helene Wright. And the passage about Nel’s grandmother is so fraught with symbolism and foreshadowing about both Sula and the tragedy at the tunnel, it makes a re-read of the novel necessary.

In conclusion, Toni Morrison knocks my socks off.

20 Books of Summer begins with 2 of 10 (#1 and #2 in the #20booksofsummerchallenge)

~ erinhenkels ~ 1 Comment

And they are both dramas!

 A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry 

We are still in school here in Germany–even though grades and reports are submitted. So, we plow ahead with classes the last weeks of June. This month I read A Raisin in the Sun with my 9th grade IGCSE class. We had time to read and analyze, but not write anything on it. So that’s the plan for when we re-convene in August (IGCSE is a two year program, so I will continue with this group through 10th grade). I love this play. It’s a re-read for me as I both studied it as a high school student and have taught in the past. So, I’ve read it a lot. When I made my challenge list, I forgot that I was also in the middle of teaching. But, I’ve read it in June, so it counts!

The Tempest by William Shakespeare

I quite enjoyed this play, finding it very unlike most comedies I’m familiar with–all the magic and confusion and envisioning the storm at sea and this enchanted island…I mean, I guess there’s elements of Midsummer Night’s Dream and of Twelfth Night. But this was so different in the characters. I found the master-servant relationship theme interesting and multi-layered and also felt like this play, more than any other, dealt quite a lot with forgiveness and righting wrongs. And of course, Miranda says, “How beauteous mankind is. O, brave new world, that has such people in it!”–and being the teacher nerd I am, I also love teaching Brave New World. So there we have it. I’m glad to be able to move on to Hag-Seed now.

So I’m about two-thirds of the way through Sula at this point and am really getting into it. I imagine it will be #3. With grades complete, I think my next books will go much faster!!!

Happy summer reading!

#20Booksofsummer Challenge

~ erinhenkels ~ 8 Comments

I made a resolution this year to read more books. Get back to my true love. Stop looking at the phone screen so much and instead use that time to enrich my mind once again. So I set a tentative Reading Goal on Goodreads.com for a whole 20 books read in 2019. So far this year, I’ve read 6. A goal of 20 for the year and having read only 6 in the last 5 months seems a bit weak. But we’re just gaining momentum!

So, yes, I am going to join the 20 Books of Summer Challenge hosted by Cathy at 746books.com.

BUT, I’m going to make my goal more like 10 of the 20. Because I should be able to read 10 books. Because I am also reviewing books I read here to help my memory, I think trying to read AND review 20 in 3 months (June 3-September 3) would put me over the edge. But 10 should be a difficult challenge that I can still strive to meet.

So, here’s the books I want to read for the #20booksofsummer.

The Tempest by William Shakespeare
Don’t ask me how I’ve not read this yet. I don’t know. There are so many plays and so
little time. I have read and studied and taught tons of Shakespeare, but this one has slipped by unread. Until now. I have to read this one first as we plan to teach Hag Seed by Margaret Atwood, which is a reimagining of The Tempest. So, I need the original story first.

Hag Seed by Margaret Atwood
We have chosen to include this one for the “Intertextuality” core section for Lang and Lit A. Atwood is on the PRL but we want to showcase her work beyond Handmaid’s Tale, which is the only Atwood I’ve previously read.

The Importance of Being Earnest by Oscar Wilde
This will be our drama text type as well as our selection from the 19th century. Again, don’t ask how I’ve never read Wilde. I think we often expect a bit much from English teachers and their reading backgrounds. Keep in mind everyone, my English degree is in creative writing and I have A LOT of hobbies.

Sula by Toni Morrison
This is one my colleague has taught many times for Lang and Lit A. We’re not likely to use it for next years grade 11, but we might change our minds. And it’s a shorty. I’ve read and loved Song of Solomon, The Bluest Eye, and Beloved. I’m sure this one will also knock my socks off. It is on my currently reading shelf, but I’ve not yet started it, so it counts!

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
We will begin in the fall with this one. I remember loving it as a high school student but it’s been since then that I read it, so we’re due for a careful re-read before I attempt to teach it.

No Longer at Ease by Chinua Achebe
Because he did, in fact, write other things and I would like to be well-informed of his style.

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
It’s on my currently reading shelf but I’ve only read the first chapter and then paused so it’s fair game for inclusion here. I use this as a book club book for 8th grade English but sadly have not yet read it myself.

The Happy Runner by David and Megan Roche
Again, on my currently reading shelf but I’ve barely read even the introduction so it counts! I love the coaches Roche and their philosophy on running and life so I’ve been excited to read this particular Christmas present.

The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller
This is a book my best friend gave me this past Christmas as I began to make peace with some things in my past that have been affecting my physical health and negatively impacting my way of being for the last 23 years. It too is on my current reads shelf but I’ve only just read the very beginning, so for the challenge I will restart at the beginning and read it straight through.

The Glass Castle by Jeanette Wells
This has been on my want-to-read shelf for a decade. And then I participated in an international book exchange this past winter and a Dutch man living in Turkey sent me a paper copy of this. So this is the year!

So that’s my ABSOLUTE 10. My musts.

The next 10 on my shelf or in my Kindle that I’d like to have happen ASAP:

  1.  Caramello by Sandra Cisneros
  2. The Storyteller by Jodi Picoult
  3. Portrait in Sepia by Isabelle Allende
  4. Four Letters of Love by Niall Williams
  5. Calypso by David Sedaris
  6. The Neverending Story by Michael Ende
  7. Shakespeare: the world as stage by Bill Bryson
  8. The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams
  9. Empress Orchid by Anchee Min
  10. Drunk Tank Pink by Adam Alter

But I will not be beholden to the second 10. If I start something else, okay. If I get to our house this summer and find something sitting there I’ve been meaning to read, then great. The point, simply, is to read.

It all kicks off Monday, June 3rd! (I have 2 days to complete Sedaris’ diaries!!!)