I am an omnivorous reader.
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Winner of the Pulitzer Prize, and now a documentary from Ken Burns on PBS, The …
Surprisingly riveting read. Got me thinking about science related to literacy, thoughts here:
https://languageliteracy.blog/2021/09/25/the-science-of-reading-and-cancer/
On the world called Hyperion, beyond the reach of galactic law, waits a creature called …
Fun! Recommend the whole series as a page turning exercise in avoiding reality
Tracker is known far and wide for his skills as a hunter: "He has a …
I honestly don't know what to think about this book. At first, I found it confusing. Then a while in I got into its groove and enjoyed it. Then found it a confusing again. The language can be hard to follow sometimes, which can be disjointing given that it seems to want to sort of be an adventure/action type thing and does at times flow in such a way, but then it constantly morphs and plays in other more complicated ways. Definitely worth reading and grappling with but I'm not sure it lived up to the critical praise for me. But maybe I missed something and need to reread it to really get it? Not sure.
There's gems in here worth unpacking -- Dr. Tatum pushes hard against delimiting anti-intellectual perspectives of black boys and argues for intellectually stimulating, relevant, and content-rich text mediation. Can't wait to read his newest book on advanced literacies -- Tatum puts a stake in the ground and manages to balance both a focus on intensive scaffolding and supports while at the same time advancing intellect and knowledge.
An oldie but goodie. Lays out the basics of phonics without becoming two granular or overwhelming.
On a remote, icy planet, the soldier known as Breq is drawing closer to completing …
The key twist in this fun sci-fi novel is that the narrator is a single AI operating as a person, but also simultaneously a ship and ancillary parts. This allows the author to give us a god-like perspective while also keeping the narrator just relatable enough to empathize with. It's a great way to play with perspective and it's well-played throughout the novel. Recommended.
Read this book. One of the most whipsmart and nuanced reads on education in a long while. Read my full review on my blog for all the details.
An audacious, darkly glittering novel set in the eerie days following civilization’s collapse, Station Eleven …
Enjoyable thought experiment on what the world might be like after a colossal epidemic. Unfortunately, my reading was a bit disjointed, due to no fault of the author, because my copy had 20 pages ripped out of it at the very end. I had to wait for a library copy to continue. So my review is not coherent and a result... But I can say it is beautifully written and if you need a captivating sci-fi read, you'll enjoy this book.
A psychology professor specializing in the cognitive and neurological bases of language and reading discusses …
I heard Seidenberg speak at a ResearchEd conference in Brooklyn a while back, and I found what he had to say really interesting, but he was a bit kooky and used terms I'd never heard before like "statistical learning," so I wasn't sure what to think, as he seemed to stand outside of the mainstream of education speak. My interest was piqued however, as I happen to also follow the Language Log blog, which he is a contributor to, and in reviewing my notes of his talk, his points continued to jump out at me.
So I finally got around to reading his book when I had a coupon on Google Books, and I figured, what the heck. I don't have any time to read much but I should probably see what it's about.
And man, am I glad I chipped away at this on bus and train rides over …
I heard Seidenberg speak at a ResearchEd conference in Brooklyn a while back, and I found what he had to say really interesting, but he was a bit kooky and used terms I'd never heard before like "statistical learning," so I wasn't sure what to think, as he seemed to stand outside of the mainstream of education speak. My interest was piqued however, as I happen to also follow the Language Log blog, which he is a contributor to, and in reviewing my notes of his talk, his points continued to jump out at me.
So I finally got around to reading his book when I had a coupon on Google Books, and I figured, what the heck. I don't have any time to read much but I should probably see what it's about.
And man, am I glad I chipped away at this on bus and train rides over the last 2 weeks. The reason he stands outside of the mainstream, it turns out, is because public education is nearly completely disassociated from research, a point he raises vituperatively in his book. This book should be read by anyone involved in education, whether policymaker, administrator, teacher, or parent.
I've been a teacher of special education for 7 years and an administrator for 3, and I am embarrassed to say that Seidenberg lays out facts about reading I had nary a clue about. And he lays it out trenchantly, wittily, and, at times, impassionately, because he sees clearly what a crime it is that the majority of educators similarly have not a clue.
This was also a timely read -- a hard hitting audio documentary that makes Seidenberg's points just came out as I got to his passages about the disconnect between the classroom and what researchers know about reading: www.apmreports.org/story/2018/09/10/hard-words-why-american-kids-arent-being-taught-to-read
Read this book. You will come away better informed, and better equipped to battle the ignorance that has failed generations of kids.
A Wizard of Earthsea is a fantasy novel written by American author Ursula K. Le …
Fun and quick read. This was a perfect respite after reading way too many research papers and other weighty nonfiction.
The language can be a bit flowery and hard to follow at times, but the story sticks with you, somehow.
"We live in a world that is known, every corner thoroughly explored. But has this …
Took me 3 renewals to finally get through this book. It's definitely interesting, but I had a hard time sustaining interest -- yet I felt obligated to mush onward since there was just enough moments of discovery to make it worth it. The best part of this book are Henderson's abundance of allusions. I started a Spotify playlist from all the classical songs he references, for example.
Yet the allusions are also coupled with what ultimately becomes a really distracting feature - the sidebar quotations on each page. Rather than relegate all the references to a footnote or endnote, Henderson's publisher elected to format down the width of the text and gift a full third of the side of each page to the notes. I found this formatting made the text really hard to read and much more difficult to access than it should have been. If I wanted all …
Took me 3 renewals to finally get through this book. It's definitely interesting, but I had a hard time sustaining interest -- yet I felt obligated to mush onward since there was just enough moments of discovery to make it worth it. The best part of this book are Henderson's abundance of allusions. I started a Spotify playlist from all the classical songs he references, for example.
Yet the allusions are also coupled with what ultimately becomes a really distracting feature - the sidebar quotations on each page. Rather than relegate all the references to a footnote or endnote, Henderson's publisher elected to format down the width of the text and gift a full third of the side of each page to the notes. I found this formatting made the text really hard to read and much more difficult to access than it should have been. If I wanted all of the text squeezed into a tight space, I would be reading more on an e-reader.
I would recommend this as a nightstand or toilet-side book -- fun to dip into for short bouts, but hardly a page turned on its own.
In a ruined, nameless city of the future, a woman named Rachel, who makes her …
This is a book about a ruined city ruled by a giant flying biotech bear named Mord. That description beggars the question of why you should bother reading it. But the author pulls it off, with gusto. This is compelling and fun dystopian fiction, filled with wonderful turns of phrases and moments that give you somber pause. This is what teens should be reading instead of the drab Hunger Games series.
A Christmas Carol. In Prose. Being a Ghost Story of Christmas, commonly known as A …
First Dickens I actually completed! I must say, it is an enjoyable tale, and his archaic and verbose descriptions are a real pleasure (well, the majority of them, at any rate; there were a couple that were a bit strange -- more on that here).
Perhaps I will re-tackle one of his magnum opuses again one of these days.
"A young Swedish boy finds himself in penniless and alone in California. He travels East …
This is an immersive, innovative, compelling story. There's elements of Cormac McCarthy's mythic plains here, but not quite so nightmarish. More just flat and bleak.
The protagonist spends the majority of the story keeping himself as far as possible from civilization, but when he inevitably ends up back in touch with a human being, he ends up re-encountering a magnified version of his brutal self, whereupon he flings himself back into the void of the wilderness again.
This book is for any seeker of an identity that no longer exists.
