Reading

Although I describe myself as a reader, I'm not nearly as prolific as most people I know. I sympathize with my students who describe themselves as "slow readers" because I think that describes me too!

During the school year, I find it difficult to read books other than the ones that I'm reading with my students--I always read whatever they've been assigned, even if I've read it many times before, because I always discover something new and because I want the content to be fresh in my mind. I'm not one of those people who can be in the middle of more than one book at a time.

I prefer nonfiction to novels, and lately I've been enjoying memoirs quite a bit. I think I'd like novels more if I knew which ones to pick.

Being able to read on my phone so that I always have my book with me has been a game changer. I also recently came to peace with the fact that if I'm not enjoying a book, I'm under no obligation to finish it--that philosophy has been very liberating!

Check out my Goodreads profile for my most recent reading activity: goodreads.com/msmoseley (Goodreads is a social network, but for reading!)

Bookshelf: My Most Recent Reads (with a few highlights)

I'm so glad I read this book right after reading the president's book because they describe some of the same events from their different perspectives, which was fascinating!

This was a longer read than most of my books, but worth it. Obama is a great writer, and it was interesting to read the "behind the scenes" version of so many events that we saw unfold in the public eye during his presidency.

I read this in two days, and, like everyone, I cried. Reading Morrie's advice on life is a good reminder any time.

I picked up The Glass Castle because heard that our juniors read it, and teachers in an online group I follow loved teaching it. All I knew was that it was a memoir. But holy moly--Walls' story about her family and their experiences as she was growing up was so different from anything I've ever experienced that I felt transported. Really loved it.

I learned SO much from reading The Education of an Idealist! Samantha Power was a journalist before she worked in the Obama Administration, and he stories of the war in Bosnia were heartbreaking. I also learned a lot about diplomacy--how the people in charge get things done, and what holds them back.

The Testaments is the long-awaited follow-up to one of my favorite novels, The Handmaid's Tale. Although it wasn't as great, I still really liked it.

After The Radium Girls--which was great--I wanted to read more about topics involving radiation. I watched the HBO Chernobyl series in 2019, which I really enjoyed, so this book gave me a much more detailed picture of what happened and why it happened that way. (Radiation: Yikes!)

This Republic of Suffering is about how the Civil War changed the way we approach our war dead. It was a fascinating look at death rituals, health, and history!

I started The Things They Carried on a camping trip with my partner and was so struck by the first page that I went back to the beginning and started reading it out loud. I read the whole first chapter out loud and then thought, "That's the most perfect first chapter of a book I've ever read in my life." While ostensibly fiction, the stories come across as viscerally real and true and make me thankful that I've never known war.

Just Mercy is an excellent introduction to the inequities in our justice system. It will make you angry--and it should--but it will also make you want to change the system--which we should.

I'm a bit of a space nerd, and I loved this easy to read account of Apollo 8, the first manned trip to the moon (no landing). Apollo 11 gets the fame, but Apollo 8 was just as high stakes, if not more. Great read.

Somehow I had never read The Call of the Wild until 2020. It's short and beautifully written. As a dog lover, some of the violence was difficult for me, but the story was simple yet profound.

Michael Collins went to the moon on Apollo 11 but didn't land; he was orbiting in the command module. This memoir of his career as a pilot and astronaut interested me because of my dad's own career as a test pilot and because of Collins' perspective on his historic mission. He wrote it himself--no ghost writer--and I was super impressed with his clear voice and sense of humor.

I like The Hunger Games more now that I'm teaching it; it's better than I thought it was when I first read it for fun after the movie came out. We use it in the Survival unit for freshmen, and thinking about the moral questions about accountability that the Tributes face makes it more interesting.

Going down the Wikipedia rabbit hole...

One of my nerdy pastimes is reading Wikipedia articles. Although Wikipedia isn't perfect because of the potential for vandalism, it's a fantastic resource for learning about new things relatively quickly. The lists of references, footnotes, further reading, and external links for each article are also great for delving deeper into the topic.

Feeling nerdy? Try reading some of these articles that I've found interesting...

The Lake Nyos Disaster is what happens when a lake "explodes." The lake was supersaturated with dissolved CO2, and suddenly all of that gas erupted from that lake--the gas cloud asphyxiated over 1700 people and 3500 livestock.

Year Without a Summer: Find out what happened in 1816 when a volcanic eruption disrupted the global climate (hint: it was bad).

Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo: It's a real sentence.

Trepanning: "...like I need a hole in my head" takes on a whole new meaning with trepanning, which is the practice of literally drilling a hole in your head.

Great Molasses Flood: In 1919 a flood of molasses in Boston killed 21 people. Yes, really.

Phineas Gage: In 1848 Mr. Gage was working on a railroad when an iron rod blasted through his skull and brain. He not only survived but lived a relatively normal life.

Nellie Bly: Every now and then you just need to read about a kickass woman.

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