60 Books

Hello, hello!

This promises to be a short post. For one, I think I've gotten out all my current anatomy & physiology textbook woes for now. I've forded through the multitudinous chapters on body systems, and am now finally sailing through reproductive organs. So the irritation has mostly folded to teenagey innuendo. So far, so good. :)

I just wanted to have a quick post announcing the end of my literary year (August 10-August 11). It corresponds nicely with the end of many fiscal years, but really marks a complete calendar year since I began my second year teaching. For the past year, then, I've kept close track of what I've read - first to model for my students, but increasingly for my own curiosity. 

(This was also a rudimentary self-review for my statistics course in the fall)

The verdict: 60 books.

The breakdown?
YALs = 18%
Nonfic = 10% (but overrepresented in my top books)
Books by women = 62%
Books by People Of Color = 27% 
Books with 450+ pages = roughly 25% 
Re-reads = 12%

Annnnnnd, the superlatives:
Funniest? Lucky You by Carl Hiaasen
Cried the Most? . . . all of them? Perhaps A Prayer For Owen Meany (Irving) or The Carhullan Army (Hall)?
Couldn't Put Down? Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

And then my favorites! (categorized by having at least a 9 of 10 and by NOT being a re-read, and ordered chronologically in my year):
A Prayer For Owen Meany by John Irving
Woman: An Intimate Geography by Natalie Angiers
Bee Season by Maya Goldberg
Birds of a Lesser Paradise by Meghan Mayhew Bergman
Cry, The Beloved Country by Alan Paton
Empress of the World by Sara Ryan
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter by Carson McCullers
The Round House by Louise Erdrich
A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry
Best American Short Stories 2012 ed. by Tom Perrotta
A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams
Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn
Pushed by Jennifer Block
We Band of Angels by Elizabeth Norman
Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank
The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan 

I'm currently and happily devouring Karen Russell's Swamplandia! Tomorrow will be a day of lesser reading, though, I predict: IT'S MY FIRST DAY OF SUBBING.
Though I've been perennially bad at updating regularly, I will do my best to share reflections after I try a host of different classrooms. For tomorrow? SPED paraprofessional at a magnet school. Well, well.
Wish me luck?

Over and out ~