books & more
It's one of my favorite times of the year to browse around the bookstore, so I wanted to share the books I've read this year to give you some ideas on what to buy...and what not to buy...for yourself or the people on your list. Good, bad, and in-between, here's my 2025 reading list. I've [...]
Over the past year or so I've had the real pleasure of discovering and discussing new books with a group of friends in a new book club. We meet once a month at someone's house, and the host cooks a main course. We keep it simple -- soup, chicken, pasta. The rest of us bring [...]
You may be wondering why I'm spending time writing about books that hit the shelves of bookstores years ago. Well, two things have happened. I've joined a book club, which I've already told you about. And I've made a promise to myself that I'm absolutely sure I will break, and that is to read the [...]
Our book club read Claire Keegan's Foster this month, and it's the type of book that continues to settle in you over the days and weeks after you finish it. The cover is riddled with blurbs like, "A small miracle," or "A thing of finely honed beauty," or even, "As good as Chekhov." In my [...]
This post contains affiliate links. For about a year, Satoshi Yagisawa's Days at the Morisake Bookshop (trans. Eric Ozawa) sat on my Amazon wishlist, just waiting to be purchased. It was an impulse add, thanks to its charming cover design. Great work, Ilya Milstein and Milan Bozic! It captures perfectly the cozy, book-loving atmosphere the [...]
This is a free The Bridge of San Luis Rey study guide, designed to be used over four weeks in a homeschool co-op or tutorial. I first read Thornton Wilder's The Bridge of San Luis Rey in high school, and his beautiful, heady, aphoristic writing has stayed with me ever since. It is the story [...]
If our country had a required reading novel for high school students, it would be To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. People have been trying to ban the book since it was published in 1960, and it does contain racial slurs that make it problematic to read with children today. However, it is an [...]
This year we are taking on Modern Literature at our high school co-op English class, and it's been the most fun list for me to put together so far. There are so many books that students will thoroughly enjoy in this category (no offense, Victorian Lit). In fact, my co-teacher and I couldn't narrow it [...]
I'll be teaching several English literature courses next year, and I'm very excited about the books in my 10th grade World Lit class. These aren't all heavy-hitters, but I think they're all books that will challenge or inspire the kids in some way. Our school year follows a calendar of four 8-week quarters. Here's what [...]
We're frustrated and angry about Tennessee's decision to ban critical race theory from its schools, but here is a diverse US History curriculum for homeschool you can use to supplement your child's US History education.
Spilled Milk 