The Sun Also Rises was good. Loved the final lines. The passage of Jake in the church and the stream of consciousness prayer he delivers is probably my favorite part. That and the fishing trip he and Bill take
New Jeselnik book is Mother Night by Vonnegut. I’ve only read Slaughterhouse Five by him, and that was about 20 years ago
Finished book 3 of Reinaldo Arenas’ Pentagonia series which covers “the secret history of Cuba,” titled Farewell to the Sea. He wrote it while unjustly imprisoned for his homosexuality. The first manuscript was destroyed—he rewrote it and it was confiscated, and he rewrote it a third time, smuggled it out before his release, and published it years later. I could speak endlessly about this author and his work, but I’ll just say if you are not a timid reader and want to engage more with Latin American literature, reading Arenas is a must. They are not at all easy reads but truly mind-expanding, soulful, and dripping in pain and wisdom. I’m so glad to have discovered his work. Taking a brief break with some Anais Nin to cleanse the palette before continuing on with the series.
Friends, for the time being, I’m making all my books pay-what-you-want and donating 100% of the funds received to humanitarian aid for Iran and Lebanon. I’ll also match the amount spent with my own donations. Accepting payments through Venmo or PayPal. I’ll mail you the books myself. I know it’s not much, and organizing has more of an impact, but I want to do whatever I can. To learn more about each book, feel free to read their descriptions on GoodReads: Palm Lines Below Torrential Hill Mystic Orchards Spark Bird Some more context… The artwork for Mystic Orchards is by Iranian-American artist Hedieh Javanshir Ilchi, whose parents and extended family are currently stuck in Tehran. I always viewed our collaboration (myself being a Jewish person and the son of an immigrant) in the spirit of rejecting empire, oppression, and disposing all nationalist myths that breed hatred and division. A few of the poems themselves are about this same feeling. If you are interested, please message me. If you have a preference for which specific org to donate your money to, let me know.
I have been financially irresponsible this month but I will commit to getting Mystic Orchards on my next pay day
Hell yeah, man. Thank you. Just remember to message me instead of purchasing on the site. I’ll be mailing it myself
Might make the jump to 12th grade next year after a decade of teaching 10th. What books did you read junior/senior year of high school? I'm starting to curriculum plan in my head.
I was in the IB program and we mainly did plays in 12th grade. Hamlet, A Streetcar Named Desire, Long Days Journey into Night, Death of a Salesman, Arcadia, a few others I'm not remembering. trying to remember 11th grade... I think we did Kingsolver's Poisonwood Bible, JCO's Black Water, Camus' The Stranger, Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God I may be mixing up certain years
I'm considering Hamlet and Death of a Salesman. I feel like we did Catcher and The Bell Jar too. This dumbass block schedule really only makes time for a short story unit, a play/shorter novella, and a novel.
Actually I forgot I didn't have a traditional 12th grade class, I had English electives. 11th grade was AP and that was Beowulf, Grendel, Chaucer and then I guess Catcher/Bell Jar.
oh right we did Beowulf too. hated it. would choose Hamlet over that any day Catcher and Bell Jar feel 9-10th grade level to me, but I may be wrong
They definitely are, but the reading level has also dropped like 10 grades since we were in hs lol EDIT: Actually maybe Catcher and BJ were 10th grade. I don't remember what ended the AP course then.
Reading Chaucer in school was kind of a revelation, it was probably partly the translation but it felt ridiculously modern in its snarkiness etc
I'd like a little Hamlet/Death of a Salesman action but that may be overdoing the drama. I definitely want to do Shakespeare since they only get Romeo and Juliet at the end of Freshman year.
11th grade I remember doing Beowulf, Chaucer, and a lot other older English stuff. Hamlet was that year, I think? We also had a choice between 1984 and Brave New World at one point. 12th grade was AP English (we didn't separate AP Lit and AP Lang) and we did Their Eyes Were Watching God, Othello, and a lot of short stories (that was my introduction to Gabriel Garcia Marquez). Also got to pick from a few novel options for one unit and I picked The Shipping News by Annie Proulx, which I still consider an all-time favorite. Since I was on the advanced/AP track, I didn't take the class that read a bunch of novels (sounds weird but that's how our school structured it) but I remember my friends reading Catcher In the Rye, Slaughterhouse Five, Fahrenheit 451 and stuff like that. Pretty sure that was 11th grade but might have been 10th.
Yeah it's weird how the AP courses are structured, I'm not sure if our AP Lang kids (which I might take over as well) read novels. I think that's fine if they have a really strong backbone throughout 9-11th grade, which we don't haha.
I currently teach 10th and 12th! In 12th we read Jekyll & Hyde, The God of Small Things, Brave New World (finishing it Monday), and ending the year with Hamlet. My co-teacher and I have also done Their Eyes Were Watching God in the past. When I've done AP Lit for 12th, I also taught Beloved.
I went to the last couple of years of high school in Germany so English was like an elective, but I did advanced English or whatever one would call it and I definitely know we read Romeo & Juliet and Brave New World in 11th and 12th grade. There must have been more (or maybe we read stories instead of more novels?) but I forgot.
I read The Buffalo Hunter Hunter in January and loved it and now my wife just started it. I was about 1/3 into it when I saw this on Reddit and it became very useful with the vernacular used throughout. Shared it with her so I figured I’d share here too: Reader’s Guide to THE BUFFALO HUNTER HUNTER by Stephen Graham Jones
About 100 pages into Meet Me In The Bathroom and these people are insufferable. I can enjoy any behind the scenes music book like this though, so I am loving that aspect of it.