Posts in "Books"

Finished reading: Her Night with the Duke by Diana Quincy 📚

There’s so much to love here. Leela is an amazing heroine fighting to build a writing career in a society that tries to block her at every turn. Her interactions with her Arab family made me curious about my own Levantine relatives, who came to the US in 1902.

🔖📚💬 Read Why “Book-Shaming” Won’t Solve the Children’s Literacy Crisis by Jessica Winter (The New Yorker).

It’s impossible to quantify all that is lost when schools lose librarians. But one place where their guidance and expertise can be pivotal relates to the phenomenon often called the “fourth-grade slump” or “decline by nine,” which refers to the steep drop-off in both reading interest and reading frequency that many children, especially boys, exhibit around age nine. Avoiding this cliff is more likely with the help of a librarian who understands her students’ likes and dislikes, who respects their autonomy and individuality, and who can use this knowledge to guide kids toward the texts they will love, regardless of whether or not they meet a subjective threshold of literary excellence.

💬📚 “The examples of alba amicorum, zibaldoni, Stammbücher and today’s bullet journals show that sometimes we just start writing in notebooks because it’s something the neighbors do.” Roland Allen, The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper

📚💬 “Ancient history… shines a troubling spotlight onto the here and now, too, asking us to face what the judgement of the future on us will be.” Mary Beard, Talking Classics: The Shock of the Old

Now that I’ve finished listening to Stephen Fry’s audiobook of Sherlock Holmes: The Definitive Collection, I’m dreaming of an adaptation of His Last Bow starring Brent Spiner and LeVar Burton. 📚🍿🖖🏻