Classics Club Spin is back! Sign up by Friday, Nov. 17th to join in.

It is Classics Club Spin #16. Time to read another classic book!

For details on how to join in a #CCSpin, click on the link here.
The main thing you need to know though, is to compile your list of 20 books by this Friday, November 17th.

On that day a number will be randomly selected.
That's the book you read.

You have until the 31st of December to finish your book and review it (or just read it and enjoy it!)

Join in the fun by visiting the other players and commenting on their lists.

Here is my list. Feel free to read along with me or create your own list.  This time I am selecting books I own, books I have had on my shelves for years (some since junior high school), and I am excited to have a good excuse to finally read one of these classics:

1. Dracula
2. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes
3. Silas Marner
4. My Brilliant Career
5. Jane Eyre
6. Anne of Avonlee
7. Anna Karenina
8. David Copperfeld
9. Go Tell It On the Mountain
10. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
11. Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs
12. The Picture of Dorian Gray
13.  Classic American Short Stories
14.  The Autobiography of an X-Colored Man
15.  Suite Francais
16.  Murder on the Orient Express
17.  Tess of the D'Urbervilles
18.  Robinson Crusoe
19.  The Jungle Book
20.  Grapes of Wrath 

Nonfiction November, Week Three: Be an Expert

Nonfiction November, Week 3: (Nov. 13 to 17) — Kim @ Sophisticated Dorkiness — Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert: Three ways to join in this week! You can either share three or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

Be the expert: Years ago in an effort to create an assignment for a high school psychology class, I did a lot of reading on mental illness and abnormal psych. Here are a few of my favorite titles that I thought were especially helpful for teen readers as they were exploring mental illness/abnormal psych topics in their classes:

Schizophrenia:

• The Day the Voices Stopped by Ken Steele, (2002)--- For thirty-two years Steele fought the voices in his head which commanded him to kill himself. None of the drugs he tried helped him until finally a doctor was able to find a combination which turned off the voices. Steele then goes on to live a life of advocacy for those haunted by mental illnesses. This book really turned my thinking around about the horrors of untreated mental illness.

Bi-Polar Disorder:

• An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by Kay Redfield Jamison (1997)---Jamison is a psychologist who also lives with manic-depression (her preferred term for the disorder.) She is very insightful in her descriptions of what it is like to give up the manic periods in order to avoid the depressive ones. Now twenty years old, I am sure there are updated books on this topic that would provide more information on current treatments.
• All the Things We Never Knew: Chasing the Chaos of Mental Illness by Sheila Hamilton (2015)---Hamilton's husband killed himself six months after his diagnosis with bi-polar disorder. This book takes a look at mental illness through the eyes of a loved one.

Munchausen-by-proxy Syndrome:

• Sickened: A True Story of a Lost Childhood by Julie Gregory (2004)---Gregory's mother subjected her to years and years of medical exams, surgeries, treatments not because Julie was sick but because the mother was mentally ill. Munchausen syndrome is considered to be a rare, often deadly, form of child abuse.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: 

• Passing for Normal: a Memoir of Compulsion by Amy Wilensky (2000): Wilensky not only gives insight of what it is like to live with OCD but also Tourette's Syndrome. I found this book very helpful in my thinking about both these conditions.
• Turtles All the Way Down by John Green (2017) and The Unlikely Hero of Room 13-B by Teresa Toten (2015) are two fiction books which are very good about what it is like to live with OCD and how the treatments don't always work.

Ask an expert: as you see, many of these titles are getting dated. Can you suggest any books on mental illness, appropriate for teen readers published in the last five years or so?

The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found

I am having so much fun a a Cybils Award, Round 1 judge. I have read over twenty books so far in this capacity and have learned so much along the way.

This book, The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found by Martin Sandler is one that provided me with tons of new knowledge. This book, aimed at young teens, is enlightening on many levels.

During the years of 1650 to 1730 piracy was a big problem on the seas. Everything of any weight or volume had to be transported by water which included gold and gems. It didn't take long before unscrupulous men realized that there was a treasure to be got with fairly easy pickings.  We think of pirates taking their treasures and burying them on some island in the Caribbean, thanks to books and movies we read/watched in childhood. And because of these we also have an idealized idea about pirates as handsome and daring or as a drunk with a parrot. This book about the Whydah sets the record straight.

The Whydah was a slaving ship which would travel on the Trading Triangle (West Africa, Caribbean, England) in the early 1700s. After it had disgorged its despicable cargo of human beings in the Caribbean, and was loaded with money and goods it was commandeered by Black Sam Bellamy. Bellamy was the greediest pirate who ever sailed the open seas. He not only took treasures but encouraged crew members from the ships he commandeered to join him and would often take the ships themselves, always looking for bigger, faster vessels.

In 1717 loaded down with treasure the Whydah and the other ships in its flotilla were heading up the Eastern Seaboard toward Maine when they got caught in a Nor'Easter off Cape Cod. The Whydah sunk and Bellamy drowned. For almost three hundred years people have been looking for the wreck, knowing it was laden with treasures. Then in 1984 some marine archaeologists found it and have been bringing up items from the Whydah ever since then...enough to fill a whole museum. Along with the items they have been discovering aspects of piracy unknown to historians until now. It is fascinating what they have discovered from the wreckage.

This book is a treasure in its self. It is perfect for the young teen boy or girl who likes to read about real life adventures or who is obsessed with pirates. But it is also fascinating for anyone, adults included, who likes to read to find out new information about topics which they thought they already knew plenty.

Since I read The Whydah as part of my quest to discover an award book, I should spend a minute talking about the author. Martin Sandler is an award-winning author for a YA history series, he has been nominated for a Pulitzer Prize twice, and has won five Emmy awards for his writings for television. This guy can write! As I was reading The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found I turned to my husband and exclaimed, "Finally, a well-written YA nonfiction books. Just what I've been looking for."

So I guess you can tell that I like this one and highly recommend it for you and your family.  And if you live in or are traveling in Massachusetts, stop at the Whydah Pirate Museum in Cape Cod and see for yourself the treasures from the Whydah, the only pirate wreck ever found and recovered. I know I will visit it myself if I am ever in that part of the country.

Isaac Newton is one of the most important scientists that ever lived. His ability to think outside the box of the traditional thinking of his day led to what is now called the Age of Reason. His laws gave order to the universe, explained by mathematical formulas that he unlocked. Isaac's laws would one day make it possible for us to predict the path of satellites and how much rocket power it would take to get to the moon. He correctly predicted that the force of gravity would diminish as an object got further from Earth. His laws have laid the framework for the physics of today. But before Isaac Newton put his thoughts down in a remarkable book named Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, he was just a kid who enjoyed nothing more than thinking deep thoughts and recording them in big or little notebooks. A lot of his scribbling had nothing to do with science but a lot to do with alchemy.

As a boy Isaac Newton was sent to live with another family and the father of that household was an apothecary who allowed Issac to read his books and to assist with his experiments. Surprisingly, the man we think of as a father of science was actually more interested in magic in the beginning. As he grew into an introverted young man, eventually ending up at Trinity College in Cambridge, he read more and more about alchemy and he even started his own forge and conducted experiments hoping to discover the secrets which would allow him to make gold from lead and to discover the philosopher's stone. It is shocking that he lived to a ripe old age of 84 before he died since many of his experiments involved mercury, which we know today is highly poisonous.

Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal'd by Mary Losure is more about alchemy than about science. It is about Isaac Newton as he develops into the famous man who brought order to our thinking about the universe. It is about the deep thinker who wrote things down in shorthand so that years later his scribblings could be discovered for what they were---often they were not fantastic formulas but just lists of sins he wanted to get off his chest.

This book, written for young teens, is a perfect introduction to Isaac Newton. It is filled with illustrations found in old books available during Newton's lifetime (1643-1727) and it shows pages from Newton's own notebooks, though the marks' meanings are not identifiable. The paragraphs are short, as are the chapters and it is very readable. We learn about Isaac's odd education and come to understand that the way he isolated himself from others allowed him to sit and think about the universe. It was during one year when the bubonic plague caused his school, Cambridge, to close down, that Newton sat at home and pondered mathematics coming up finally with what he called fluxion, but we know today as calculus. That year, 1666, is now called the Year of Wonders, because that was when Newton discovered so many things: optics (prisms), gravitation, calculus, and motion.

John Maynard Keynes, who was a famous economist, bought some of Newton's papers in 1936 and he was surprised to learn that many of them had to do with magic, not science. He famously said that Newton was "not the first of the age of reason, but the last of the magicians." If this is true, then Losure contends that

this magician, this last sorcerer---the greatest of all alchemists---was the same man who banished magic from the scientific world. The alchemist is someone [afterall] who transforms one thing into another. And this, Isaac had done (127).

I liked this book so much. The format, the illustrations, the writing all come together to create a book which is very accessible for teen readers but holds great interest for readers of all ages. I recommend it highly.

Nonfiction November. Week Two. Book Pairings.

Week 2: (Nov. 6 to 10) — Sarah @ Sarah’s Book Shelves — Book Pairing: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story.

I love this topic. I think that it is important to teach students that they CAN learn things from reading both fiction and nonfiction. Why not offer them options to expand their knowledge? Hey, this is true for all people, not just students.  So with this in mind here are a few nonfiction/fiction pairs I think would be marvelous together.

On piracy:

• The Whydah: A Pirate Ship Feared, Wrecked, and Found by Martin Sandler. A nonfiction book published this year for young teens. The Whydah is the only pirate ship wreck that has ever been recovered.

paired with

• Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, the classic tale of piracy and treasure-seeking that gave us a lot of our ideas about pirates.

On the Great American Dust Bowl:

• The Worst Hard Time: The Untold Story of Those Who Survived the Great American Dust Bowl by Timothy Egan. Egan went to Nebraska and Oklahoma and interviewed individuals who lived through the dust bowl, now in their eighties, he wanted to capture the stories first hand.

paired with

• Midnight at the Electric by Jodi Lynn Anderson. A fiction story which takes place in three time periods: the future, the 1920s, and the 1930s in Kansas during the dust bowl. This book was just published this year, 2017.

On Khmer Rouge Victims in Cambodia:

• First They Killed My Father by Loung Ung. Loung was only five-years-old when the Khmer Rouge killed her parents and sent her to a re-education camp where she lived for their four-year reign of terror. A movie was made of her experience this year.

paired with

• In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner. A beautifully written fictional account of a young girl's experiences with the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, based on the author's own experiences. (This would be for advanced teen readers or adults.)

On the Indigenous Peoples' experience:

• Short Nights of the Shadow Catcher: The Epic Life and Immortal Photographs of Edward Curtis by Timothy Egan. Another book by Egan, a favorite author of mine. This book is about Edward Curtis, a photographer living in the early 1900s who attempted to photograph and capture aspects of the Native American cultures which he recognized was dying out.

paired with

• The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian by Sherman Alexie. A semi-autobiographical novel about the experiences of an Indian teenager who left the reservation to get a better education. In doing this he found he didn't truly belong anywhere anymore.
• Flight by Sherman Alexie---a time-traveling Indian youth discovers truths about his anger as he travels back to events from his peoples' past.

On space travel:

• Isaac the Alchemist: The Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal'd by Mary Losure. Why not read a book about the guy who was able to unlock the mysteries of motion, mathematics, gravity which allowed us to actually figure out how to launch rockets to move outside Earth's orbit? This gem was published this year.
• Mission to Pluto: The First Visit to an Ice Dwarf and the Kuiper Belt by Mary Kay Carson. Another book published this year, this one about the New Horizons spaceship which visited Pluto in 2015. Written for young teens, this is very interesting and accessible.

paired with

• The Martian by Andy Weir. Weir, a self-proclaimed science geek says everything in his popular book is possible today, with the possible exception of actually landing on Mars.  But who knows? Maybe in our lifetime?

On Human Trafficking: 

In Our Backyard: Human Trafficking in America and What We Can Do to Stop It by Nita Belles. Prostitution, Child Labor, Slavery. Believe it or not it is still happening. But we can stop it.

paired with

Dime by E.R. Frank. A fictional account of a young girl who gets lured into prostitution. It ends of a hopeful note. 

On Defying Hitler:

• We Will Not Be Silent: The White Rose Student Resistance Movement That Defied Hitler by Russell Freeman. Some very brave German students defied Hitler and paid with their lives.
• The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Petersen and the Churchill Club by Phillip Hoose. A team of brave Danish boys "messed" with the Nazi-occupiers in their country. 

paired with

• Girl With the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse. A fictional account of resistance efforts in The Netherlands.

On Black Lives Matter:

• Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson. Part of the innocence project, this book points of the inequalities in our justice system for people of color and for juveniles. Eye-opening.

paired with

• The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas. A very NOW fictional account of a black teenager who witnessed the killing of her friend who is killed by the police.

On Living With Mental Illness:

• The Day the Voices Stopped by Ken Steele. An excellent book on schizophrenia and its treatment. This book will change the way you look at mental illness.

paired with

• Turtles All the Way Down by John Green. A teen with anxiety and OCD issues tries to cope in a world which becomes ever more confusing and difficult. Published in 2017.

I could go on.
I will stop.
What are some good fiction/nonfiction pairings that you can recommend to me?

My Beatlemania...Part Three

The Fab Four after the Beatles:
The Beatles broke up in April 1970. But the music never stopped for any of the Fab Four. Even after their breakup The Beatles music has never really gone out of fashion and has remained popular. "Let it Be" and "The Long and Winding Road" made it to #1 on the charts even after the break up. (April and June 1970) And "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" was re-released in January 1975 and it made it to #1 at that time.

Paul McCartney was the 9th most popular artist of the 1970s and the 45th in the 1980s. His first #1 hit after the break up was "Uncle Albert" in Sept 1971. In June of 1973 his second #1 hit was "My Love", and his third #1 song was with "Band on the Run" in 1974. (He eventually ended up with 5 for the decade) He had three more #1 hits in the 1980s, two as collaborations with Stevie Wonder and Michael Jackson. By the 1990s "critics began to concede that his solo career was stunning in its own right. He was the ex-Beatle who went on to cover the most stylistic ground—from reggae, soul, disco, country, trance, demented techno, bagpipe campfire sing-alongs, and psychedelic swamp-rock freak-outs with his side project The Fireman to full-length symphonies and ballets." As Bob Dylan once said of Macca (Paul's nickname), “His melodies are effortless, that’s what you have to be in awe of … He’s just so damn effortless.” 

Though Paul and John's relationship was strained after the Beatles broke up, Paul would not give up on making contact with John. He would call when he was in New York. But John was often mean or demeaning: "You're all pizza and fairy tales," John spat at him. But Paul's persistence paid off and soon they were back to just hanging out. "It was lovely" said Paul simply.

John Lennon was the 18th most popular artist in the 1970s and surprisingly was the 185th most popular in the 1980s even though he died in December 1980. His first #1 hit came out in Nov. 1974 with "Whatever Gets You Through the Night". Though wildly popular with the peace movement, "Give Peace Chance" and "Imagine" did not reach the coveted #1 spot on the charts. They peaked at #14 and #3 on the US charts. His song "Starting Over" hit #1 right before his death in December of 1980. His song "Woman" hit #2 after his death in 1981.

John was clearly the most angry of The Beatles about the breakup of his beloved band and it took him years to say anything nice about the group or any of his band mates. But after Sean was born and Lennon took over the care taking role as a parent (after 1975), "John reflected back on his time in a softer light. 'When I slagged off the Beatles thing, it was like divorce pangs, and me being me, it was blast this, fuck the past,' he said. 'Why haven't I ever considered the good times instead of moaning about what we had to go through?'" (Partridge) In a rare and honest moment his life and his music can be consolidated down to this statement: "I want people to love me. I want to be loved." Just a few hours before he was murdered, John said, "The thing that the sixties did was show us the possibility and responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility." [Civil rights moved into multicultural awareness. The hippie movement spawned the environmental protection, alternative medicine, and the peace movement. Questioning social norms led to feminism and gay liberation.] (Partridge)

George Harrison was the 45th most popular artist in the 1970s. He had the first #1 of the Fab Four after the break up with "My Sweet Lord" in Dec. 1970. His second #1 song came out in June 1973, "Give Me Love." George's post Beatles album All Things Must Pass is regarded as the best album produced by any of the Fab Four after the split. George expanded his musical talents to become a film producer and a some time composer of movie music. He was a cinephile. "After befriending the Monty Python crew, Harrison created the production company HandMade Films to produce their Christ-figure comedy Monty Python's Life of Brian. Harrison sold his interest in HandMade in 1994, but by then it had already produced some of the most successful and influential works in recent British film history, along with its fair share of turkeys." (Houston Press)

Ringo Starr had a #1 hit with "Photograph" in Nov 1973 and again in Jan 1974 with "You're Sixteen." Ringo, now 77 years old, just published a new album this year, Give More Love. I am listening to one of the catchy tunes from that album right now, "We're On the Road Again." Paul, his old band mate, is playing the bass on this number. These two guys still have it!



This got me thinking of Paul as a bass player. Some say that he is such a talented bass player that even if the Beatles had never made it big, "McCartney would still be deified for his catchy, lyrical bass guitar playing." (Dashow) Here are three of his songs which really highlight his bass playing:

1. "Come Together" ...the bass line is dominant in this class, popular hit.
2. "Goodnight Tonight" (1979 with Wings). John said he didn't like anything about this song except McCartney's bass line. This song really shows off Paul's musical versatility.
3. "Taxman"...lots of times I have trouble hearing the bass line but I can hear it clearly on this song.

All of the x-Beatles members had trouble with drugs and alcohol. John very famously got involved in heroin use with Yoko and then just as famously the two went through withdrawal cold-turkey one three-day period of time in 1970. He spent the first half of the 1970s drunk and high on alcohol and other drugs./ Ringo said that he wasted two decades in a "lost" haze of alcoholism after the Beatles' breakup./ Paul said he started down the road to alcoholism after the Fab Four split up. He admitted that he turned to "the Bevvies" and considered leaving music during those dark days. / George's 1974 tour in the USA was a flop in part because of the mountain of cocaine he was snorting. By the end of the tour his voice was shredded. He never toured alone again, with one exception in 1991. George was not shy in blaming his throat cancer on his tobacco use. All four of the Beatles eventually made their peace with drugs and found their way back to a level of sobriety before their death (John and George) or before they were able to continue making music into their seventh decade (Paul and Ringo.)

On song writing: 
John and Paul could write up a whole new song in a few hours. It would take other artists days or weeks to do the same. They were the most successful and prolific song-writing team of all time.

"In their songwriting, Paul often came up with the tender, sweet lyrics about love, while John moaned about how bad the world was treating him" (Partridge). This ying and yang of song writing worked in the beginning but often caused conflicts near the end of their songwriting partnership. John would complain endlessly that Paul was too pop, too frilly. One critic, who must have agreed with John, ranked Paul's "Good Day, Sunshine" as the worst song every recorded by the Beatles. Why, I wondered to myself when I read that remark, because it is a happy, upbeat song?

The Beatles--- Paul, John, Ringo and George---had something magical together. Some have criticized that Ringo wasn't at the same level as the other three, but actually I disagree. It was the music that they made, all four of them, that we all love so dearly. Perhaps they could have gotten a more talented drummer but then the group and the music wouldn't have been the same.

Musically, [The Beatles] intuitively tuned in to one another, effortlessly getting in synch the moment they began playing. Paul was the best all-around musician, great on the bass, drums, guitar, or piano. George could give any rock'n'roll guitarist a run for his money. John wasn't technically very good, but as he put it, he could make the guitar 'fucking howl and move.' With Ringo on the drums and George [Martin] in the studio, it wasn't a question of if a release would hit number one---just a question of how fast (Partridge).

Many thought the Beatles would never last. They would come and go just like so many musical groups of their day. But when Bob Dylan heard them, he said of the Beatles: "They were doing things nobody was doing. Their chords were outrageous, and their harmonies made it all valid...it was obvious they had staying power." He was right, in spades.

George Martin, the producer of the Beatles music and oft used arranger, visited John once after the breakup. During their conversation John said he'd do over everything he'd recorded as a Beatle, even "Strawberry Fields Forever," which Martin thought was John's best, a masterpiece. "Most of what the Beatles did was rubbish," John said. George Martin said later, about that conversation, "John's vision was always better than the reality. Everything inside him was greater than its expression in the outside world. That was his life." Other musicians wanted to heard. That wasn't enough for John. He wanted to be felt. (Partridge).

And you know what? That is what we do when we listen to the Beatles songs today. We feel. We remember. We sigh. We blush. We do all these things because the Beatles have been playing in the background of our lives since 1962. Their music is our music. We fell in love to their songs. We played house and dress-up as little girls, imagining we were married to one of them. We played their songs loud on the car stereo when we got our drivers licences. We may have had one of their songs sung at our wedding (as my cousin did.)We have followed their careers---we've wept when they died, and cheered when we see them on TV or, if we are really lucky, in person, as the folks in Brooklyn did just last month at a McCartney concert.

Almost all the quotes in this blogpost came from the very excellent book John Lennon: All I Want Is the Truth: A Photographic Biography by Elizabeth Partridge. It won a Printz Honor in 2006. This was a reread for me but I read it as for the first time. I am so obsessed with the Beatles right now I am always looking around for any new crumbs of information not gleaned previously. She does a well-rounded job with the highlights of John's life. from start to finish, and I highly recommend it. John was such a tortured soul. He was so hurt by the death of his mother and the abandonment by his father that it nearly haunted him all his days. But you know what? If he hadn't been tortured internally, he probably never would have been compelled to make such great music and the Beatles would never have been formed.  The phrase "Screwed up people make great art" certainly applies to John Lennon.

Friday Quotes: La Belle Sauvage

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. Share the opening quote from the book.
The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice.  Find a quote from page 56.

Check out the links for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Participants don't select their favorite, coolest, or most intellectual books, they just use the one they are currently reading. This is the book I'm reading right now---

Title: The Belle Sauvage (The Book of Dust #1) by Philip Pullman

Book Beginnings:

Three miles up the river Thames from the center of Oxford, some distance from where the great colleges of Jordan, Gabriel, Balliol, and two dozen others contended for mastery in the boat races, out where the city was only a collection of towers and spires in the distance over the misty levels of Port Meadow, there stood the Priory of Godstow, where the gentle nuns went about their holy business; and on the opposite bank from the priory there was an inn called the Trout.

Friday 56:

'I see,' said Coram. 'And what did the prophecy say? Did you happen to overhear?''No, alas. I believe it was simply that the child was of supreme importance in some way. That is what I heard.'

Comments: I just picked up this book from the library yesterday and have only read the first three pages so far. I have heard good things about it and I look forward to getting to it when I return from China in ten days. Hopefully I will have time to finish it before it is due once I return from my trip.

The opening sentence cracks me up not because it is funny but because it is so long. And the 56th page quote makes me wonder if this book is related somehow to Pullman;s wonderful series: His Dark Materials (The Golden Compass). Does anyone know?

Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution

High school librarians: Get out your order forms. Add this book, Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution, to your next order. Then think about which of your Social Studies teachers you can talk into reading the book and sharing with his/her classes. This book will be a treasure trove for Civics and Government classes.

Social Studies teachers: demand that your school library get a copy, or more than one, of Bernie Sander's new book. The chapters are organized by topics: the economy, health care, education, the environment, social justice, and immigration. It could be useful tool to assist you as you teach these concepts to your classes. It is written at a very accessible level so that high school students could easily understand the concepts. It utilizes charts and lists that are fun and enlightening.

Public librarians: make sure you put Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution in prominent places around your library so that readers of all ages see it and can grab it easily.

Teens: You are the hope for our world. Bernie Sanders's campaign was proof that your generation wants a change and knows that change has to happen if there will be a world worth fighting for in the future. Demand that your favorite library purchases this book or, better yet, purchase your own copy so that you can mark it up and reread chapters as you need to remind yourself about the concepts he espouses. In addition, at the end of each chapter, Bernie has outlined actions you can take right now. He has listed organizations you might want to look into or actions you can take to make a difference. So, for example, if your "thing" is environmentalism that chapter gives specific actions you can take to make a difference. It is organized in a very cool way to be helpful for you!

Parents: Is it time to start talking to your children about what is happening right now in the USA around politics, the environment, health care, economics? This would be a great tool for you. Buy it and read the book together. I bet you will have some great discussions together.

Adults: Even though this book is being marketed to teens it is very accessible for adults, too. Have you ever listened to discussions about tax cuts and wondered what the big deal is about. This book will answer that question for you. Have you ever thought that raising the minimum wage wasn't a big deal? Read that chapter and see if you have a new understanding. How about health care? Are you completely clear on all the details. I recommend you read this book, too.

Bernie Sanders: Thanks for all you do and for writing this book.  Just one question. Did you do the illustrations, too? I like them. (Oh wait, I see that Jude Buffum did them!)

TTT: Halloween-themed books I've never read (but may consider reading in the future)

Top Ten Tuesday: Halloween-themed books I've never read (but may consider reading in the future)

I am not much for scary books but these books keep showing up on must-read lists so I might consider reading them in the future. Please let me know if you think any of these books are worth the effort and the fright they will cause me.

1. The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson (1959) it is considered one of the most terrifying tales of the 20th century.

2. The Fall of the House of Usher and Other Tales by Edgar Allan Poe (1839) I think I read a bit of Poe in junior high but haven't touched it sense. The title story is supposed to have one of the ghastliest conclusions of any ghost story.

3. The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton (1937) I haven't heard of this book before but I like this author and would consider giving one of the stories a try.

4. Dracula by Bram Stoker (1897 I actually have the audiobook version of Dracula so I have no excuse for not listening to it.

5. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James (1898) considered to be quite unsettling but not overtly creepy.

6. Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury (1962) probably not the creepiest book on the list so I might pick this one up first. I like Bradbury's writing style.

7. It by Stephen King (1987) I put this down but I sincerely doubt I could ever make myself read it. I get scared by the previews of the movie.

8. Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories by Roald Dahl (1984) Perhaps this collection would be tame enough for me to conquer but Dahl said this about the books: "Spookiness is, after all, the real purpose of the ghost story," Dahl writes. "It should give you the creeps and disturb your thoughts."

9. The Girls by Emma Cline (2016) Not intended as a ghost story but described as "haunting."

10. The Worst Best Halloween Ever by Barbara Robinson (2004) I actually want to read this book. I loved Robinson's first book, The Best Christmas Pageant Ever.

What is your favorite scary book!

Nonfiction November 2017...begins today

What a perfect challenge for me: Nonfiction November 2017

As you know I am a round one judge for the Cybils, for the JH/SH Nonfiction category. Since I am reading nonfiction at a ferocious rate, why not join in with others who are also reading a lot of nonfiction?

Here are the particulars: Nonfiction November 2017 is co-hosted this year by Sarah at Sarah's Bookshelf, Katie at Doing Dewey, Lory at Emerald City Book Review, Kim at Sophisticated Dorkiness, and Julz at Julz Reads. Every week there will be a question to answer or a topic to discuss. Today's topic is:

Your Year in Nonfiction: Take a look back at your year of nonfiction and reflect on the following questions – What was your favorite nonfiction read of the year? What nonfiction book have you recommended the most? What is one topic or type of nonfiction you haven’t read enough of yet? What are you hoping to get out of participating in Nonfiction November?

Number of nonfiction books I've read all or part of so far this year: 31.

My favorite nonfiction read of the year so far:

Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
I love learning new things when I read nonfiction and this book was a treasure trove of new information to me about plants, especially tress, and how to operate a scientific experiment. Hope Jahren is also a woman who struggles with aspects of her mental health and this book provided insights into the creative side of the mind while balancing it with good self-care. I thought this would also be the nonfiction book I recommended the most to readers but after I ran through recommending it to my Science-teacher-type friends I haven't told anyone else to read it. (Published in 2016)

I also suspect that my current audiobook: You Don't Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie will become my favorite nonfiction of the year once I am done with it. It is powerful and moving.

The nonfiction book I've recommended the most:
A Dog in the Cave: Wolves Who Made Us Human by Kay Frydenborg
This book does a fantastic job of summing up all the research on mankind's relationship with wolves and the evolution of wolves into dogs. I learned so much and was so fascinated by all the information she shared about the fossil records of dogs, the possibility that dogs actually allowed us to be human, and current research on dogs, man's best friend, today. I have found myself talking about this book to just about anyone who will listen.


The Little Book of Hygge: The Danish Secret to Happy Living by Meik Wiking. I didn't especially like the book but I have talked about the concept of hygge endlessly since I finished it. Click the hyperlink if you are curious about it.

What topics haven't I read enough about yet this year?

• Politics...I am so upset about the state of affairs with our current President, one would think I would read more on the topic to make myself more conversant. Any recommendations?
• Memoirs...I've read several biographies but not really any memoirs this year
• The Beatles...ha! I am on a total Beatles kick right now and I have read four books on the Fab Four already, am currently reading another, and have one in the wings. But I am sure that I haven't read enough. It seems to be an insatiable topic for me.

What I hope to get out of participation in Nonfiction November: since I am a Cybils judge for nonfiction I am going to attempt to read at least 50 pages of all of the nominated books, which right now numbers 65. I already had that goal before signing up to join in with Nonfiction November activities but I will keep it as my goal.  Currently I shall attempt to read enough of five books per week to evaluate them properly. Right now I am reading Isaac the Alchemist: Secrets of Isaac Newton, Reveal'd by Mary Losure. Next up: Bernie Sanders Guide to Political Revolution. 

I shall close now and will go sign up on the Linky so that others know I am participating and then...back to the books!  Join me.


Upcoming topics: 
Week 2: (Nov. 6 to 10) — Sarah @ Sarah’s Book Shelves — Book Pairing: This week, pair up a nonfiction book with a fiction title. It can be a “If you loved this book, read this!” or just two titles that you think would go well together. Maybe it’s a historical novel and you’d like to get the real history by reading a nonfiction version of the story.

Week 3: (Nov. 13 to 17) — Kim @ Sophisticated Dorkiness — Be The Expert/Ask the Expert/Become the Expert: Three ways to join in this week! You can either share three or more books on a single topic that you have read and can recommend (be the expert), you can put the call out for good nonfiction on a specific topic that you have been dying to read (ask the expert), or you can create your own list of books on a topic that you’d like to read (become the expert).

Week 4: (Nov. 20 to 24) — Katie @ Doing Dewey — Nonfiction Favorites: We’ve talked about how you pick nonfiction books in previous years, but this week I’m excited to talk about what makes a book you’ve read one of your favorites. Is the topic pretty much all that matters? Are there particular ways a story can be told or particular writing styles that you love? Do you look for a light, humorous approach or do you prefer a more serious tone? Let us know what qualities make you add a nonfiction book to your list of favorites.

Week 5: (Nov. 27 to Dec. 1) — Lory @ Emerald City Book Review — New to My TBR: It’s been a month full of amazing nonfiction books! Which ones have made it onto your TBR? Be sure to link back to the original blogger who posted about that book!