When italki made it possible for teachers to create a podcast and share it on the platform, I jumped in. I'd been thinking for a while about creating a podcast for English learners, based on excerpts from real literature in English -- starting with poems that I've collected, but eventually including prose works as well. … Continue reading A new project: the Enchanted English podcast
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader is this month's Narniathon read. I was looking forward to it as I remember it as my favorite of the seven books. And I still greatly enjoyed this journey through lands full of enchantment and danger, an adventure of the spirit that stirs me to this day. We start … Continue reading #Narniathon21: Into the utter East
Since I went to high school in the 1980s, of course I've heard of The Color Purple, Alice Walker's 1982 novel that won the Pulitzer Prize and was made into an Oscar-winning movie a couple of years later. But I never read it (or saw the movie), and had no more than a vague idea … Continue reading Beautiful Books: The Color Purple
Friends, it's time once more to help me pick something from my shelves to read, helping me to clear my TBR and my conscience of these books that have been sitting around way too long. Whatever you choose, I promise to read it ... sometimes it takes me a month or more, but I've always … Continue reading Make me read it: Acclaimed fiction edition
Last year for the "Love Freebie" at Top Ten Tuesday, I listed Ten book blogs I love. Of course, it was hard to stick to just ten, so I thought I'd do the same again this year! This also meets my February goal for the Support Book Bloggers challenge, an extra bonus. Here are ten … Continue reading Ten More Book Blogs I Love
Dear blog readers, how have you been? What's on your mind and heart? Share your monthly review in the comments, or any other thoughts, and I'll be sure to follow up. In this time of distancing, lockdown, and just wintry coldness, I appreciate our interactions all the more. Literature I read a lot of books … Continue reading Month in Review: January 2022
Linking up with The Chocolate Lady's Throwback Thursday meme - I'm sharing a favorite post from my former blog, The Emerald City Book Review. This month, since I'm so enjoying #Narniathon21, I'm looking back to my review of The Magician's Book - Salon.com writer Laura Miller's memoir about her childhood journeys in the land of … Continue reading Throwback Thursday: The Magician’s Book
Steven Pinker, The Language Instinct, 1994 It took me a couple of months, but I did it! In my last Make Me Read It poll, readers chose Steven Pinker's The Language Instinct, a complex yet relatively accessible account by a cognitive psychologist, describing his understanding of "how the mind creates language." I did not always … Continue reading You made me read it: The Language Instinct
When C.S. Lewis first began the story that became The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, he didn't have further installments in mind. And ending as it does with the children returned to the exact moment they left our world through the magic wardrobe, that book has a circular structure that does not necessitate further … Continue reading #Narniathon21: The Return to Narnia
This year I'm going to go easy with the reading challenges. Selecting particular titles I intend to read is almost a guarantee I won't read them, of late. So I am going to do more free-form and spontaneous reading, letting my interests lead me along the way. However, I came across a new challenge I … Continue reading A new challenge: Support Book Bloggers
