Living Unabridged

Today's quote is taken from Llewellyn and Silver's Guerrilla Learning. I didn't read the entire book. (Partially because I had recently finished Susan Wise Bauer's Rethinking School and the concepts are similar in some ways but Bauer's is more recent.) But I did copy down a few quotes that were meaningful to me.

This quote about true education really stood out:

Because human beings are ALWAYS learning and growing. It's not something that happens in the 4-8 hours of a school day or the 12-16 years of formalized education.

Somehow we've equated classrooms, teachers, and textbooks with learning when we all know (whether we homeschool or not) that's not what it really is.

Recently Finished

Here's one reason why it's good to keep a commonplace book: someone asked me how many books I'd finished in April. April was a reading slump for me and I said, "Barely any - about three."

But when I looked back at my commonplace book, I actually finished 5. Which is a bit slower than my usual pace (6-8 per month is usual for me), but not at all as bad as I had thought.

Now we're in May and I've finished 4:
The Coincidence Makers a novel by Yoav Blum. Interesting concept, thought provoking. Would probably be a good Book Club selection.

The Mamur Zapt and the Spoils of Egypt. Series mystery by Michael Pearce. Hi, my name is Karen and I have a weakness for historical mystery series.

The Hemingses of Monticello by Annette Gordon-Reed. This is dense reading. So much about all of these people's lives is conjecture. (I find the main arguments persuasive, but delving into psychology gets tedious when there can never be real understanding of a person's motives.)

The French Girl. A novel by Lexie Elliott. A good first novel attempt. Slow burning, but I found its more traditional structure comforting after all the multiple viewpoints / multiple timeline thriller novels that proliferate these days. (Warning: there is off color language and a LOT of alcohol consumption in this one. Although the latter thing is never really glamorized.)

Two things bugged: the author used the phrase "remarkable hooked nose" twice in the first few pages. A good editor should have caught that. And Severine is never really described without the phrase "walnut skin." Which...once is OK. More than once or twice and it means you don't have any other way to describe her skin. Not to mention, Severine is nineteen. I get the idea that walnut is the color, but in my mind walnuts are also gnarled and wrinkly. But, whatever, YMMV. Editing: get some.

Recently Added

My stack is depleted again and I'm a few chapters into Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How it Changed the World.

Current Read Aloud

We're in a Fairy Tale phase so we're reading through our Puffin Classic edition of Grimm's Fairy Tales.

Current Kindle Deals

The Business of Heaven by C.S. Lewis is $1.99.

The Lucky Few by Heather Avis is also $1.99.

What are you reading now?