#IMWAYR

#IMWAYR

It’s Monday. Or it was when I drafted this post. But now it’s Tuesday and I’m still asking: What are you reading?

I came across this tag (which stands for “It’s Monday – What are you reading?) on Twitter via Jen Vincent of Teach Mentor Texts. Incidentally I had also just listened to some read-alouds from 180 Days by Penny Kittle and Kelly Gallagher (which you can find by way of the great Heinemann Publishing podcasts). They were discussing the need to show students what a reading life looks like. I think #IMWAYR is a good way to remind me to share and show my reading life.

So what am I reading?

Pachinko by Min Jin Lee – I’m reading this for a book club. Mostly via audiobook. It’s not a usual pick for me. Book clubs are good for pushing you out of your reading comfort zone and I’m grateful to have found one since moving back to Virginia. I’m almost finished but I have a lot of thoughts about the effects of colonialism and imperialism and capitalism.

Black Hammer by Jeff Lemire – It’s the first trade of this ongoing comic and I’m liking it so far. A group of superheroes are stranded in a rural town and living on a farm having to hide who they are. It starts 10 years into their stay in a very weird town and I’m intrigued by their struggle to fit into a world that isn’t their own.

The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin – A classic bit of speculative fiction by the master. I find her style challenging but rewarding. Of course I also like the discomfort of the protagonist who can’t shake his binary outlook, always trying to put people into one gender or the other despite the people of the planet being both male/female.

NYTimes – I got a digital subscription since this seems to be one of the newspapers of record for the US if not THE one of record. I got sick of trying to weasel around the paywalls and this way I can organize resources more easily for my future students. I’m finding the app to be pretty neat though I wish I could do a bit more than just bookmark articles.

So that’s where I’m at in my reading life this week. I’m on Goodreads though I don’t post everything I read there. I do my best to track things so feel free to follow me there. And check out the #IMWAYR tag on Twitter for more reading inspiration.