Most Recent Favorites, August 2008
Here are the books I've read and especially admired in recent months, February-July 2008. (See Previous Postings, for commentary and titles.)

• In Defense of Food: An Eater's Manifesto by Michael Pollan, nonfiction
• Why We Teach: Learning, Laughter, Love, and the Power to Transform Lives by Linda Alston, professional
• The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama, nonfiction
• Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama, nonfiction
• Grace (Eventually): Thoughts on Faith by Anne Lamott, nonfiction
• The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson, nonfiction
• The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin, nonfiction
• Major: A Black Athlete, a White Era, and the Fight to Be the World's Fastest Human Being by Todd Balf, nonfiction
• The Sum of Our Days: A Memoir by Isabel Allende, memoir
• The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, historical fiction
• The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals by Michael Pollan, nonfiction
• The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch with Jefffrey Zaslow, nonfiction
• My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journey by Jill Bolte Taylor, nonfiction
• The Six Secrets of Change: what the Best Leaders Do to Help Their Organizations Survive and Thrive by Michael Fullan, nonfiction
• Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, fiction
• When the Emperor Was Divine by Julie Otsuka, fiction
• Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri, short stories
• The Mistress of Spices: A Novel by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, fiction
• Say You're One of Them by Uwen Akpan, short stories

Reading as Respite
These past six months and more, I have been immersed in writing a detailed professional development project. The work is the usual combination of demanding, exhausting, and fulfilling. At some point in the day, usually by late afternoon or after dinner, I pick up a book and disappear into the world the author has created. This call-to-read feels as great as my hunger for food, friendship, and love.

In fact, the many books I read continue to sustain me and give me a life beyond work. Beautifully crafted stories, both fiction and nonfiction, satisfy my need for total escape, peace, adventure, knowledge, and entry into a space where anything seems possible. Happily, I also observe reading-as-refuge in my husband Frank and our granddaughters Katie and Brooke. To see them so peacefully lost in a book, hunched over a desk or squished into a soft chair soaking up the rhythms of language and life, shows me that they, too, have captured the magic. I hope reading does the same for you.

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Most Recent Favorites, February 2008
Here are the books I've read from September 2007 through January 2008.

• The Space Between Us by Thrity Umrigar, fiction
• Suite Francaise by Irene Nemirovsky, nonfiction
• Things I Overheard While Talking to Myself by Alan Alda, nonfiction
• Loving Frank by Nancy Horan, historical novel
• The Zookeeper's Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman, nonfiction
• The Book That Changed My Life: 71 Remarkable Writers Celebrate the Books that Matter Most to Them, Roxanne J. Coady and Joy Johannessen, eds., nonfiction
• Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin, nonfiction
• The Philosopher's Dog: Friendships with Animals by Raimond Gaita, nonfiction/philosophy
• Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol S. Dweck, nonfiction

Daily Reading
My day begins reading The New York Times. I grew up with that ritual. My dad read it with his morning coffee (just as I do) and during his daily commute by train to New York City. The editorials are my favorite part, and I often recommend that my husband, Frank, or a friend read one so we can talk about it.

Weekly Reading
I can hardly wait for Sunday mornings when I spend a couple of hours with The New York Times. I live for the Book Review. I pore through those reviews throughout the week and savor many of them. I get inspired to read by learning about newly published titles, up-and-coming authors, and profiles of fascinating people—the writers and the characters they create. Often, I fold down the pages related to books I intend to read (and purchase). I confess an addiction to having hard copies of well-written books on my bookshelves.

Next, I go to the News of the Week in Review and look for an editorial by Frank Rich, a terrific writer with a knack for distilling "the truth" from recent political happenings and hype. On Tuesdays, I seek out the Science Times. Perhaps, because I never liked science as a child and did a terrible job teaching it (I replicated the reading-of-the-science text my teachers had done with me) I now find it fascinating and am held spellbound by modern science stories and how they apply to our lives.

Many weekdays find me poring over recipes and thinking about what I might cook for dinner. As I pen this, it's a dreary winter day, and a recipe for a hearty Tuscan bean stew has caught my fancy. I've jotted down the ingredients I need and look forward to putting them all together tonight. I love the aroma and taste of homemade soup as well as the pleasure of cooking for my husband and knowing that we'll be enjoying that soup for days. Some of our most cherished recipes come from Gourmet and Sunset, two magazines I subscribe to, as well as from newspaper clippings that I have been filing by category for many years.

I also depend on Education Week to stay informed about national issues regarding policy, politics, and research. I especially like to read the Commentary on the final page.

Monthly Reading
I subscribe to a bunch of monthly and quarterly journals for staying current with research and practice in the teaching profession: The Reading Teacher, Language Arts, Educational Leadership, Kappan, Voices from the Middle, and Reading Research Quarterly. I browse through a journal when it arrives, tab the articles I want to read, and take the month to read all those that interest me. Recently, I've begun reading some articles online. That is, when I receive email notification (always before I receive the journal by mail), I print out an article that I "must read" right now.

Your Reading Life
What are you reading now? I encourage you to share your own short lists of favorites with friends and colleagues. If you're like me, I bet you always wish you had more time to read. Finding that time is hard, I know, but I encourage you to "steal" it from your schedule. I also encourage you not to feel guilty when you go through a period when you don't read a lot. Right now, I'm reading mostly short pieces—magazines, journals, favorite parts from recently completed books.

Most Recent Favorites, August 2007
Here are the books I've read from June through August 2007.

• Toast: The Story of a Boy's Hunger by Nigel Slater, memoir
• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver with Steven L. Hopp and Camille Kingsolver, nonfiction narrative
• Everyman by Philip Roth, fiction
• Dog Years by Mark Doty, memoir
• Without a Map by Meredith Hall, memoir
• Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen, fiction
• Alice Waters and Chez Panisse by Thomas McNamee, biography
• Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert, nonfiction

What I'm Reading for Pleasure
At the end of the day, I read. I love the quiet it brings. I relish getting lost in a marvelous story. I especially love to read memoir and fiction because I am fascinated with character, why people behave the way they do, how relationships flourish and flounder, and how people overcome adversity. Lately I have been reading more nonfiction and find I like nonfiction narratives best.

Because reading for enjoyment is one of the ways I enrich my life, I share recent favorite books with you in the hopes that you will love even one book as much as I did. Books are a way I unwind, connect with others, and learn what's going on in the world. Reading also feeds my writing; I couldn't write if I didn't read. Through reading I observe what authors do and marvel at how they do it.

How I Choose My Reading Titles
Most of the books I read come from trustworthy recommendations from book-loving friends and colleagues, The New York Times Book Review, which I pore over weekly, or from the handwritten reviews on the shelves in local bookstores. I almost always buy the books I plan to read and I enjoy looking at them on my bookshelf, waiting to be plucked when the moment seems right.

I do feel guilty about not using the public library more, but I love owning books, and I choose carefully. The books I plan to buy next are Circling My Mother, a memoir by Mary Gordon (it got a terrific review in the August 26, 2007 The New York Times Book Review) and Gut Feelings: The Intelligence of the Unconscious by Gerd Gigerenzer, which sounds fascinating from the description I read about the author in Science Times: The New York Times on August 28, 2007.

I also belong to a monthly book club, and in September we meet to select the books we will read for the next year. By talking with people I enjoy and who admire books I might not choose to read on my own, my reading horizons expand. One recent example is Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire. Typically, I am not a reader of fantasy, but I devoured and loved that book.

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