Otter Reads

November: Grace, thy name is Michelle

I’m sure a lot happened in November global politics-wise but for me the biggest story was the release of Michelle Obama’s memoir, Becoming. I deliberately slowed down my normal reading pace just so I could feel like I was spending more time with her and her wonderful family. God, I love them. And I guess…

October: I read Moby Dick. What was I thinking?

I have to admit something a bit embarrassing: I have no idea where I’m at now on my 100 books goal. I know that I haven’t met the monthly quotas I set at the beginning of the year and I sense that I’ve lost too much ground at this point to recover. But I’m okay…

September: Beach Reads, Dystopia, and Living Up to the Hype

I know September feels like ages ago, especially to those of us in the Northern Plains who are suddenly back in the bleakest dark of mid-winter again (which is thoroughly UNFAIR, Universe! *shakes fist*). Perhaps it’s all the more reason to think back on those golden late-summer days when the afternoon sun on your bare…

August: Arson, mass extinction, and Joe Biden dangling from a train

My summer reading came to an end with a strange mix of political potboiler, modernist melodrama, the science of extinction, and a shocking lack of young adult fiction, something I will most definitely correct in the coming months. For the time being, here are my reviews for August. 55. Hope Never Dies By Andrew Shaffer (Crime/Mystery) …

July: Somehow it begins and ends with executions

At about this time every summer, I reflect on how I spent June and July, wondering sadly how the time passes so quickly and wishing I’d done more to really savor it. Truly, summer is an annual lesson in living in the moment. I regret to say that I didn’t accomplish half of the items…

June: Murder, stolen identity, nuclear annihilation – and that’s just the YA books!

I don’t know why I always think I’m going to have so much free time in the summer. Perhaps because the end of the year feels so frantic and rushed, the idea of the sudden absence of planning and teaching and grading is hard to fathom. I always end up filling it with other stuff…

May: A Bouquet of Nonfiction

Hello from sunny Tampa! I’m here all week for the annual A.P. English Language and Composition Exam Reading, along with 1,600 of my colleagues, tasked with scoring more than 1.75 million essays written by 11th graders all across the nation. It’s very intense but I really do love reading all this student writing and partly…