Thoughts On Teaching

I didn’t even realize I’d started the habit back up. Time to revisit the methodone clinic.

A profound shift from my former routine of walking in empty handed and walking out in need of a forklift, over the last several years I’ve done a good job of kicking the bookstore habit. I freely walk into store after store without buying so much as a magazine.

Surprise! That’s all changed and, I’ll admit it, I’m a book junkie again. Almost as quickly as I stopped buying and piling books around the house in some kind of obsessive-compulsive haze, stacks now cover any open space on my bookcases, overflowing across the top of my coffee table. I can’t face the day without that new book by… I don’t care, whatever her name is, I need it! Just give it to me!

My recent visits to bookstores have been to stock up on material I can photocopy for my continuing voyage to concentrate on nonfiction (yes, this is a habit complete with a justification process). The Sociology section has been a good find, something I never paid much attention to before.

A list of titles to share is growing, books that I’ve just happened upon while browsing the aisles; this is as good a time as any to start documenting that list. Looking for a score? Have a glance at this list, you junkie.

Short Takes: Brief Encounters With Contemporary Nonfiction

Judith Kitchen (ed.)

A collection of 76 different short pieces (2 to 8 pages long), it looks like several of these will make it into my classroom.

The Outlaw Bible Of American Literature

Alan Kaufman, Neil Ortenberg, Barney Rosset (eds.)

How can you pass up on a chance to get brief segments of On The Road, Junky, Always Running, Fight Club, The Bell Jar, and The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test into the hands of kids who want something interesting to read? Add to that the way the contents are organized around a theme and perhaps this should be the primary text of an English 3 classroom, not ancillary (thanks to Allison for first exposure to this).

Gig

John Bowe, Marisa Bowe, Sabin Streeter (eds.)

This is a collection of several short bits written by people about their jobs. Just about every job you can think of is in here, yes, including the oldest profession in the world. I see potential in reading about someone else’s job, one that you perhaps would like to pursue or about which you have a preconceived notion.

In The Belly Of The Beast

Jack Henry Abbott

Written by someone whose actions reveal a terrible man, students are interested in reading what life is like inside a prison and this book does a good job of showing exactly that.

First French Kiss

Adam Bagdasarian

Without having read too much of this, I can say that it holds promise to have many examples of easily accessible reflective essays.

Books I Want

The Best American Sports Writing 2005

Mike Lupica (ed.)

The Best American Magazine Writing 2005

Nicholas Lemann (ed.)

Best Newspaper Writing 2005: American Society of Newspaper Editors Award Winners and Finalists

Aly Colon (ed.)

Best Food Writing 2005

Holly Hughes (ed.)

My eye lingers on several Bedford/St. Martin’s Press books, but if I even begin to list the ones that sound good, this entry will never end. Didn’t that feel good, though? I can stop anytime. Really.

# Book Junkie: In a stack of papers called Reading. Comment feed. Both comments and trackback are closed.

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