A Year and a Day

It's April 3, 2012. In the last year and a day, I have read 50 books.

** ACTUALLY, only that sentence is from April 3, 2012.  Just after April 3, 2012, I as a student teacher interviewed for and obtained an excellent job teaching high school English at an amazing high school in St. Louis, MO, and my life became busier than I had ever imagined possible.

However, I still find time to read.  I read some amazing books this summer, and I feel the urge to begin another blog to discuss those books. When I get that figured out, I'll add the link here. For now, I just want to say this:

Learning about my own reading has been, really, kind of crazy.  I read a lot of books I didn't like this year, strangely enough, but I figured out more about how I choose books. I finally learned how to put down a shitty book and I continued my time-consuming habit of reading late into the night, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, in waiting rooms and in lines at just about anywhere, when I found a book I loved.  And, ultimately, I've learned a lot about how to think about (and write about) books -- a skill that I am sure will come in handy starting on Tuesday, August 14th, when I start teaching high school students why reading still matters.

That was ultimately my idea when starting this book: I wanted to be able to show my future students that I, as their teacher, truly love reading and still find time to read as an adult.  I wanted to show reading as a legitimate pursuit of knowledge and fun, an idea that seems to be dying in the modern high school community and an idea that I do NOT, under any circumstances, want to die.  I want to inspire my students to read, and so I have tried to document my efforts, reactions, critiques, and loves about reading over the course of this year.

I hope that something good will come out of this blog, I really do.  I will try to continue to write about my love of reading, but next time I won't be counting the books I'm reading or writing about every single one. Instead, I want to choose those books that I found stunning, incredible, meaningful, dark, comedic, everything that I love about stories, and share that love with my students.

I have no idea if anyone is following/reading this blog, but if you are, thank you, and hopefully I'll see you on a new blog about books before too long.

- M, 8/12/2012

50. A Game of Thrones

50. A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin (3/19/2012 - 4/3/2012)

In a year and a day, I read 50 books, and I have to say that this was the perfect book to end that year on.  This book starts the nearly-legendary series A Song of Ice and Fire, which now totals five enormous books and is the foundation for the HBO series "Game of Thrones."

I don't even know where to begin to describe this book (or this series, for that matter).  There is so much to it! There are so many characters, so many backstories, and so, SO much conflict.  This is a series where, and I don't think I'm really giving anything away but nonetheless, SpoilerAlert!, characters are constantly being moved in an out of the narrative, usually due to a sudden and only barely expected death.  But despite this, A Game of Thrones is a fascinating and totally compelling book.  It's a long read, but it is so worth it.

I won't even try to describe it -- I'm not sure I could accurately summarize it anyway -- but I will say this: read this book. And then read the next book, and the rest of the series, and give yourself about three months to devote your life to this task, because these books will take over your life. They sure took over mine.

It is a testament to how amazing this book is that, upon finishing its 807 pages, I briefly paused to grab some nourishment and then immediately opened A Clash of Kings to keep reading the series.