Books I Read and Other Assorted Oddities

I read this book to prepare for AP next year to use as one of my lit circle selections toward the end of the year. Just Mercy  details the case of Walter McMillian, a black man convicted of capital murder in Alabama in the late 1980s. The issue - Walter didn't commit the murder that prosecutors illegally pinned on him. The author, Bryan Stevenson, started a nonprofit in Alabama specifically to help people like Walter, and other death row inmates who had inadequate legal counsel when sentenced. As Stevenson outlines the many setbacks and the failures of the courts to listen to Walter's innocence, he also details other work that he did during the six years it took to secure Walter's release. Stevenson works with youth who were detained and sentenced to life in prison (even for non-homicide offenses), women, and other underrepresented populations who lack access to proper legal counsel and therefore end up in prison for far longer than they deserve to be. This book pleads with...

 This is another book that I'll use for AP. Jon Krakauer describes what led up to the Mt. Everest Disaster of 1996. Since he was personally a part of the expeditions that ultimately lost 12 climbers on the mountain, he gives his perspective while attempting to represent the other members of the expedition accurately. Sent to write an article for a magazine, Krakauer joined the expedition of guide Rob Hall. Several other expeditions were on the mountain that season as well, a Tawainese team, a South African team, two other commercially led teams, and then an IMAX film crew. Summiting Mt. Everest on May 10, Rob Hall and Scott Fischer's expeditions were caught in a storm late in the day. Ultimately several members of both expeditions, including guides Hall and Fischer, died in the bitter cold and storm. I didn't love this book. I didn't hate it; it was interesting, but not really something that's normally in my interests. I also struggled with how much background Kraka...

 This is again another book I intend to use for AP. Something I love about this is the rhetoric is two-fold - you not only have to look at the dialogue but the drawings as well. Art Spiegelman relates the story of his parents' experience as Jews in Poland during World War II and all that they went through in the camps. This book goes through conversations Art had with his father in the present (he lived in New York before his passing) and their World War II story in the 1930s and 1940s. Vladek (Art's father) owned a textile mill in Poland. He was drafted and sent to the border to fight the Germans before the onset of the War. He was captured and sent to a POW camp before being released and sent home. Once the Germans took over Poland, Vladek lost his mill and he moved his family in with his in-laws. Things gradually got worse for them. They lost Anja's (his wife's) grandparents, then Anja's parents, and their young son was sent to live with extended family for his s...

 This is a book that I plan to use in my AP Language class next year, and so, needed to read. Unbroken  follows the story of Olympic runner Louis Zamperini. Laura Hillenbrand tells the story of Louie's childhood and the trouble he caused in Torrance, California until he finally discovered running. From there, he competed in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, Germany. As World War II broke out, Louie was drafted and sent to the Pacific. On a rescue mission, Louie's plane went down over the water and the surviving two members of the crew and Louie floated on a raft for more than a month without being rescued. Instead, they landed in the Japanese-occupied Marshall Islands and taken prisoner. As prisoners of war under the Japanese, they were taken back to mainland Japan and placed in prison camps, forced into labor, unfed, and severely beaten. Louie survived two years in these camps, first at Ofuna, then Omori, and finally Noetsu. At the end of the war, the camps were liberated, and Lou...

 This is another book I plan on using next year in AP language. In Cold Blood  by Truman Capote is the story of the Clutter murders in Holcomb, Kansas in 1959. Perpetrated by two men who had never met the family, Capote tracks them in the days that lead up to the murders and the months that follow. He follows investigators, family members, and many connected with the case to its ultimate end - the hanging of the two murderers. I loved this book. While this book is completely true, it reads like a mystery novel. Capote masterfully unravels the mystery and carefully reveals the secrets of the case. It was fascinating to read and is amazingly well-written. I feel like my only criticism is that it was a little unclear at first that it was non-fiction. I would have loved something at the end that described how Capote got the information he got. Did he follow the case from the start, or did he do his extensive research afterwards? Regardless, this is a beautifully written book and i...

 This was another book club choice, and as I'd read An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir already, I was eager to dive into this one. I'd heard it's drastically different than An Ember in the Ashes  and isn't even in the same genre, so I was curious to read it. All My Rage  by Sabaa Tahir follows the story of Salahudin Malik. Salahudin grew up in Juniper, California with his mother who is almost his whole world, and his father who cannot even stop drinking enough to ensure that his mother gets to dialysis. The Maliks are Pakistani, and own the Clouds' Rest Inn Motel in Juniper. The novel also follows Noor Riaz, also Pakistani, who lives with her uncle and works in his liquor store. Chachu saved Noor from the wreckage of her earthquake-destroyed village when she was six and brought her to the United States. He gave up everything to take her in, and put his entire life on pause to raise her, a fact that he is not afraid to remind Noor about. Noor and Salahudin have bee...

 As I prepare to teach AP language next year, I will probably be reading a lot more nonfiction in the coming months. This book is one of the ones that I'll be using at least portions of in my curriculum for next year. An American Childhood  by Annie Dillard follows her experiences of growing up in Pittsburgh in the 1950s. Through a series of vignettes, Dillard explores her childhood memories discussing everything from school, playing in the snow, to boys, and into her adolescence. The memoir focuses on her various interests as a child, maturing until she was 16. This book was a hard read for me. On one hand, it is beautifully written. Dillard has an incredible style and way of capturing the essence of how children see the world and dictate time. On the other hand, some of the stories are incredibly dull. It was also not easy to identify with some of her memories and experiences, and so difficult to buy in myself. By the end, and after some good struggle with the book, I did fi...