Books I Read in 2012

In 2012 I read 55 books, just barely making the 2012 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge I signed up for, since I read 53 books in 2011. Here they are by genre. (*indicates re-reads)

Fiction

Q, Evan Mander

22 Britannia Road, Amanda Hodgkinson
Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson

In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O’Brien
Keeping the House, Ellen Barber
Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell
The Beginner’s Goodbye, Anne Tyler
Home, Toni Morrison
Vaclav and Lena, Haley Tanner
Lone Wolf, Jodi Picoult

*Saint Maybe, Anne Tyler

*Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
*The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell

*The Road, Cormac McCarthy

*The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender
*Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Daj Sijie
*The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffeneger

The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Margot Livesey

A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Ega

The Hypnotists Love Story, Liane Moriarity
The Master’s Muse, Varley O’Connor
Tell the Wolves I’m Home, Carol Rifka Brun

Poetry

White City, Mark Irwin

The Eternal City, Kathleen Graber
Interloper, R.S. Klatt
Veil, Rae Armantrout
Long Division, Alan Michael Parker
Every Riven Thing, Chris Wiman

*The Assumption, Bryan Dietrich

Core Samples from the World, Forrest Gander

Drama

*Antigone, Sophocles

*Alcestis, Erupides

Nonfiction

Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose

The Art of the Poetic Line, James Longenbach
Bringing Up Bebe, Pamela Druckerman
C.K Williams on Whitman
Responding to Student Writers, Nancy Sommers

*The Lost Art of Reading, David Ulin
*The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs

The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin

Memoir

*A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis

Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, Jeanette Winterson

Poster Child, Emily Rapp
The Dirty Life, Kristin Kimball

Young Adult

Legend, Marie Lu

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

Catching Fire, Suzanne Collin

*A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L’Engl

Mockingjay, Suzanne Collin

Religion/Spirituality

*Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris

The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence

Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott

Some Assembly Required, Anne Lamott

Acts of Faith, Eboo Patel

Biography

Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, Bob Spitz

Read-a-Thon Questionnaire

Read-a-Thon Questionnaire

1) What fine part of the world are you reading from today?
Southwest Michigan

2) Which book in your stack are you most looking forward to?

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake

3) Which snack are you most looking forward to?

Hershey Bliss chocolates.

4) Tell us a little something about yourself!



I'm a poet and I teach college.

5) If you participated in the last read-a-thon, what’s one thing you’ll do different today? If this is your first read-a-thon, what are you most looking forward to?
I'm not grading papers today, which I had to do during the last read-a-thon!

Dewey's Read-a-Thon

Tomorrow is Dewey's Read-a-Thon, where readers around the Internet spend 24 hours, well, reading! I'm going to read as much as I can tomorrow, though I will have to take a break to take my son to a birthday party, and to do mom kind of things like feed my kids lunch. And also to sleep at night. My daughter is a big reader and will participate too, and my son, at 6, is a new reader, so I'm hoping he'll do some reading as well.

On my blog I'll document our progress as we read tomorrow. Here are some books I'm planning on working on:

1. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, by Aimee Bender (I have to read this one for a class I'm teaching. I've read it before, and it's a strange and fascinating book.)
2. Every Riven Thing: Poems, by Christian Wiman
3. The Lost Art of Reading: Why Books Matter in a Distracted Time, David Ulin (I've read this one before, and am thinking of using it in a class next semester.)
4. Core Samples from the World, poems by Forrest Gander
5. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith, Anne Lamott

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

Since I'm reading several different books, I'm still working my way through the books on my list from last week. I also read another book yesterday, though: Antigone, by Sophocles. I had to read this play for a class I teach. I love how Greek tragedies are able to make me think deeply about my life and about the world that I live in, so I try to get my students to connect the text with modern life. To that end, I've come up with a list of questions for the text, and I use these as springboards for talking about current issues: 

-What can we learn from Antigone about how to govern well? In what ways does Kreon govern well? In what ways does he not govern well? What mistakes does he make in governing his kingdom?

-How does Antigone participate in nonviolent resistance? Are the laws she breaks unjust? Would MLK approve/support her resistance? Is her cause in any way important to the community? Or is her cause more private/personal?

-How much of Antigone’s disobedience/protest is for religious reasons? How much of MLK’s protest is for religious reasons? Is it okay to stand up to the government/to break laws for religious reasons?

-Who is a better citizen? Antigone, for breaking the law? Or Ismene, for obeying it?

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Hot Cocoa Mix

I try to make as many things from scratch as possible (though I do so more in the summer when school is out, than when I am teaching during the school year). I recently made an adaptation of this hot cocoa mix from the Food Network, that tastes better than any mix I have bought. It's rich and delicious! Here's my version:

2 c. powdered sugar
1 c. cocoa (dutch process if possible)
1 t. salt
2 t. cornstarch

Directions: Mix all ingredients together well, and store in an airtight container. To use, heat one mug of milk until hot. Add two heaping teaspoons hot cocoa mix and stir well (I use a small wire whisk to stir). Enjoy!

It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

Here's what I'm reading right now. I've always got several books going at once:

1. Reading Like a Writer: A Guide for People Who Love Books and For Those Who Want to Write Them, Francine Prose. I like this book so much that I ended up copying the first chapter and bringing it to school for my creative writing class to read. Prose is an advocate of close reading, which is reading slowly and carefully, noticing every word and sentence. I tend to read very quickly, so this is inspiring me to slow down and pay more attention to language.

2. In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O'Brien. Last year I read his book The Things They Carried for a class I was teaching, and I loved it, so I thought I'd try another book by him. While this doesn't focus on the Vietnam War, like The Things They Carried, the main character is a veteran of the war, and his experience there has created a lot of problems for him.

3. Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading the New Poetry, Stephen Burt. In an age where poetry reviews tend to be rather wishy-washy (mostly friend reviewing each others books positively), Burt is a rigorous and intelligent critic. In this book he discusses many poets, mostly contemporary, who, on the surface, may seem rather difficult to read. I've only read the introduction to this so far, but I'm excited about the poets he is treating in here: people such as Rae Armantrout, John Ashbery, and Donal Revell.

4. The Eternal City, poems by Kathleen Graber. I'm very picky about poetry. I have a stack of about 10 books of poems on may desk that I really love, and I'm going to add this one too it. These poems are amazing! Graber uses language in such a fresh an interesting way, which I appreciate, but what I most love is her ability to leap between the concrete and the abstract, between images and ideas, and between past, present, and future in a way that really makes me think but doesn't lose me. And she manages to weave seemingly disparate things together beautifully.  A new favorite poet!

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My Top 10 Books of 2011

Here are my favorite books of 2011, in no particular order.

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender
State of Wonder, Ann Patchett
The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides
The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson
The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach
Why Read? Mark Edmundson
The Book Whisperer, Donalyn Miller
The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs
Farm Together Now
In a Beautiful Country, Kevin Prufer

2012 Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge

For 2012 I'm going to try and read more books than I did in 2011, so I'm signing up for the Outdo Yourself Reading Challenge to keep myself on track with this. I'll keep track of the books I've read on this page. Last year I read 53 books, so I'll try to read more than that this year!

1. Q, Evan Mandery (fiction)
2. 22 Britannia Road, Amanda Hodgkinson (fiction)
3. White City, Mark Irwin (poetry)
4. Housekeeping, Marilynne Robinson (fiction)
5. In the Lake of the Woods, Tim O'Brien (fiction)
6. Antigone, Sophocles (drama)
7. Keeping the House, Ellen Baker (fiction)
8. Reading Like a Writer, Francine Prose (nonfiction)
9. The Eternal City, Kathleen Graber (poetry)
10. Once Upon a River, Bonnie Jo Campbell (fiction)
11. Interloper, L. S.  Klatt (poetry)
12. The Art of the Poetic Line, James Longenbach (nonfiction)
13. A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis (nonfiction)
14. Veil, Rae Armantrout (poetry)
15. The Beginner's Goodbye, Anne Tyler (fiction)
16. Bringing up Bebe, Pamela Druckerman (nonfiction)
17. C.K. Williams on Whitman (nonfiction)
18. Home, Toni Morrison (fiction)
19. The Dirty Life, Kristin Kimball (memoir)
20. Vaclav and Lena, Haley Tanner (fiction)
21. Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal, Jeannette Winterson (memoir)
22. Lone Wolf, Jodi Picoult (fiction)
23. Legend, Marie Lu (young adult fiction)
24. The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins (young adult fiction)
25. Poster Child, Emily Rapp (memoir)
26. Catching Fire, Suzanne Collins (young adult fiction)
27. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeleine L'Engle (young adult fiction)
28. Long Division, Alan Michael Parker (poetry)
29. Saint Maybe, Anne Tyler (fiction)
30. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card (science fiction)
31. Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins (young adult fiction)
32. The Sparrow, Mary Doria Russell (fiction)
33. Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris (nonfiction)
34. The Practice of the Presence of God, Brother Lawrence (nonfiction)
35. The Road, Cormac McCarthy (fiction)
36. The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender (fiction)
37. Every Riven Thing, Christian Wiman (poetry)

38. Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Daj Sijie (fiction)

39. Responding to Student Writers, Nancy Sommers (nonfiction)

40. Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamot (nonfiction)

41. The Lost Art of Reading, David Ulin (nonfiction)

42. The Time Traveler’s Wife, Audrey Niffeneger (fiction)

43. The Assumption, Bryan Dietrich (poetry)

44. Some Assembly Required, Anne Lamott (nonfiction)

45. The Flight of Gemma Hardy, Margot Livesey (fiction)

46. A Visit From the Goon Squad, Jennifer Egan (fiction)

47. The Hypnotists Love Story, Liane Moriarity (fiction)

48. Alcestis, Erupides (drama)

49. The Master’s Muse, Varley O’Connor (fiction)

50. Core Samples from the World, Forrest Gander (poetry)

51. The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs (nonfiction)

52. Dearie: The Remarkable Life of Julia Child, Bob Spitz (biography)

53. Tell the Wolves I’m Home, Carol Rifka Brun (fiction)

54. Acts of Faith, Eboo Patel (nonfiction)

55. The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin (nonfiction)

Books I Read in 2011

FICTION

The Last Time I Saw You, Elizabeth Berg

The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake, Aimee Bender 

Addition, Toni Jordan 

Room, Emma Donoghue 

The Things They Carried, Tim O’Brien

The Solitude of Prime Numbers, Paolo Giordano

Alice I Have Been, Melanie Benjamin

Tree of Sighs, Lucrecia Guerrero

Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, Dai Siji 

Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston

State of Wonder, Ann Patchett

The Marriage Plot, Jeffrey Eugenides

The Family Fang, Kevin Wilson

The Art of Fielding, Chad Harbach

DRAMA

Antigone, Sophocles 

MEMOIR

Three Cups of Tea, Greg Mortenson

703: How I Lost More Than A Quarter Ton and Gained a Life, Nancy Makin

The Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond
The Feast Nearby, Robin Mather

I Am Hutterite, Mary-Ann Kirkby

Born on a Blue Day, Daniel Tamnet

Farm City, Novella Carpenter

Blood, Bones, and Butter, Gabrielle Hamilton

A Long Way Gone, Ishmael Beah

Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Amy Chua

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas 

Growing Up Amish, Ira Wagler

The Last Lecture, Randy Pausch

NONFICTION

Girls on the Edge, Leonard Sax 

The Book Whisperer, Donalyn Miller 

The Gatekeepers, Jacques Steinberg

The Winter of Our Disconnect, Susan Maushart

The Shallows, Nicholas Car

Lost and Found, Geneen Roth

The Lost Art of Reading, David Ulin

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs

Stuff: Compulsive Hoarding and the Meaning of Things, Gail Steketee and Randy Frost

Farm Together Now 

Off the Grid, Nick Rose

Manning Up, Kay Hymowitz

Deeper Reading, Kelly Gallagher

The Town that Food Saved, Ben Hewitt

Notebook Know How, Aimee Buckner

Teaching Literature, Elaine Showalter

Food Rules, Michael Pollan

Why Read? Mark Edmundson

THEOLOGY/DEVOTIONAL

On Christian Liberty, Martin Luther

Love’s Immensity, Scott Cairns

The Naked Now, Richard Rohr

A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis  

POETRY

The Lions, Peter Campion

In a Beautiful Country, Kevin Prufer

A Village Life, Louis Gluck
World Tree, David Wojahn

Meal Plan Monday

Now that the semester has started and I'm teaching college again, I've discovered that I simply can't make as many foods from scratch as I did over the summer. My goal these days is to make big meals once a week so that I can eat easily the rest of the week!

Sunday - I had friends over for brunch after church and made a hash brown potato casserole and an oven omelet. For dinner I cooked up some french toast and we ate leftover has brown casserole with it. I made a HUGE amount of french toast, so I will be eating that for breakfast, and maybe for dinner too this week until I am sick of it.

Monday - Tonight I made enough hamburgers so that I can eat them for dinner for the next couple nights. The meat is from LOCAL, a store near me that sells local, grass fed meats. I basted the hamburgers with teriyaki sauce and ate one on a bun with pineapple rings. Yum! Side dishes were broccoli and baked beans.

Tuesday - leftovers from Monday, eaten quickly before I attend a meeting of the local chapter of the Holistic Moms Network.

Wednesday - more leftovers from Monday.

Thursday - most likely will need to finish up the french toast.

Weekend - I'll be away visiting friends, so they will be feeding me and I'll most likely eat a couple of meals out.

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It's Monday, What Are You Reading?

Since the semester started back up, I haven't been reading many books other than those I need to read for class. But now that the semester is halfway over, for some reason I'm reading again. For class I just finished Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself. This is a fascinating read, and every time I read it I underline more and more passages. Pretty soon I will have underlined the whole thing!

Most every day I read a small amount of poetry, and right now I'm reading David Wojahn's World Tree. I have to say, this book of poems is so fascinating that I am speeding through it and will probably be finished by the end of the week. The poems are odd and fresh and unusual. I also read a bit of a spiritual book each day, and right now it is Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, by Kathleen Norris. These are short chapters each on a word from the Christian faith, such as "Incarnation," "Salvation," and "Silence."

At the library this week I picked up Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, by Amy Chua, because I kept hearing about this book. I was excited that my tiny library had a copy! I don't really have time to read it, but I'm reading it anyway. It's ending up having a lot of connections to my class, since we are talking about education right now, and have spent some time exploring what getting a good education means in other countries/to other cultures. I'm also making my way, very slowly, through a book called Teaching Literature, by Elaine Showalter. I believe I started the book this summer and am still not finished. It's a bit dry, but contains some good teaching ideas.

As I type this up, I'm realizing what an odd conglomeration of books I am reading all at the same time. Click here to participate in "It's Monday, What Are You Reading?"

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Last week I participated in the High Summer Read-a-Thon, and I managed to finish two of the three books I had on my TBR list for that. I finished Deeper Reading, by Kelly Gallagher, and The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food, Ben Hewitt. Deeper Reading was full of practical advice and exercises to help students delve deeper into classroom texts. Although it was written with grades 4-12 in mind, I found a lot in the book that I can use in my college classes. The Town That Food Saved was about the local food movement going on in Hardwick, VT. It was an interesting and balanced read. I appreciated how the author simultaneously critiqued and praised the movement.

After finishing those two books I stared The Longevity Project: Surprising Discoveries for Health and Long Life from the Landmark Eight-Decade Study. Today, I also started a book called Teaching Literature, by Elaine Showalter.

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TBR Booklist for the Read-a-Thon

Here are the books I'm going to work on next for the High Summer Read-a-Thon.

A Village Life: Poems, Louis Gluck
The Town That Food Saved: How One Community Found Vitality in Local Food, Ben Hewitt
Deeper Reading, Kelly Gallagher

And here's a picture of the raspberry jam Lucy and I made this morning!

High Summer Read-a-Thon

Lucy and I are participating in the High Summer Read-a-Thon today, over at The True Book Addict. You can read anytime throughout the week. I've finished one book already this week, and Lucy has finished two. Today we are planning on spending some more concentrated time reading. (We also spent some time this morning picking raspberries from our yard and making jam!)

The book I finished earlier this week is The Feast Nearby, by Robin Mather. I absolutely loved this book! It's about a food journalist who lost her job and moved to her small vacation cabin in Southwestern Michigan (not too far from where I live). She decided to eat local food as much as possible. The book is full of essays about her first year in the cabin, and how she survived on a very limited budget and mostly local foods. There are also a lot of practical tips in the book about how to can, freeze, and preserve food as well as other food tips, and plenty of recipes. I checked this book out from the library, but I want to own a copy of it!

The books Lucy read this week so far are The Dopple Ganger Chronicles Book 1: The First Escape, by G.P. Taylor and My Teacher Glows in the Dark, by Bruce Coville.

Moving Towards Earth Friendly Living

When my first child was born ten years ago, I started to pay more attention to environmental issues because I wondered what kind of world my child would be living in as she grew. And once she started eating solid food, I paid a lot more attention to the ingredients in the food that I bought for her then I had to food ingredients when I was shopping simply for myself. While I'd always enjoyed cooking, I began to cook even more from scratch, and I cut way back on the amount of processed foods that I bought. As I read more about eating naturally, I was pleased that doing so also could have a positive effect on the environment.

While having a child spurred me on to these decisions about food, I think having a mother who loved to cook, and who insisted on family dinners most every night of the week ingrained this sense of healthy eating in me from an early age. Despite working outside of the house for much of my childhood, my mother cooked healthy meals from scratch nearly every night of the week. And frequently in large amounts: My friends often wanted to eat at my house, since their parents didn't do much cooking.

For years I enjoyed making health meals, and I tried to keep my home low on chemicals by buying eco friendly cleaning products. However, my quest for natural living became more intense after I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life, by Barbara Kingsolver, a few years ago. This book is mainly about Kingsolver's decision to eat only local food and food her family produced themselves for one year. I learned so much from this book about nutrition, growing your own food, eating locally, and sustainable living. Kingsolver's experiment has inspired me to slowly but surely add more sustainable living practices into my life. Over the next couple of weeks, I'm going to blog about different sustainable living practices I've added into the way I live, as well as some I'd still like to strive for. In the meantime, here are some more books on the topic that I've enjoyed:

Off the Grid, Nick Rosen
Farm Together Now, Amy Franceschini, Daniel Tucker
Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, Novella Carpenter
Simple Country Wisdom, Susan Waggoner
A Homemade Life, Molly Wizenberg
Real Food, Nina Planck
Made from Scratch, Jenna Woginrich

Meal Plan Monday

SUNDAY: On Sunday I took my daughter to see the new Harry Potter movie, and my mom made dinner that night. Steaks and salmon on the grill, a delicious bread salad, and raspberry chocolate cheesecake for dessert.

MONDAY: I have a lot of leftover veggies from the veggie and dip platter I had for my son's birthday party last week. So tonight I sauteed some veggies and peanuts, added in some peanut sauce and served it over linguine. Delicious! I also had an ear of sweet corn on the side. Local sweet corn is amazing here right now.

TUESDAY: Will be having dinner at a friend's house, so I have no idea what she'll be making.

WEDNESDAY: Pasta salad with lots of veggies (hopefully that will use up the rest of the leftover veggies). I'm considering making homemade bread to go with that, but it's so hot this week, I hate to turn on the oven.

THURSDAY: Salmon. I've been obsessed with a particular salmon recipe lately: you mix brown sugar with plenty of salt and pepper, and cook the salmon in that, which forms a glaze. Then served the cooked salmon with a sauce of maple syrup, Dijon mustard, and dill. It's so good, it's like candy! I may attempt a new salmon recipe this time, though. Maybe more veggies on the side with this, and a bag of coconut rice I discovered at Target. Usually I make my own coconut rice, but I will attempt to cheat this time and see how it goes.

FRIDAY: Out to eat with a fellow poet before a reading that we are performing together.

SATURDAY: I'm not sure what I'll eat yet on Saturday.

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It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

I finished reading Blood, Bones, & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, and am still making my way through the other books that were on my list last Monday:

 Off the Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America, Nick Rosen
-Village Life: Poems, Louis Gluck
-Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, Kelly Gallagher
-How to Read the Bible as Literature, Leland Ryken

Also, I've started a book called Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less from Each Other, by Sherry Turkle. I've been on a kick lately of reading books about how technology is effecting our minds and our relationships, and have also been reading books about why reading is important. Here are some of my favorites on these 2 topics, which are interrelated:

The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, Alan Jacobs
The Lost Art of Reading, David Ulin
The Shallows, Nicholas Carr
The Winter of Our Disconnect, Susan Maushart

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Local Library Reading Challenge

This year I've been participating in a Local Library Reading Challenge. My goal was to read at least 12 books this year from my local library, and I just added book number 13 to the list! Now I'll see if I can get up to 20. Last year I attempted to read 100 books for a reading challenge, and I failed so miserably that I decided to attempt a more reasonable goal this year.

Meal Plan Monday

If you like to plan your meals for the week ahead of time, like I do, you might find Meal Plan Monday fun to participate in.

Monday: Hamburgers on small buns, homemade fries, fresh local sweet cherries. I find the kids are more likely to eat little food, so I'm hoping small buns will get them excited about hamburgers. I buy all my hamburger from a local meat shop, that sells only local, grass fed meats. It's a great place! The buns are from Labriola, a great Chicago area bakery.

Tuesday: Leftover hamburgers and fries, with whatever local produce I've got left. Probably more cherries, and blueberries.

Wednesday: Hot dogs and fruit. Applegate Farms has some delicious, all-natural hot dogs that I buy on occasion. For awhile I was making my own ketchup to go with hot dogs, hamburgers, etc., but I found I wasn't able to use it up in time, before it went bad. So I'm back to story-bought ketchup.

Thursday: Sandwiches, fruit, and cake for my son's fifth birthday party.

Friday: Chicken and stuffing casserole, brown sugar carrots, broccoli. The chicken is from the local meat shop again!

Saturday: Leftover chicken and stuffing casserole.

Sunday: Eating at my parent's house after taking my daughter to the latest Harry Potter movie.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Here are the books I'm working on reading right now. I always have several books going at the same time, usually of different genres. The last two books on my list right now are in preparation for teaching my college classes this fall.

-Blood, Bones, & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef, Gabrielle Hamilton
-Off Grid: Inside the Movement for More Space, Less Government, and True Independence in Modern America, Nick Rosen
-Village Life: Poems, Louis Gluck
-Deeper Reading: Comprehending Challenging Texts, Kelly Gallagher
-How to Read the Bible as Literature, Leland Ryken.

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