Katie is a Teacher

(#41) Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I first decided to read Anna Karenina when I watched an episode of Home Imporvement in which Jill’s book club read it and Tim, who hadn’t read the book, decided to join in (spoiler alert: hilarity ensued). That was aproximately 12 years ago, give or take.

I finally decided to stop procrastinating and living in fear of its exceedingly thick spine and take the plunge. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot. No, I’d venture to say that I loved it. Absolutely adored it.

Because of its exceeding lack of brevity, I would not be the cruel teacher to force my high school students into reading it. I would most certainly, however, keep in the classroom for personal reading.

(#42) War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

Another by Tolstoy, I read War and Peace because it is a classic. Also because it was free to download on my Kobo. What can I say, I’m a poor teacher, that’s just how we roll.

I loved War and peace. I liked it even more than Anna Karenina which, after reading Karenina, I did not think was possible. I thoroughly and highly recommend it.

(#43) The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

I’ve always liked Mark Twain but never been a massive fan. That being said, Huckleberry Finn is an excellent adventure story and absolutely wonderful as a piece of American history.

Because of the fact that it’s an adventure story that (most) students will enjoy, it is a wonderfully written novel, and it includes extremely important pieces of American history, the novel is an excellent one to bring in to the classroom to teach

(#44) The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Yay! Another Twain!

I first heard of Tom Sawyer when I was young and naive and absolutely convinced that I would one day grow up to marry Jonathan Taylor Thomas (as most young and naive girls my age did).

I saw the film that starred my future husband and said to myself, “that was marvelous, no need to read the book, JTT isn’t in it!” And so that was that.

Now, years have passed and I became a grown woman not married to Jonathan Taylor Thomas and who had never read Tom Sawyer. I decided to change that.

It’s an easy and fun read and I would recommend it for students in the grade 9 level.

(#45) The Art of War by Sun Tzu

The Art of War was familiar to me simply because of its name. I had never met anyone who spoke at great length about it or had even read it as required reading for a class. As such, I had absolutely no idea what it was about or what to expect from it.

I wasn’t a huge fan, primarily because (despite just saying I had no expectations) I expected it to be a novel rather than, literally what the title suggets, a guide to the art of war.

It is certainly full of excellent advice and tactics, but not planning on entering war or gaining enemies, I found very few applicable to me. Certainly they would be useful in some everyday circumstances such as sports or business leadership, but I just felt myself feeling somewhat evil in reading it, as though I was planning on making someone else miserable.