August–Taking into Account New Zealand & Austria

Whether a teacher or a student, August always hits me like a bus. This year has been no different. Sure, I’m entering this month as a wife, and currently the happiest I’ve ever been–but the mental and physical hardships of starting out a school year are just as challenging as they always have been! I am at the same school I was last year, which definitely made me feel more prepared plunging into the school year right after the wedding, but the hours and routines that go into the first weeks of school (combined the new germs from kids and 100+ degree heat of Arizona summer) always wipe me out.

I started the month still wading through Annie Proulx’s Barkskins, an epic monstrosity of a book I first began reading right before the wedding. Proulx emerges in the history of loggers across the world by following two families throughout 300 years, introducing and killing characters with the same fluidity and tragedy as life itself. Each generation of Sels and Duquets was so vastly different, that this book honestly felt like several smaller stories woven together. The story, at time, was too dense–brimming with new characters and historical context–for me to get caught up in after working a full day with my middle schoolers and then coming home to unpack wedding presents and write thank you notes with my husband. But, on the relaxing weekends spent at home when I wasn’t completely worn out or pulled in several directions, it was a beautiful and unique story to get swept up in. Life moves so fast, that the changes that happen throughout a year or a lifetime can be easy to miss, but Proulx does a magical job of documenting the ebbing and flowing of family and history. As my life has changed drastically over the past few years, it was a lovely reminder.

Next, I read The End of Days mostly in class with my students, a book I thought would be fitting tie-in with our class novel, Night. While still an interesting story, it wasn’t exactly the historical fiction that I expected, and didn’t connect to World War II in the way that I expected. I like to donate the books I read during DEAR to my classroom library, as my students have usually noticed and wondered about what I read, but the translation of this book was a little hard to follow even for me, so I’m not entirely sure it’ll be an exciting addition for them. The path a soul can take throughout history, as the bodies it inhabits die, is a very compelling topic for a book, and it was fascinating following the unexpected course the protagonist took.

With thank you cards finished and wedding presents unpacked, the last of my wedding tasks are complete and I regain a large junk of my free time. I am still balancing the responsibilities of being a teacher, the chores and duties of being an adult and a wife, and the tasks every teacher must fulfill–but hoping September will hold a few good books. I’m looking forward to my first three-day weekend of the year, and creeping a little closer to Fall Break!

Austria with The End of Days

“If you get the slightest bit off track, the consequences in the end are just as inescapable as if you’d gone and leapt headfirst into this or that abyss.”–Jenny Erpbenbeck, The End of Days

• Here’s what happens:
  • This story follows the soul of a female in five “books.” Each book finds her in a different circumstance, across time and Europe, but ultimately ends with her death.
• It’s good because:
  • I expected this to be another fast-paced, historical fiction, young adult book about Eastern Europe–in the vein of Between Shades of Gray or Girl at War. I was completely wrong. While kind of jarring and confusing at first (I’m assuming this is due in part because it was originally written in German and then translated to English, and that can pose some challenges), it ended up being a surprisingly poignant exploration of the purpose of life rather than the predicted historical fiction.
• Read if:
  • You like the type of books that toys with the nature of time and living. In reminded me vaguely of The Incarnations in the unusual way it floated across history through its ill-fated heroine.

Up next: Rwanda with Romeo Dallaire’s Shake Hands with the Devil!