100+ Books in 2025 discussion

Working long hours as a teacher and administrator means harnessing students' love to read while trying to find some time to read for pleasure myself....Here's to hoping I can get to 50 this year.

Went to Christmas Break in Malaysia. Read a few books while there. Here's to starting off the year strong!

1. Outliers: The Story of Success - Malcolm Gladwell

2. The Third Son - Julie Wu

3. Twelve Years a Slave - Solomon Northup

4. Teacher Man - Frank McCourt

5. My Pedagogic Creed - John Dewey

Got to enjoy a little break during Lunar New Year. Finished some books I started recently.

6. Game Change - John Heilemann and Mark Halperin

7. Slow Getting Up - Nate Jackson

8. This is How You Lose Her - Junot Diaz

9. Ethical Leadership and Decision Making in Education - Joan Poliner Shapiro and Jaqueline A. Stefkovich

10. Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

Spring Break now! Time to get a couple more fun reads out of the way:

11. MaddAddam - Margaret Atwood

12. Zelda - Nancy Milford

13. The One and Only Ivan - Katherine Applegate

14. Leadership from the Inside Out: Becoming a Leader for Life - Kevin Cashman

15. Christian Science - Mark Twain

16. How I Live Now - Meg Rosoff

17. The Monster, and Other Stories - Stephen Crane

18. The Principalship: A Reflective Practice Perspective - Thomas Sergiovanni

how I live now is on my tbr list, what did you think of it?

I did post a review on my page, but I shall put it here. I was not a fan at all, unfortunately, but I also didn't like Divergent or book 3 of the Hunger Games trilogy. Either young adult dystopia/end-of-world scenarios are not for me anymore, or the premises are getting too shallow and, dare I say, lazy.

I always look forward to engaging fellow readers, whether in agreement or thoughtful disagreement. Please do feel free to read it yourself and post back here! For what it is worth, here is my review:

"While I appreciate the writer's attempt to frame a war in the micro, through the eyes of girl, albeit a pessimistic and at times fatalistic teenage one named Daisy, there is so much here that has already been explored that this book is not worth a read. What's more, Rosoff presents the book as a diary of sorts from the protagonist; however, Daisy apparently failed more than a few grammar classes, so the writing is atrocious. Run-ons, colloquial language, and lack of quotes and context make for a jumbled, stream-of-consciousness narrative that is filled with holes, cliches, and lack of care for anything or anyone outside of the girl's own little bubble.

When given opportunities to clarify events, the author merely keeps moving with the story. The characters lack depth or maturation, the love interest is uninteresting, and unexplored allusions are made to special gifts that some secondary characters possess.

Amateurish at best and lacking ambition to be anything more than just a time-waster for tween romance meets end-of-world scenario; bark up another tree if you are looking for anything with depth."

Oh, 4th quarter in school: for being so short on the calendar, you feel soooo long! In spite of this, I have been able to knock out a real keeper, a real thrill of a book:

19. Red Rising - Pierce Brown

20. Brief Encounters with Che Guevara - Ben Fountain

Yay for my (very) short summer vacation, spent with family and friends in the U.S. of A. And yay for a long plane ride with time to read.

21. Freakonomics - Steven D. Levitt

22. Death of a Spaceman - Walter M. Miller

23. Real Talk for Real Teachers - Rafe Esquith

Nothing like a long plane ride (14 hours!!!) to finish a few books I had recently started :)

24. The One World Schoolhouse - Salman Khan

25. The Crying of Lot 49 - Thomas Pynchon

26. I, Iago - Nicole Galland

27. Kurt Vonnegut - A Man Without a Country

28. Multicultural Education - Edited by James A. Banks and Cherry A. McGee Banks

29. City of Truth - James Morrow

30. We Can't Teach What We Don't Know: White Teachers, Multiracial Schools - Gary R. Howard

31. And the Mountains Echoed - Khaled Hosseini

32. The Ten-Minute Inservice: 40 Quick Training Sessions That Build Teacher Effectiveness - Todd Whitaker

33. Man and Master - Leo Tolstoy

34. A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens

Short rest in Thailand = a couple of good books finished while sitting on the beach!

35. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference - Malcolm Gladwell

36. Lord of the Flies - William Golding

37. Dealing with Difficult Teachers - Todd Whitaker

38. Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad

39. International Schools and International Education: Improving Teaching, Management, and Quality - Edited by Mary Hayden and Jeff Thompson

School has started again, which means less reading, more teaching!

40. Ubik - Phillip K. Dick

41. Education and Social Change: Contours in the History of American Schooling

Oh, to the long school year, the 1st term of classes, how demanding you are of my time. Alas, I have still finished but a wee book or two:

42. Yesterday's Gone: Episode 1: by Sean Platt and David Wright

43. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character - Paul Tough

44. The Human Stain - Philip Roth

45. Every Love Story is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace - D.T. Max

46. Building a Better Teacher: How Teaching Works (and How to Teach it to Everyone) - Elizabeth Green

47. American Pastoral - Philip Roth

48. The Martian - Andy Weir