Book two in my exploration of language.
What I’m Reading Now: The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
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Category Archives: Pop Culture Homework Assignment
What I’m Reading Now: Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman
And thus begins the second half of my Pop Culture Homework Assignment!
What I’m Reading Now: What Language is by John McWhorter
Well Kate is almost finished with her homework assignment so I guess I better get going on mine. Pretty excited to dive into my sister’s world.
What I’m Listening to Now: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
This is my second book in my pop culture homework assignment! And, I’m obsessed with it! I will probably finish it today.
Review: Cryer’s Cross by Lisa McMann
This is the first book for my pop culture homework assignment! And it was so good! Okay, but before I start gushing about how much I like the book, let me tell you about it.
The small town (population: 212) Cryer’s Cross is in the grip of a tragedy. Tiffany Quinn, a sophomore in high school, has disappeared. They search for her but do not find her. The school year ends, the season turns and then the following Fall another student also goes missing. The town once again comes together to search for a missing student. What is going on and why was Nico, the second missing student, distant and forgetful in the days leading up to his disappearance? The story is told from the perspective of Kendall Fletcher, high school student and best friend of Nico. To add to the mystery, the school has two new students, Marlena and Jacian Obrian, who have moved to Cryer’s Cross with their parents to help their grandfather with his farm. The cops interrogated Jacian about Tiffany’s death. Is Jacian involved in the missing persons case or is he just a grumpy high schooler who is pissed that he had to move before his senior year to the middle of nowhere? (Also, maybe the townsfolk just a little bit racist?)
Okay, now to gush about this book. I love Kendall. She is amazing. Much of the plot is driven forward by Kendall’s obsessive-compulsive disorder. I liked that she was portrayed as a whole person and just as a disorder. I also liked that this wasn’t a story about OCD. I also loved Jacian and Marlena. They are amazing characters. Beth and I were discussing it, and Jacian is definitely book boyfriend material.
I enjoyed this book and if you like paranormal horror/mystery, you should try it.
Okay, now for a bit of a spoiler.
What I’m Listening to Now: Cryer’s Cross by Lisa McMann
I’ve started my pop culture homework assignment! So far, this book is creeping me out.
You can check out my progress through this book on our facebook story! Follow us on facebook for that bonus content!
Pop Culture Assignment for Kate: Horror and Suspense
I had a hard time coming up with an assignment for Kate. My originally thought about assigning her first books in four different series but I had a trouble narrowing it down and most of them are series that she would totally have read if she hadn’t been so busy the last couple of years working on PhD. Which kinda defeats the purpose since the assignments are supposed to be of books that we normally wouldn’t read on our own. So I decided on four different standalone horror and suspense novels. All four of these books I enjoyed for different reasons. I think it’s good to have a scare every now and then but also like how genre can comment on social issues without being in your face about it but also to an audience that normally wouldn’t seek out such material on their own. So I’m excited to see how she like them.
I’m starting off Kate with Cryer’s Cross. I would say is kinda of a ghost story. Kendall loves her small town in Montana but she has dreams of going to school in New York. When tragedy strikes and her friends start to go missing, she teams up with the new boy to solve the mystery. Race, mental disorders and small town secrets all come into play in this well written mystery.
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
Holly Black is a master story teller and this is in my opinion one of her best books. She takes the vampire genre to a new level with this one. I have to say it’s right up there with Sunshine by Robin McKinley. Cities have been walled up to quarantine off vampires from the regular populations. Tana wakes up the day after a party to find herself the only survivor of a vampire attack with the vampire and her ex-boyfriend both tied up. She must make the decision to take them to a Coldtown. Depression and the search for fame are also examined as they make their journey.
The Waking Dark by Robin Wasserman
They called it the Killing Day when regular citizens go on a killing spree out of nowhere in a small town in Kansas. Five teenagers from different parts of town are thrown together as they try to survive the night and the mysterious virus goes through the town. Social classes, privilege, abuse all play apart of the narrative as they figure out what’s going on and how they can escape it.
I changed my final book. I originally was going to have Kate read another Holly Black novel but it didn’t really fit the whole horror theme. This one kinda gave me nightmares. So good Luck, Kate. Ry and his mother and sister are trying to save their Iowa farm when a meteorite hits nearby and their past comes back to haunt them. Their abusive father is on the loose and Ry must rely on his old imaginary friends to helped him survive his father before. Can they do it again?
I hope Kate and everyone who chooses to read along will enjoy their Summer of Horror and Suspense.
Pop Culture Homework Assignment for Beth: Language
This summer, I am sharing with Beth something that has been a passion and a profession for me: the study of language. At the end of the month, I will defend my dissertation. If it all goes well, I will have a PhD in linguistics. Language and its study have been a huge part of my life for a long time now, but the details of it haven’t really been something that I have shared with my family. I know that they know what I do, but I worry that they find the discussion of it way too boring. To be honest with you, coming up with this list felt a little self-indulgent and unfair. (So much so that I have a back up assignment, in case she protests and boycotts this one.) But, I love the work that I do and find it exciting, so I have decided to share a little bit of general linguistics with my sister (and anyone who wants to join the challenge!) this summer. The four books I have picked are half non-fiction and half fiction (huge hat-tip is Jessi Grieser on twitter for asking for book suggestions and Gretchen McCulloch for this blog post! It helped me pick the fiction on this list!).
- What Language Is: and What it isn’t and what it could be by John McWhorter
John McWhorter has written a number of pop science on language and I’ve found them to be quite enjoyable. I haven’t read this one, but the reviews suggest that it will be a good introduction to what linguistics is, while also providing some fun trivia about language.
2. Left hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin
I couldn’t resist adding an Ursula K. Le Guin book to the list following our read along last February. Le Guin uses language in interesting ways in this novel. I look forward to hearing Beth’s thoughts on the book, after having read McWhorter’s thoughts on language.
3. The Last Speakers by K. David Harrison
Depending on how you count, there are between roughly 6,000–7,000 languages in the world. For many of them, the possibility that they will still be spoken in one hundred years is slim. This book highlights that and brings attention to speakers of some vanishing languages.
4. Embassytown by China Miéville
Language is at the center of my final selection. Living figures of speech, a unique language humans must be modified to speak. Danger! Catastrophe! Hard choices! So fun. I can’t wait for her to read this.
In fact, I can’t wait to hear what Beth thinks about all of them!
Pop Culture Homework Assignments 2018
Back in 2015, Beth and I decided to do something fun. We decided that, for the summer we would challenge each other to read something outside our comfort zones by each of us assigning the other four books to be read before Labor Day. The books should somehow be thematically linked, but that theme could be anything. Beth assigned me four books by the same author. I assigned Beth four books that had to do, somewhat loosely, with travel. We had a lot of fun that summer, and even did some extra credit work in the form of creating sundaes based on book characters.
And, then, inexplicably, we took two summers off from this fun tradition.
Well, ladles and jelly spoons, we are bringing it back. This year we are once again assigning each other summer reading to be done by Labor Day! Our books will be assigned next week and we will be off to work!
Summer’s End: The Pop Culture Homework Assignment Roundup
Well, folks, It’s Labor Day and summer is over. This has been a really fun summer for us at StacksXLifeX. We challenged each other in June to do a Pop Culture Homework Assignment. We each assigned the other four books that were themed and we gave ourselves the summer to read them. (We, of course, could and did read other things, too!) My theme for Beth was travel. She read Wild by Cheryl Strayed. She then followed it up with Traveling Mercies, 13 Little Blue Envelopes (with the bonus extra credit: The Last Little Blue Envelope!) by Maureen Johnson, and A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson.
Beth assigned me The books of Rainbow Rowell. I’ve been hearing about some of these books for awhile now (in particular, Eleanor and Park) so I was very happy to dive into them. I also read Attachments, Fangirl, and Landline. Plus, we got some bonus posts because, serendipitously, Rainbow Rowell spoke at our parents’ local library while I was visiting home, Eleanor and Park inspired a playlist and Fangirl inspired a dessert.
We enjoyed this challenge enormously. It has been so fun to read books outside of our normal fare and to discuss those books with each other and you. We hope that you have enjoyed the posts and this summer. School is back in session, the leaves will be changing soon and before we know it, everyone will be doing year-end reviews.
So, tell us in the comments: What were your favorite books this summer?
2 Women, So Many Books 