Unasked-For Book Reviews

 9/18/2023 Lessons In Chemistry , By Bonnie Garmus is my latest read.   I finished listening to this book this morning on my ride to work. It's a book that is scheduled to be released on Apple+ as a limited series on October 13, 2023.  I am both very excites and very upset about this.  Excited because the trailer looks really good and true to the book, the cast is great, and the book was excellent.  Very upset because I do not have an Apple+ subscription. Lessons In Chemistry is a novel about the character Elizabeth Zott.  Elizabeth Zott is a scientist.  The problem is, she's a scientist in the 1950s/1960s, when the novel takes place. For those who's heads have been in the sand, life was infinitely worse for women in the 1950s and 60s.  Career related opportunities that allowed for upward mobility and an upward trajectory were scarce, as were the types of careers women were "allowed" to have.  As challenging as it is to be a woman today,...

 Learning America: One Woman's Fight for Educational Justice for Refugee Children, by Luma Mufleh I saw and heard Luma Mufleh speak at SXSW EDU in March of 2023.  She was a keynote speaker, but I didn't know anything about her.  She started off her keynote speaking Arabic to the audience.  Turned out she was teaching a simple math problem in Arabic.  When she switched to English, she mentioned that this is how thousands of refugee children in schools across the U.S. feel every day.  I sat up, and really started to listen. When Ms. Mufleh was done with her keynote I was thinking differently; about education and effective teaching practices.  It was a transformative talk.  I wasn't the only one who thought so.  The talk ended at around 10am.  By the time I found my way to the conference bookstore at around 11:30am, her book was sold out.  I had to order it through the bookstore's online shop. My only regret about this book is that I ...