Saturday List: The Latest Reads

This is what I have been reading lately:

1.  Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins.  Of course!! This was the 3rd and final book in the Hunger Games series.  I have loved this series!! I had to read this book fast.  The list of students and friends on the waiting list was long.  I'm going to have to read it again before I can tell you exactly what I think, but I liked the book--even though I wasn't crazy about the ending.

2. The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.  I love this book.  It is set in England and the Channel Islands after WW II.  I have no idea how historically accurate it might be, but it is a great piece of fiction.  All of it is told by letters and telegrams between an author looking for a good story and members of a "reading club" formed after some citizens told a lie to German soldiers to insure their safety. 

3. City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau.  Actually, I have read three of the four books in this series.  One of my sophomores who is new to the district asked if I had read it.  (He knew I had read Hunger Games and loved it.) When I said I hadn't, he brought me his copy from home.  I figured I would read it to bond with one of the new kids in school. We did bond, but I also found a great book for reluctant readers. I ended up reading most of the series.  It is definitely meant for the younger reader, but it is another book about life on earth in America after the breakdown of our society and our world. 

4. Born to Run: A Hidden Tribe, Superathletes, and the Greatest Race the World Has Never Seen by Christopher McDougall.  I always seem to have at least one nonfiction book in the works, and this is the current one.  It is about a tribe in Mexico who are incredible runners.  They can fun for hundreds of miles.  They are incredibly fast and run steep mountain trails barefoot. 

I'm not even halfway through it, but I think I can see where it is headed.  The belief is that man is genetically programmed to run.  We are built to run. The running shoes that we wear do as much damage as they do good.  I've got to finish a couple fiction books that I have on loan so that I can read further into this book.  It is an interesting read.  And I have to wonder if it is behind this latest craze:

K said that most of the "serious" runners at her half marathon wore these.  They are shoes that mimic being barefoot, not doing much except providing some coverage for the bottom of your feet. 

Very interesting. 

And that is what has been going on in the "reading room" on Easy Street.