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I don't do that many home school conferences these days, so it's a special occasion when I do! If you're nearby, come visit. And also, note that I'll be in Fresno, California July 11-13th (centralvalleyhomeschoolconventions.com/)--more details coming shortly.
1 day ago
Fresno, not Frisco, unless I’m completely misinformed. I’m planning to go see you there! I heard you speak 8 years ago and you’ve influenced a lot of my homeschooling choices. My kids are all currently enrolled in writing classes in WTMA, and we’ve used many of your resources every year.
My husband and I were privileged to hear you speak in Texas TWICE in the early years. Enlightening. We were impressed by your mastery and humility. Folks, go get the BIG picture with so many LITTLE details that are hard to catch by reading TWTM. Be encouraged that you can do this!
Finally! I heard you in NVA 16 years ago when I first started homeschooling! I still use your materials!
Seeing you in Northern California about 12 years ago was one of my homeschool highlights. I often think back to the maxed out room where my friend and I sat on the floor just to hear you. Your talks were always helpful, on point, and totally applicable. Thanks for speaking to homeschoolers, we need the encouragement and hindsight.
I'm already there setting up my tent now. I'm a semester away from being a certified K-5 teacher and I staunchly support public education as an institution. Student-centeredness is something everyone needs to work on (including some homeschoolers) and I like to hear people's views on how we're doing. I imagine I can find an opinion or two there, even if I have to smile and bite my tongue a few times 😛
I live not far from where this will be but had not been planning to go. Now that I know you’ll be there...well, guess I have to go! Your work has been the constant in our homeschool! I’ve always wanted to meet you! 🤞
I am so happy about this!
Would love the California details when you have them!
Please come to Southern California! We really miss you at the conventions in this area.
Come up to the midwest!!!
Come to Texas!!!! Pleeeease? 💖
Lucky them!
Here's an interesting follow-up to a post I put up a month or two ago about whether or not audiobooks are "reading"--together with a fascinating survey of the history of audiobooks, AND a warning about Audible's growing monopoly. Well worth reading. And here's the quote I want to highlight...it comes towards the end.
"Nowhere in this piece have I used the word listening or consuming to describe what we do with audiobooks. Some will quibble with this—I have perused the comments sections of essays I’ve written about reading with my ears. To those who are protective of the verb to read, I ask what is gained by insisting on the distinction? If a quarterback can read a defense and a computer can read a file, it doesn’t seem like a leap to call 10 or 20 hours of processing words that happen to enter our brains through the ears reading.
"To put it another way, responding to the question of whether audiobooks count as reading, author and book critic for Slate Laura Miller replied via email, 'What does ‘count’ mean? Who is counting? We’re not in school and completing assignments anymore. If the point of reading is to enjoy it and you’re enjoying it, why would anything be lacking?'
"For millennia, until Johannes Gutenberg’s marvelous invention, most stories were shared orally. No one I’ve spoken to believes print will ever be replaced, but a new, old-fashioned method is allowing written words to reach larger audiences....Today, as a result of increased access, we are finally asking the most important question about audiobooks: What are you reading?"
lithub.com/audiobooks-the-past-present-and-future-of-another-way-to-read/
Audiobooks: The Past, Present, and Future of Another Way to Read
lithub.com
The Past In the early 1990s, the books on tape section of our public library comprised a spinning rack much smaller than the one 7-Eleven used for comic books. Titles like Zig Ziglar’s Secrets of C…2 days ago
I love Audible, their customer service is wonderful. I’m ok with the “monopoly” and hope that should they cease operations, all books will automatically be mine to share IF fully downloaded. As a busy Mom, cooking, laundry and commuting now have companion books and particularly Great Courses! All the wonderful classes I never took in college though many parallel those I did. All those Classics I wanted to read but had a hard time sitting for...Crime and Punishment, I’m talking about you! Books, regardless of how consumed, are valuable as entertainment, information or education and the better the accessibility, the higher the consumption which makes us humans better people.
My family loves audiobooks. It's a wonderful way for my children and I to share books together when we're driving around in the car. Our memories of listening to books together are as rich, if not more so, as the memories of our read aloud times together.
With my son's recent dyslexia diagnosis we are learning to embrace "ear reading" as absolutely equal to "eye reading." Thank you for sharing!
We love spending our time in the car with audiobooks!
My children (12,12,10) have loved listening to audiobooks for years. They listen to one every night at bedtime. I have gotten them to listen to books that they would never read on their own. I love how the voices can add another dimension to reading!
Interesting article- thanks for sharing. I will be checking out more from Libro.FM and Talking Book.
Yes! Also, how is it respectful or accurate to tell a blind or otherwise vision impaired person, that they are not really reading an audiobook? Why are we idolizing the sense of sight? If I read Braille, read by listening to an audiobook, read very large type on a screen, or even if I had someone hand sign to me like Helen Keller, I'm the one processing the words. I often say my son and I have read this or that book when I read it to him.
My son “read” over 150 books on naval history, submarines, battles, and leadership while preparing to be an officer. He did while exercising or doing chores. It was fascinating to have him give me his summary...reminded me of our homeschool days. Thankfully he’s learned to summarize well! Grateful for TWTM!
I am always perplexed when I meet Harry Potter lovers who *haven’t* listened to the books, read by Stephen Fry or Jim Dale (or both!). I find audiobooks to be a fantastic way to interact with Story, sometimes even more powerfully than written word. I have added audiobook reading to my daily routine. I am productive, and the time passes swiftly. Latest read was The Almost Sisters, by Joshilyn Jackson, performed by the author. Spellbinding!
Great article. Just for fun, I had Siri read it to me. 🙂
I love audiobooks, but two confessions: 1) the performer's interpretation clearly affects my understanding of the work (usually this is all for the good), and 2) I usually don't have the same level of attention listening as I would when reading. Listening CAN be as focused as regular reading (especially with Kindle/Audible immersion, where the written text highlights as the performer reads, which is AMAZING), but often I let myself listen in a mode like Mortomer Adler's "inspectional reading." This let's me cover a LOT more ground and come back to things that I decide merit closer attention.
Whilst I have a deep love of books, paper books, audiobooks have their place. Personally not a day goes by I don't listen, I even have two of your books (both on paper and audio) that I occasionally listen to, to sleep. I find audio far better for dropping off to than a paper book and I get through a fair chunk through doing audio every night.
I am curious to know if the rise in popularity of audiobooks and extended length podcasts is doing anything to improve the average adult attention span.
Why does it “count” when we read to our kids, but not if a narrator reads to us?😊
I think this calls for a WTM audiobook sale! 😉
If you really wanted to make things interesting, you could also talk about reading by touch with braille vs. reading by sight with the eyes, vs. reading by sound with the ears.
As a full time working mom with four kids - I wouldn’t “read” unless it was for audio books!!
Taryn Kingery
I lovvvvvvveeeeee this
I'm not going to lie, people, I've never seen a single episode of Game of Thrones. (Which, as a friend of mine observed over on Twitter, makes you feel weirdly isolated on a day like this.)
I DID read the first book of the series, but, 700 pages on, wasn't necessarily inspired to keep on.
But that's just me, and I'm a fan of epic fantasy generally, so...what do you think of these suggestions? and do you have more?
lithub.com/6-epic-fantasy-series-to-fill-the-dragon-shaped-hole-in-your-life/
6 Epic Fantasy Series to Fill the Dragon-Shaped Hole in Your Life
lithub.com
Well, that’s it, friends. Game of Thrones is over. (A Song of Ice and Fire is not over, but much fewer people care about that.) You laughed, you cried, you cringed (or cheered) at all the exc…3 days ago
I just read the first book in the Heralds of Valdemar series based on this article and wow was it bad. I feel like I’m a pretty forgiving reader and especially for fantasy books, if I don’t love them I at least enjoy them. But this book was bad.
I did enjoy the series (the BOOKS) and I’m quite annoyed that he hasn’t even finished it and now there are all these spoilers because of the show. Boo.
I did enjoy the series (the BOOKS) and I’m quite annoyed that he hasn’t even finished it and now there are all these spoilers because of the show. Boo.
Oh please.... The Dragon Lance saga is the second most read fantasy saga behind LOTR.... And it had a 40 year head start.
No dragons, but airships 😁. Best fantasy story I read last year was Katherine Addison's The Goblin Emperor. Hope there are more coming!
I tried the books years ago (before the show came out) but gave up after one and a half. I found the story too sprawling and I lost motivation and gave up. But my husband and and I have just binge watched all of the TV show in five weeks (loved it, there is a reason it has captivated the world), which has motivated me to return to the books. I find them easier going now that I have a handle on the numerous characters and general arc of the plot, and I'm enjoying the added depth of the books. (The books are always better right.) For other epic fantasy series, I really love the Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn series by Tad Williams. And the article mentions Naomi Novik. I haven't read her Temeraire series yet, but her two stand alone novels are the best books I've read this year. I've not read any of the others on this list either.
I do have to say that several fantastic story lines in the books and the show were borrowed (in a nice way) from actual history, I know this having read your wonderful books.
The Kushiel legacy books are fantastic. Jacqueline Carey has created a fantastic world. I absolutely adored this series.
I started reading the book, but we finally did a free two week trial of hbo on demand....it took about 3-4 episodes, but I’m hooked! I think it’s all the character arcs. There are a few ‘jump the shark moments’ where I considered not wasting my time with more, but we’re watching a couple a week now and it’s perfect, introvert, late-night date-night for my husband and I 😉
Terry Pratchett's "DiscWorld" is a huge conglomeration of magic, wizards, witches, trolls, Death, great humor, fantastic insights: immensely satirical, hugely fun.
The Robing Hobbs books are very good. I like a good fantasy epic and I found the Assassin’s Apprentice very accessible. The trilogy format is nice because it doesn’t allow things to get too drawn out and complicated. There are several trilogies within this world and time period if you enjoy the first set. Not listed, but I would also recommend The Wheel of Time series (11 books so it does get complex but it starts out simple enough and gradually expands so the reader doesn’t get lost), The Wizards First Rule, and The Green Rider.
Game of thrones was too much like Dickens meets Tolkien in a dirty toilet. Nothing missed.
Haven’t watched GOT but absolutely devoured the Inheritance Cycle book series by Christopher Paolini.
Love Robin Hobb and enjoyed Samantha Shannon's Priory. Valdemar gets repetitive after awhile, then predictable. Haven't read the others. Read GoT first couple books but all my favorite characters died and it got so depraved that I just lost my taste for it. Never wanted to try the series.
For grittier fiction, I like The Black Company books by Glen Campbell (I may be spelling that wrong). I second the Robin Hobb Assassin's trilogies, particularly the first set. I also like Gene Wolf. For brainless fun, I love the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher. I tend to dislike the Epic Fantasy series which look like romance novels in disguise (which would be almost half of the books in the article). I'm just not a fan of romance novels.
I have been reading the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, maybe not as long as GoT but more bloody. Truth is wilder than fiction. I could not make it through book one of GoT or the series. Might give it another try.
David Eddings' 5 book series The Belgariad is fun and family-friendly. My old paperbacks have been so well-worn I just bought some new ones to reread. It's more light-hearted than the Wheel of Time (I can't speak for GOT because I never got very far in it) but still has the feel of epic adventure.
I love fantasy and never leave a book unfinished. Well, almost never. That first book just wasn’t my thing. And we tried to watch the show and gave up after 3 episodes!
I don’t know about those but Anne McCaffrey had some great books in the 80s. Dragonriders of Pern
Brandon Sanderson writes excellent fantasy.
I watched the first season - couldn't believe the way it ended. Read the first book just to affirm the truth. I fell back into watching it after it became such a cultural phenomenon (I feel this is one of my weaknesses) but never loved it. The final episode was like an ex-spouse finally leaving after two years of turmoil.
Too soon. I loved GoT, I need to be alone with my grief for awhile before I can move on to another series... 😁
This is my exact experience, although I did not make it to 700 pages. It is one of the rare books I have never finished. And I read a lot of my husband's fantasy recommendations. He really likes Robin Hobb!
Feel less lonely, that is my situation also, I have never seen an episode, but I bought the first book but left it halfway and I haven't got back to reading it, probably what ruined it for me were comparisons with Tolkien's books and was a bit disappointed when I found that it was a bit careless in the construction of the world, also it wasn't as good in the use of language, Tolkien was linguist, before a fantasy writer, his books are for me an achievement in reading a language that is not my native one. The Game of Thrones series seemed to have more convoluted human relations, maybe attempting to make them more realistic, but failed with me to create affection to characters, except for Ned Starks family, and particularly him, but at the time I was reading I already had learned the fate of Ned Stark, so that was a blow, should have known since it was played by Sean Bean. Right now I have my sights set on reading the series His Dark Materials, and The Chronicles of Prydain, but first I need to finish The Neapolitan Novels of Elena Ferrante, and Thinking Fast and Slow, The Guns of August, and some Paddington books.
Ditto everything you said. I have not seen a single episode and after all the moaning today I'm pretty sure I never will. And I also love Epic Fantasy
