Welcome to the Back to School Reading Challenge and Wednesday Book Club! We’re reading books to learn new things.

You’re welcome to join us! The challenge runs until September 30 so there’s still time to participate.

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We had two book reviews and one reading update last week.
The Professor and The Madman- Simon Winchester at Melos bookshelf:

It is amazing to think what a formidable task writing the first comprehensive dictionary really was and how interesting it was to read about the time, effort, and energy expended to make it happen.

Review ~ Revelations of a Spirit Medium at The Writerly Reader:

Originally published in 1891, Revelations of a Spirit Medium is an expose of seance techniques of that era by a former medium. It was first published anonymously, but by 1922 was attributed to Elijah Farrington.

Harvee at Book Dilettante started two books: Nonfiction Books: Old Man River; Good Prose

I requested this new book from the publisher as my husband and I have both had a love for this river through the books, the songs and music, and the movies made about it.

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My Update

I finished our Read Along book, How Children Succeed by Paul Tough and really enjoyed it. I’ll write more about that in a separate post so anyone who is reading it can join the discussion.

I started Clean by David Sheff and I’m amazed how great of a book it is to follow How Children Succeed. I don’t recall that Tough talked much about drugs, but it’s pretty obvious that kids running into the problems discussed in Clean are going to have a hard time succeeding.

Your Update

What are you reading and learning right now? Link up reviews and update posts below so we can all visit. Or, discuss in the comments.