Here are 100 books that The Priority List fans have personally recommended if you like
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I taught teenagers and young adults for 40 years. During these years, I always thought about what I could use to make my classroom an exciting place for learning. I would hear a new song about loneliness that I wanted to share with my students. Or I would think of a prompt they would laugh about in notebook writing. Too often, we take the dedication teachers give to their students for granted. I hope you enjoy the books on this list as much as I have and make you remember again a special teacher in your life who gave his/her all, and if you’re a teacher, here’s to you!
I adored this book. I think every teacher should be given this book just to feel that although you might shut the door to the outside and be alone in the classroom with your students, you are not alone in what you face. This book convinced me that I needed to write my own teaching memoir.
McCourt (author of Angela’s Ashes) and his sense of humor and creativity at times get him into trouble but eventually endear him not only to the students but also to the school administration. I might not have agreed with everything he described, but I was overwhelmingly delighted with his approach and his great rapport with his students.
Nearly a decade ago Frank McCourt became an unlikely star when, at the age of sixty-six, he burst onto the literary scene with Angela's Ashes, the Pulitzer Prize -- winning memoir of his childhood in Limerick, Ireland. Then came 'Tis, his glorious account of his early years in New York.
Now, here at last, is McCourt's long-awaited book about how his thirty-year teaching career shaped his second act as a writer. Teacher Man is also an urgent tribute to teachers everywhere. In bold and spirited prose featuring his irreverent wit and heartbreaking honesty, McCourt records the trials, triumphs and surprises…
For almost 20 years, I worked in public and private schools, first teaching with the Peace Corps in Niger and finally in a public high school in New Jersey. For a while, I didn’t feel I knew how to teach. I struggled to reach American teens. I thought they had attitude—and were nasty and lazy. I didn’t want to be in the classroom. But then matters turned around and I began to see how I could make a difference in their lives, enjoying the time I spent with them, and shaping them into decent, hardworking types. And, in the process, they all learned some French—and respected me.
This book gave me hope that I could teach with practical tips on how to engage students, keep a lesson going at a decent pace, and discipline teens.
I learned the benefits of praising students, setting high expectations, and having fun in class. It made me aware of the importance of education equity in America.
Teach Like a Champion offers effective teaching techniquesto help teachers, especially those in their first few years, becomechampions in the classroom. These powerful techniques are concrete,specific, and are easy to put into action the very next day.Training activities at the end of each chapter help the readerfurther their understanding through reflection and application ofthe ideas to their own practice. Among the techniques: * Technique #1: No Opt Out. How to move students from theblank stare or stubborn shrug to giving the right answer everytime. * Technique #35: Do It Again. When students fail tosuccessfully complete a basic task from entering…
For almost 20 years, I worked in public and private schools, first teaching with the Peace Corps in Niger and finally in a public high school in New Jersey. For a while, I didn’t feel I knew how to teach. I struggled to reach American teens. I thought they had attitude—and were nasty and lazy. I didn’t want to be in the classroom. But then matters turned around and I began to see how I could make a difference in their lives, enjoying the time I spent with them, and shaping them into decent, hardworking types. And, in the process, they all learned some French—and respected me.
I enjoyed reading about an American teacher who spends a year teaching in a middle school in France.
She brings her husband with her, leaving behind a stable, well-established life in America, and views this an adventure. The struggles she faces as she realizes that living in a foreign country is much less romantic than she anticipated. It made me remember how I too found it tough living overseas as I adjusted to new cultures and learned new langauges.
I appreciated how she compared American culture with the French one, and how she let me know about her friendships with colleagues at her new school. I related to how she mastered thriving in a foreign culture, embracing the unknown, and understanding that the mysteries she uncovered were magical.
Jacqueline Donnelly recounts with humor her ex-pat life teaching English in a middle school in Bordeaux, France. Hoping to escape her predictable American life in the States, she runs away in search of adventure and self-discovery.The story reveals daily life in France, and the encounters with wonderful and not so wonderful characters along the way.It is perfect reading for anyone tempted to run away and ideal for a book club.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
For almost 20 years, I worked in public and private schools, first teaching with the Peace Corps in Niger and finally in a public high school in New Jersey. For a while, I didn’t feel I knew how to teach. I struggled to reach American teens. I thought they had attitude—and were nasty and lazy. I didn’t want to be in the classroom. But then matters turned around and I began to see how I could make a difference in their lives, enjoying the time I spent with them, and shaping them into decent, hardworking types. And, in the process, they all learned some French—and respected me.
I understood that it’s okay to smile in class before Christmas, which holiday gifts teachers really want, and that faculty meetings can be long and dry in other schools. The book gave me insight into one person’s experiences in a school, which sometimes I related to and other times, I didn’t.
This hilarious and candid collection of personal essays about teaching follows in the footsteps of such classics as Teach Like Your Hair’s on Fire, The Courage to Teach, and Up the Down Staircase. “Send this book to your favorite teacher. They’ll know you’re sucking up. They’ll thank you anyway” (People).
Shannon Reed did not want to be a teacher, but now, after twenty years of working with children from preschool to college, there’s nothing she’d rather be. “With an irresistible combination of compassion, humor, and engaged storytelling” (Shelf Awareness), her essays illuminate the highs and lows of a job located…
I’ve worked in journalism, politics, and public policy for 30-plus years and watched as the extreme voices gained the most traction on either side of a debate. On social media, these minority views often dominate the discussion. 48 States is a stand-alone novel highlighting the problems of extremist viewpoints in a civil society. I also have another book series that features a political consultant who discovers she's a witch and joins a secret society that uses magic to manipulate elections to protect humanity. Bottom line: if I can’t fix political discourse for a living, I can write science fiction novels that contemplate how to do it.
What drew me into this series was the first book, The Dragon of New Orleans, where a desperate dragon who has been hexed saves a woman who is terminally ill by giving her his tooth. She turns out to be a powerful witch who is unaware of her powers until they are awakened by the dragon’s magic. I loved the self-discovery that takes place and how as her powers grow she used them to protect her lover. The rest of the series brings in other dragon siblings as well as human and vampire characters in adventures that span several states and another dimension. I have a few more to read.
A cursed dragon shifter, a terminal cancer patient, and a magical bond that promises to save them both... if they don't kill each other first.
2020 RONE award winner BEST PARANORMAL ROMANCE LONG 2020 Independent Publisher Book Award for BEST ROMANCE E-BOOK
New Orleans: city of intrigue, supernatural secrets, and one enigmatic dragon.
A deadly curse...
For 300 years, Gabriel Blakemore has survived in New Orleans after a coup in his native realm of Paragon scattered him and his dragon siblings across the globe. Now a jealous suitor's voodoo curse threatens to end his immortal existence. His only hope is…
When I had multiple miscarriages in my late 20’s, I found I had no idea how to handle my grief. I didn’t even recognize I was grieving. A few years later when my husband died I was thrust into grief and a life I had never wanted. It took me months to learn how to survive, and a lot longer to find the resources I needed to live a happy life despite my loss. Finding resources that would help became important to me, and a handful of books have stayed with me long after I read them. I hope these books help you as much as they helped me.
Did you know that it's ok to laugh when you are grieving? Did you know it's ok to cry when you are grieving? I didn't. I thought I had to be strong. I thought I had to behave properly and seriously or else people would assume I didn't really love the people I had lost. Guess what? That's complete nonsense. With grief, your emotions are all over the place, often at the same time, and that's ok. It's Okay to Laugh: (Crying Is Cool Too) is an amazing book that really helps you recognize that your emotions are not mutually exclusive. In sharing (and laughing) about her own experiences, the author really helped me give myself permission to feel my feelings. To feel happy and sad, sometimes at the same time, and to know that whatever I feel in my grief, it's ok. This book often left me laughing out…
'This story will compel you to both laugh and cry, just as the title promises. May we all bring Nora's honesty, passion and hope to our lives' Lena Dunham This isn't a cancer story. It's a love story. Twenty-something Nora bounced from boyfriend to dopey 'boyfriend' until she met Aaron - a charismatic art director and comic-book nerd who made her laugh. When Aaron was diagnosed with a rare form of brain cancer, they refused to let it limit their love. They got engaged on Aaron's hospital bed and had a baby boy while he was on chemo. In the…
We all want peace. We all want a life of joy and meaning. We want to feel blissfully comfortable in our own skin, moving through the world with grace and ease. But how many of us are actively taking the steps to create such a life?
I am a novelist, a journalist, a humanist celebrant, and coauthor with my husband of the best-selling Nicci French thrillers. Witnessing my father’s dementia and his slow-motion dying radically transformed the way I think about what it is to be human. In 2014, I founded John’s Campaign which seeks to make the care of those who are vulnerable and powerless more compassionate, and which is now a national movement in the UK. In 2016, I won the Orwell Prize for Journalism for ‘exposing Britain’s social evils' in the pieces I wrote exploring the nature of dementia.
This stunning memoir is the author’s recollection of the time between her husband’s diagnosis of a brain tumour that robbed him of language, and his death aged fifty-three. Time runs out for them very quickly. Sometimes the experience of tending to him is stupendously painful and hard (she is a mother of a small child as well as a wife to a dying man). Sometimes it is oddly peaceful. Every so often there are moments of euphoria. Always there is thought, imagination, empathy, care, and love. Above all, love.
In 2008 the art critic Tom Lubbock was diagnosed with a brain tumour. The tumour was located in the area controlling speech and language, and would eventually rob him of the ability to speak. He died early in 2011. Marion Coutts was his wife.
In short bursts of beautiful, textured prose, Coutts describes the eighteen months leading up to her partner's death. This book is an account of a family unit, man, woman, young child, under assault, and how the three of them fought to keep it intact.
Written with extraordinary narrative force and power, The Iceberg is almost shocking…
During my medical career, specializing as a psychiatrist in a cancer hospital in England, I observed huge variations in the way patients respond to the diagnosis of physical disease. Some become overwhelmed by distress, some carry on just as before, but others make positive and creative changes that are inspiring to witness. Coping can be especially challenging and complex for clinicians who find themselves in the role of patient. My five chosen books are all written by doctors and illustrate how the illness experience has shaped their lives. Now retired from medicine, I am based in New Zealand, and I have interests in writing, choral singing, and animal welfare.
I found this a distressing but compelling read that made me reflect on my own life and mortality. Being a retired doctor myself, I know that healthcare professionals often delay seeking help for their own medical problems and can feel disconcerted and even humiliated when cast into the role of patient.
In this brutally honest account of his transition from famous surgeon to “just another old man with prostate cancer,” Henry Marsh combines a factual account of his illness and treatment with heartfelt ruminations about the prospect of dying. The text is interwoven with recollections of his career as a neurosurgeon in the UK and Ukraine, more fully described in his previous books “Do No Harm” and “Admissions.”
From the No.1 bestselling author of Do No Harm, an entrancing and uplifting meditation on the gift of life.
'A book to treasure and reread' Gavin Francis, author of Adventures in Human Being
As a retired brain surgeon, Henry Marsh thought he understood illness, but even he was unprepared for the impact of his diagnosis of advanced cancer.
In And Finally, he navigates the bewildering transition from doctor to patient. As the days pass, his mind turns to his career, to the people and places he has known, and to creative projects still to be completed.
David Millett is a digital artist. He is an accomplished author, filmmaker, and producer of paper and eBooks. He loves writing, painting, filmmaking, composing, and performing music.
This book is a joyous exploration of the mind and its thrilling complexities. It will excite anyone interested in cutting-edge science and technology and the vast philosophical, personal, and ethical implications of finally quantifying what consciousness is. How does our brain generate conscious thoughts? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before.
From the acclaimed author of Reading in the Brain and How We Learn, a breathtaking look at the new science that can track consciousness deep in the brain
How does our brain generate a conscious thought? And why does so much of our knowledge remain unconscious? Thanks to clever psychological and brain-imaging experiments, scientists are closer to cracking this mystery than ever before.
In this lively book, Stanislas Dehaene describes the pioneering work his lab and the labs of other cognitive neuroscientists worldwide have accomplished in defining, testing, and explaining the brain events behind…
Coma and Near-Death Experience
by
Alan Pearce,
Beverley Pearce,
What happens when a person is placed into a medically-induced coma?
The brain might be flatlining, but the mind is far from inactive: experiencing alternate lives rich in every detail that spans decades, visiting realms of stunning and majestic beauty, or plummeting to the very depths of Hell while defying…
I am a neuroscientist and author who wants to help people break the mold and become the best possible versions of themselves. While working with people, I noticed that many repeated things like "I could never," "I am just wired this way," and “I am not good enough.” Even worse, they're holding onto a statement that was said to them in their formative years, which has dictated their trajectory as people. I want you to know that your brains can change…at any age! You can exhume your best traits and break the cycle of the habits and behaviors holding you back.
This is an amazing book that shows just how far we can go when it comes to changing the neural networks in our brains. It helped me understand the mechanisms involved in wanting to change some deep-rooted beliefs.
Doige writes about some of the most extraordinary cases of stroke patients rewiring their brains for functionality after their strokes. The brain is remarkable, and it can change if we so wish it to.
An astonishing new science called neuroplasticity is overthrowing the centuries-old notion that the human brain is immutable. Psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Norman Doidge, M.D., traveled the country to meet both the brilliant scientists championing neuroplasticity and the people whose lives they've transformed-people whose mental limitations or brain damage were seen as unalterable. We see a woman born with half a brain that rewired itself to work as a whole, blind people who learn to see, learning disorders cured, IQs raised, aging brains rejuvenated, stroke patients learning to speak, children with cerebral palsy learning to move with more grace, depression and anxiety…
