100 books like The Priority List

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.” 

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… show more.

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. 

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.

I’ve never read anything remotely like this book.

It’s a painfully difficult but beautifully poetic read about an Irish girl from a miserably dysfunctional family with a difficult, abusive, ranting mother and a disabled older brother. After she is sexually abused by her uncle, the girl allows herself to be used by the boys at school and begins a series of loveless encounters, as if determined to prove how worthless she is. At college, she continues her career of joyless, destructive promiscuity.

The book is steeped in guilt and shame, redeemed only by the depictions of pure love she has for her brother. Like a poem or a lyrical poetry performance, the novel does truly incredible things with language.

This might seem like a strange book to include in a list that has a touch of magic, but in many ways this book sparked my first novel. I am a firm believer that women can (and should) do whatever they want. I also accept that there are differences between men and women based on things like brain structure and biology. These differences are not limitations, but rather things to celebrate. 

As I read, I began to ask questions. What if women have more access to their brain’s abilities than men? What if our connection with creative power were seen as more important than physical strength? My characters became my answers. That, in itself, is magic—because magic is simply answering the question “what if,” with “anything is possible.”