Blog Archives
Class Is In Session: Teaching Through the Chaos
Shantel N. Patt’s Class Is In Session: Teaching Through the Chaos is a plainspoken and deeply felt account of what it means to teach in conditions that are equal parts absurd, exhausting, and sacred. Framed through vivid classroom stories and direct reflections, the book moves through student behavior, bad professional development, overcrowded classrooms, burnout, parent communication, and the quiet moral labor of showing up for children who are often carrying far more than the adults around them realize. What stayed with me most was its insistence that the real work of teaching lives beyond data and policy, in the daily choice to keep seeing the child in front of you, whether that means understanding the “wild” student because you once were that child, celebrating a small win on the “Wins Wall,” or remembering that a kid may be acting out because they’re hungry, ashamed, tired, or simply aching to be noticed.
What I admired most about the book was its candor. Patt doesn’t write like someone trying to polish the profession into something tidy and inspirational. She writes like someone who has stood at a jammed copy machine with her forehead nearly against the lid, breathed through the moment, and gone back in anyway. That honesty gives the book its pulse. I found myself especially moved by the way she links discipline to memory and mercy. Her recollection of being a volatile, misunderstood student herself becomes the emotional foundation for a teaching philosophy built on empathy without softness, on boundaries without cruelty. There’s a tough warmth in that, and it feels earned. Even the funniest bits, like the student sniffing her armpits on picture day or the accidental saving grace of Kesha on the drive to work, don’t just land as comic relief. They reveal humor as a survival tool, almost a form of spiritual stamina.
Its writing has energy, personality, and a real voice. The book’s authority comes less from polish than from proximity. Patt knows the texture of this life. She knows what it means to have too many students in one room, to see a child’s file say “problem” while your own instincts tell you something gentler and truer, to want to save everybody and learn, painfully, that you can’t. She’s not pretending better lesson plans can fix structural neglect. Her best argument, quietly threaded through the whole book, is that schools ask teachers to carry impossible weight and then act surprised when they break. That idea feels personal rather than theoretical, and that gives it force.
I found this book affecting, relatable, and convincing. It reads like a seasoned educator telling the truth in a voice sharpened by fatigue, faith, humor, and hard-won tenderness. I came away feeling that Patt understands something many books on education miss: children do not only need instruction, and teachers do not only need strategy. They need dignity, steadiness, and the feeling that someone is still willing to believe in them when the system has reduced them to numbers. I’d recommend this book especially to classroom teachers, paraprofessionals, school leaders who want to remember what the work actually feels like on the ground, and even parents who need a clearer view of the invisible emotional architecture of a school day.
Pages: 81 | ASIN : B0GJFVGGK1
How Not to Up and Die from Lack of Sleep: A Doctor’s Guide to Better Sleep That Boosts Your Energy, Reverses Exhaustion & Restores Your Health
How Not to Up and Die from Lack of Sleep is a broad and practical guide to sleep that blends memoir, popular science, and self-help in a way that feels authentic. Author Jerome Puryear structures it in four parts, moving from the biology of sleep and the mechanics of common disorders into the punishing realities of shift work, then out toward treatment options, wind-down practices, supplements, sleep tech, and even AI-assisted care. The central argument is simple but forceful: sleep isn’t a decorative wellness habit, it’s foundational, and modern life has made casualties of far more people than we like to admit. That idea lands because he keeps returning to concrete human scenes, from his own season of new-parent exhaustion and predawn drives while fighting microsleeps, to later discussions of insomnia, apnea, caffeine, burnout, and the stubborn fantasy that we can “catch up later.”
Puryear writes like someone who has both treated exhaustion and been humiliated by it, and that gives the book a warmth a more clinical manual might never earn. I especially liked the way he threads a humane idea through the whole thing: that many of us are, in effect, “circadian shift workers” now, even if we don’t clock in at midnight. That reframing is smart, and it opens the book up beyond nurses, residents, and first responders to the ordinary overextended reader staring into a phone at 12:47 a.m. Some of his best passages arrive when he steps back from raw advice and notices the culture around sleep, like the historical section on segmented sleep and the sharp observations about hustle culture teaching people to wear deprivation like a medal. Those moments give the book texture and keep it from becoming just another optimization handbook.
Its great strength is range. That range makes it read more like an all-in compendium. The transitions from deeply personal material to reference-style sections on medications, cannabis compounds, supplements, devices, and AI can be quick. Still, I liked that he doesn’t romanticize “natural” solutions or demonize technology outright. A body scan, progressive muscle relaxation, and a quieter bedroom sit beside CPAP data, virtual assessments, and AI tools such as predictive sleep-stage models, which gives the book a welcome intellectual balance. I appreciated that the governing instinct is practical rather than trendy. He wants readers to build a durable life around sleep, not chase one magical fix.
I found this an earnest, useful, and surprisingly friendly book, one that is at its best when its science is lit from within by fatigue, humility, and hard-earned conviction. I’d recommend it especially to people who are exhausted enough to feel slightly estranged from themselves, along with shift workers, new parents, busy professionals, and readers who want a sleep book that acknowledges both physiology and the emotional loneliness of being worn thin. This is a book for people who don’t need sleep romanticized. They need it restored to its rightful dignity.
Pages: 350
Introduction to Offshore Wind Industry
Paul Gorman’s Introduction to Offshore Wind Industry is a comprehensive and practical guide to the nuts and bolts of offshore wind energy development. It covers everything from foundation types, turbine components, cable installations, and vessel logistics to floating wind technology and maintenance. With a step-by-step, almost manual-like approach, alongside photos, Gorman walks the reader through the industry’s terminology, technical processes, and evolving technologies. The book contains a lot of pictures, diagrams, and real-world examples, clearly aimed at readers entering or working within the sector.
Reading this book felt like being given a private tour by a seasoned field engineer who’s seen it all. There’s a rugged, no-frills honesty to the writing that I appreciated. The explanations are straightforward and unpolished, which makes them easy to follow even when the subject matter gets complex. What stood out most to me was how grounded and realistic the content is—Gorman doesn’t sugarcoat the risks, delays, or technical issues that come with offshore wind. It feels like it was written by someone who actually installs turbines, not someone just writing about them.
The book is loaded with facts, and sometimes reads more like a training manual than a narrative. For what it is—a ground-level, nuts-and-bolts overview—it’s hard to beat. It serves a specific purpose very well: educating and preparing workers and professionals for the gritty, hands-on reality of the offshore wind sector.
If you’re brand new to offshore wind or switching over from oil and gas, this book is gold. It’s perfect for technicians, project managers, logistics planners, or anyone who’s found themselves asking, “Wait, how does this actually work?” This book’s not here to preach, it’s here to get the job done. And for that, I’d say it nails it.
Pages: 71
A Society Divided By Technology
Christine Z. Miller Author Interview
Tools, Totems, and Totalities is a striking and expansive critique of modern technology and its pervasive role in shaping culture, institutions, and identities. Why was this an important book for you to write?
To bring together a society that has been divided by technology.
What is a common misconception you feel people have about how technologies impact culture and individuals’ identities?
We feel that we are the masters of the technology, when in fact we are enslaved by it.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
First, that “technology” is not a human universal, but rather is a specific creation of the industrial revolution, and second that “technology,” like industrialization generally, has its pluses and minuses.
What is one thing that you hope readers take away from Tools, Totems, and Totalities?
That we collectively should be thinking about a world beyond technology, a world in which human connections and conviviality are more important than the tools we use.
Author links: GoodReads | Website
Tools, Totems, and Totalities: The Modern Construction of Hegemonic Technology, the 2024th Edition
Tools, Totems, and Totalities is a striking and expansive critique of modern technology and its pervasive role in shaping culture, institutions, and identities. Allen Batteau and Christine Z. Miller craft an ethnographic and philosophical journey through the social ecosystems technology inhabits, evolves within, and often dominates. Rather than viewing technology as a neutral tool, the authors challenge us to see it as a deeply embedded hegemonic force—one that organizes power, redefines human interaction, and reshapes meaning in the modern world. The book blends anthropology, design theory, engineering insight, and cultural criticism to show how tools become totems, and how both can culminate in totalizing systems of control.
What grabbed me right away was the authors’ raw honesty in grappling with our blind trust in “progress.” The opening chapter sets the tone, arguing that our imagination of technology—our deep faith in it—is more fantasy than fact. We treat smartphones, space probes, and electric grids as if they magically better our lives, when in truth, many of these devices mask deeper social problems or even create them. The idea that technology acts as a form of modern magic, filling the spiritual and communal voids of contemporary life really resonated with me. We reach for the newest device like it’s a talisman against chaos, and in doing so, we lose sight of the human behind the machine. That sense of disillusionment is something I’ve felt before, but the book gave me the language and history to make sense of it.
But it’s not all doom and gloom. I found myself surprisingly moved by Chapter 6, where the authors introduce “convivial technology.” Here, they offer a hopeful, even beautiful vision of tools designed to enhance human relationships and community life, not just productivity. It was a breath of fresh air. They celebrate thinkers like Ivan Illich and Victor Papanek, who envisioned technology that’s adaptable, human-centered, and a little slower. Their critique of modern design culture—its obsession with speed, efficiency, and control—felt deeply personal. As someone who’s worked in tech, it made me pause. Maybe the point of innovation isn’t always to push forward, but to step back and ask, “Who is this really serving?”
Tools, Totems, and Totalities is a mirror held up to our techno-utopian fantasies. It doesn’t offer easy answers, but it does offer clarity. The writing is at times dense but always thoughtful, weaving scholarly insight with a conversational rhythm that kept me engaged. The authors don’t pretend to speak with a single voice—they embrace their differences, and it works. The book doesn’t preach. It pokes, it nudges, and sometimes it throws cold water on our comfort zones. But I appreciated that. I finished the final chapter with a weird mix of dread and inspiration. I wanted to change something. Or at least think differently.
This book is for people who aren’t satisfied with buzzwords. If you’re curious about the social and cultural consequences of technology—and especially if you’ve ever felt unsettled by your own reliance on it—this book will challenge and reward you. Scholars, designers, engineers, sociologists, and everyday readers who are just plain tired of the hype will find something meaningful here.
Pages: 231 | ISBN : 9819787076
Focusing on the Photos
Around the World in Eighty Photos is more than just a photography book; it’s a visual adventure that takes readers across the globe to view the often-overlooked corners of the world through the lens of an experienced traveler. What inspired you to create this pictorial travel book?
My previous book, On to Plan C: A Return to Travel, which documented my return to travel after the pandemic, was the first to include my photography. I really enjoyed the experience of putting it together, even though it required editing both the text and photos. For this book, I knew I wanted to include photography again, but this time make the photos the focus.
There are many books out there showing you photos of famous places around the world, but I wanted to steer the reader toward lesser known locations and give them some insight into how each photo was created—what caught my eye, what challenges I faced, how I dealt with less than ideal lighting in some situations, and so on.
I also wanted to include background information on each location for those less interested in the photography. For those interested, I disclose the settings I used for each photo along with a glossary of photographic terms at the end. So, it can be used as a guide to lesser known locations and/or as a guide to creating better travel photos.
What photo in this collection do you feel has the best “story” surrounding it?
The photo created inside Iglesia El Rosario in San Salvador, El Salvador. From the outside, the church looks like a concrete bunker. In fact, I wasn’t sure it was not abandoned and walked past it without much thought while exploring the area. When our local guide started eventually heading toward it, I was a little unsure of why he was taking my wife and I there.
Turns out, its nondescript concrete exterior conceals an arched roof that sheds a rainbow of natural light that spreads across the altar and bounces off the metal and rock inside. Designed by sculptor Ruben Martinez and completed in 1971, Iglesia El Rosario is radically beautiful and one of the finest churches I have ever visited.
As I don’t travel with a tripod, and it being a church with occasional visitors, made this a very challenging photo to create. I chose settings I felt would let in a good amount of light and used a shutter speed that wouldn’t cause blur being handheld. Situations like this I tend to hold my breath for steadiness and hope for the best.
What advice do you have for aspiring travel photographers?
Study the fundamentals and know your camera well so that you don’t have to hesitate when changing a setting. I have my camera setup so that I can change things like aperture or the type of focusing very quickly. Things can happen fast while on the road and you don’t want to miss them while fiddling around trying to change something.
I’m also a big believer in previsualization. This allows me to determine the lens and general settings before I even start to take photos. For instance, if a situation calls for street photography, then I’m going to use a lens in the 35mm to 50mm range with an aperture around f/8 to keep everything in focus and a minimum shutter speed of 1/250 to of a second to stop motion. This was, I can concentrate more on composition and less on adjusting settings.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Around the World in Eighty Photos?
There are so many more places in the world than the handful that always seem to be promoted. Yes, Venice is a stunning location filled with canals, but so is Bruges in Belgium or Wuzhen in China. The world is full of surprises. For instance, the Salt Cathedral of Zipaquirá is a remarkable underground cathedral built within the tunnels of a salt mine just north of Bogotá. I hope this book inspires readers to seek out such places and take more inspired photos while there.
Author links: GoodReads | Instagram | Website
This captivating visual odyssey takes readers to the farthest corners of the earth, from bustling cities to serene landscapes, offering a window into the world’s most awe-inspiring sights. Each carefully curated photograph is paired with a short reflection or story, capturing the essence of diverse cultures, iconic landmarks, and hidden gems.
Whether you’re an armchair traveler or a seasoned explorer, Around the World in Eighty Photos is your passport to adventure, offering a unique perspective on the beauty and wonder that unite us all. Prepare to be inspired by the world’s splendor, one photo at a time.
Around the World in Eighty Photos
Jeremiah A. Gilbert’s Around the World in Eighty Photos is more than just a photography book; it’s a visual adventure that takes you across the globe through the lens of an experienced traveler. Instead of sticking to well-known landmarks, Gilbert hones in on the often-overlooked corners of the world, giving them the spotlight they deserve. Each photograph is accompanied by a story—sometimes historical, sometimes personal, always engaging. He also shares the technical details behind each shot, making it both an inspiring and educational experience for photographers and travel enthusiasts alike.
As a photographer, I appreciate that Gilbert doesn’t just show beautiful places—he invites us into his thought process. His image of Rano Raraku on Easter Island struck me the most. He describes setting up his shot without people, then serendipitously capturing two figures stepping into the frame, perfectly enhancing the composition. That’s what photography is about—being prepared, yet open to unexpected moments. The book is filled with these little surprises, making it feel like you’re traveling right along with him.
Another highlight is the way Gilbert balances storytelling with technical insight. In his photo of Mexico City’s Basilica de Guadalupe, he explains how he had to ride the moving walkway twice to figure out the best composition. The first trip was for analysis, the second for execution. That’s dedication. And in his shot of Iguazu Falls, he makes a conscious decision to use a fast shutter speed to capture the violent, thundering energy of the water, rather than the dreamy, silky look so many photographers go for. His approach reminds me that technical choices should serve the emotion of the image, not just the aesthetics.
This book is a must for photographers who love to travel, travelers who love photography, and anyone who dreams of seeing the world through fresh eyes. If you want a collection of images that tell stories, that teach you something new, and that make you want to grab your camera and book a flight, Around the World in Eighty Photos is an absolute treat.
Pages: 268 | ASIN : B0DY46TYP3
Grasp the “Soul” of a Language
Vademecum of English is a meticulously crafted handbook designed as a reference tool for English teachers and advanced learners that condenses linguistic knowledge into charts covering phonetics, grammar, vocabulary, and etymology. Why was this an important book for you to write?
Actually, I didn’t intend to write a book at all, I started gathering the information I needed for my classes —I have taught English for more than 40 years—, looking for logical explanations for the tricky aspects of the English language, such as irregular verbs, the “chaotic” spelling, and so on. I checked on several grammar books, dictionaries and the like and usually found 10-12 pages devoted to a single issue, sometimes with contradictory information. So I summarized the main features and rules in convenient diagrams to keep it handy. As I was solving different issues, I started organizing them in single-themed charts. At some point, I realized that all this information could be helpful for many other teachers facing the same problems. So I decided that it was time to share.
How much research did you undertake for this book, and how much time did it take to put it all together?
Gathering the information has been a lifetime endeavor and I have been shaping it for many years, trying to be exhaustive and considering every aspect of the language. Once I decided to publish it as a book, it was a matter of organizing all the material, and that took me about a year.
What were some ideas that were important for you to share in this book?
Few people pay attention to phonetics and phonology when learning (or teaching) a new language. Learning the correct sounds is crucial and should be the first step in the learning process. For example, a few charts show the different pronunciation options of the English letters, pointing out the patterns that native speakers follow.
Regarding vocabulary, we selected the basic and most frequently used words and organized them in thematic families. The grammar part deals with the combinatory structures that shape the language and highlights many hidden rules that even native speakers are unaware of, such as the patterns of irregular verbs.
From my own experience, in order to master a language, you must try to grasp its “soul” and make it yours. You can only achieve that if you really understand where words come from, what are the small pieces (roots and affixes) that shape them, and how they are built. For this, you need to explore the etymology of the words which is also very helpful when learning other related languages like Spanish, French, Italian, German, etc. That is the largest part of the book, 54 out of 120 charts are devoted to this aspect.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from Vademecum of English?
It is not meant to be read cover to cover but used as a companion and reference guide for anyone interested in understanding the features, mechanisms and idiosyncrasies of the English language. Languages are systems and systems follow a logic that is not always clear. I have tried to untangle the historical threads of the language to show such logic. I hope readers enjoy discovering the secrets of English through the pages of this book.
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Facebook | Website | LinkedIn – author | LinkedIn Lexiway
