2026 #3 Alice Adams (Tarkington)

 

Alice Adams by Booth Tarkington
My rating: 3 of 5 stars (3.5)

This is a book that is very much "of its time" as one might expect. It is also teaching me something about the Pulitzer prize in the 1920s. The book is rather innocuous from a 1920s standpoint, but certainly the racism doesn't land well for modern readers. The story isn't one that would hold a lot of interest in modern times, perhaps, but therein also lies its value. Alice Adams is an interesting character--caught between daughterly loyalty, youthful vanity and social aspirations, and the various slings and arrows of her circumstances as both a woman and a member of the Adams family. The book is as much about the family (and its dynamics) as it is Alice herself, and while she seems dated and petty in some instances, she's remarkably plucky and resilient. The same cannot be said of either of her parents, and her brother is definitely the most colorful character of the book.

The book itself is rather humorous, something I didn't particularly expect, and Tarkington writes rather dryly of his characters, seeming to stand back with a smirk at their various foibles. The style (and book in general) reminded me very much of Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie, published two decades prior, although Alice is ultimately far more like-able and much more a "heroine."

Alice's courtship with Arthur Russell was one of the more entertaining aspects of the novel, and cheers to Tarkington for writing her as a woman of wit, whose repartee with Russell shows her true stuff. The book is a slow read, and some of the details bordered on tedium (particularly in the early chapters), but it is fascinating to see the book as a reflection of social mores of the time as well as how family dynamics can balance between love and social obligations.

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Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals: 3/60

#192030 Challenge: 1921

2026 #2 Ungrading (Blum, ed.)

 

Ungrading: Why Rating Students Undermines Learning (and What to Do Instead) by Susan D. Blum
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another excellent tome in the Teaching and Learning in Higher Education series from West Virginia University Press, Blum's Ungrading is probably one of the most often cited sources on the topic. The essays in the book provide "solutions in the plural" as Blum puts it, recognizing that capacity and agency will vary across faculty and different contexts, and that ultimately "Ungrading" can mean a lot of different things. Jessie Stommel's "How to Ungrade" offers a fairly extreme form of ungrading (no grades until the course grade, only feedback), while others provide more moderated approaches. Always as entertaining as he is erudite, John Warner gives us "Wile E. Coyote, The Hero of Ungrading" milking an extended metaphor in service of understanding the challenges of ungrading (for both learner and teacher/facilitator). I appreciated Marcus Shultz-Bergin's reflections, "Grade Anarchy in the Philosophy Classroom" which reminds us that we should be prepared for (some) things to perhaps not work as well as we thought they might. In other words --- stay humble. Celebrate your victories, learn from your mistakes. For those interested in a diving in a bit more deeply to pedagogical theory, Christopher Riesbeck's "Critique-Driven Learning and Assessment" gives good information about how to mix the quantitative and the narrative when it comes to assessment.

The mix of approaches and perspectives is generally an asset, although I found some of the essays less relevant and/or robust. As a whole, however, a very worthy read and a great place to start if you want to know about alternative grading.

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Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals: 2/60

Tackle Your Physical TBR 2/18

2026 #1 Intermezzo (Rooney)

 

Intermezzo by Sally Rooney
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.75

I started this book in August and then I put it down. Peter and Ivan did not immediately catch my interest, so I moved on to other things. But I returned, and I'm glad I did. I don't love the "no dialogue-styled-as-dialogue" aspect, although I appreciated it more when I was invested in a moment that was more meaningful to me. I enjoyed the last quarter of the book the most, wherein the five main characters start to come together. We spend a lot of time in the heads of Peter and Ivan, and I started to grow tired of the both of them, but the cool move here is that Rooney shows us (eventually) how they start to grow tired of themselves. That's what made the book for me. I'm glad I read it.

Challenges on Storygraph (@rebcamuse):

2026 Reading Goals: 1/60

Tackle Your Physical TBR 1/18

#192030 Challenge: 2024

Litsy #WickedWords 2026 (January):

Pawn

Knight

Rook