Explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs. Grab a copy of our Readers Manifesto! I'm Steve Chisnell, an educator for 35 years and an aggressive reader for 50---Let's read and write together and I'll let you in on a few things I've discovered and am still learning!
On Ratings, Residential Schools, Reading, and Race
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4 Oct 2026 Reader, Review ResistanceNow a couple of months after bringing back my book reading reviews but more as a "Reading Ledger" with a frictional reading question attached (see the website or any of @WaywordsStudio social media), I have to say that I am feeling quite freed from something. Yes, I am writing less about each work than I did before, though this (along with the short video reviews) was fairly unsustainable just in terms of time. More, though, I am free of the dreaded "5-star book review." I am feeling less and less obligation to encode my hours of reading and reflection into a scannable "thumbs up" judgment that has dominated GoodReads and TikTok. It pretends that a literary work merits the same level of thought as, say, a cupcake or curling iron, a coney dog or cleaning spray. When I made the decision, I already knew that the Frictional Question was a better fit for Waywords, anyway: rather than offer a singular judgment, instead pose a single question that a more critical reader might consider when picking up the book. Therefore, their reading experience may be improved and they learn a bit about what I mean by frictional reading: a fit. And astute readers of my (mostly) three-word description/review along with the question may get a feel about the value of the reading, anyway. (Anyone who sees "plot-heavy" as a descriptor from me knows the narrative was unfulfilling!) What I did not fully appreciate, though, was what abandoning the 5-stars really meant, what kind of handicap it has imposed on us all as readers. It pretends that a literary work merits the same level of thought as, say, a cupcake or curling iron, a coney dog or cleaning spray. The 5-star review is meant to be consumed quickly, almost unconsciously. It is driven by a single concept: should I buy it? (Or, if we are a bit more thoughtful, is it worth my 'valuable' time?) It frames literature (and time) as a commodity (though the book itself already is). But I don't think reading--its quality or our time, necessarily--is as much about what we read as how we read. This may be one of the reasons I can find real value in reading graphic novels, poetry, and hard sf genre writing (even bad horror). My reading (and thinking) is about what I do with the text before me. Each book operates on its own rules, catalyzes thoughts differently. True, I might not leave a book with thematic reflections that rival Faulkner or Soyinka, but then again, no book will likely sink my thinking to the level of doom-scrolling Instagram for two hours, either. The question of a text's merit (that concept that makes it worthy of 5-stars on TikTok or for an AP Literature Q3) is something quite apart from my reading experience, and something further that is fairly impossible to reduce to coney dog comparisons. I've approached this question on the Literary Nomads podcast a few times now, and re-examination here might appear another time. At any rate, I found that by "rating" books in this way, I dismissed them, whether in rejection or celebration, rather than thought about them. Or rather than asking readers to think about them. Truly, if I want to review and recommend a book for others, I will do exactly that: write a recommendation for it (as I do with Elaine Castillo below). Who knows what each star means for the reviewer, anyway? But for my own ledger, my own record of my reading experiences, offering a quick taste of the frictional experience meets more comfortably--more palatably--with what Waywords is about. I don't want us as readers to read in the well-trod ruts of our favorite genres or same six authors: We wander, and that must mean with our experiences, the delicious and the unpalatable, the comfort and the dis-ease. Asking questions. P.S. It annoys me that most online reading logs require the 5-star rating in order to post anything. I have long ago left the Amazon-owned and data-feeding GoodReads in favor of my local library's rating system and StoryGraph (steveatwaywords), and I've started to modify my reviews there, as well.
"I never read a book I must review; it prejudices you so." Oscar Wilde "Don't get butt hurt if I give you a 2 or 3 star rating." D.R. Slaten, GoodReads Literary Nomads: Season continues, but past October!Between unexpected travel and a lack of plumbing at home (which has itself resulted in a ceaselessly cacophony of cutting and welding and wrenching and cursing), recording the podcast has been a challenge. (You'd think I'd learn about making promises of episodes to come. . . . ) But of course I have not. Nevertheless! Our brief summer literary tourism adventure will take us, in fact, to the Winter Solstice, but that merely affords us more time to prepare ourselves for our next summer's explorations! And it opens the path, too, for Season 8's Literary Monsters. And so, the failure to record and edit has given space to research and plan, with a Literary Nomads 100th Episode surprise somewhere in there, and some real fun after. (Episode 100 will also likely have more mailbag questions, so if you have any burning or even just odd questions or observations on books, reading, teaching, making meaning, writing, or your favorite ________, feel free to let me know!)
Calendar: October VibesWhich of these will you mark with an action?
Blackhawk: The Re-Discovery of America - Chapter 10: Taking Children and Treaty Lands: Laws & Federal Power during the Reservation EraOne of the more heartbreaking chapters of our American history is the scramble West which sought along the way to "solve" the indigenous question once and for all in policies of assimilation (and soon termination). Essentially, when the Supreme Court gave Congress the power to govern the remaining tribal nations, their role of "custodian" entailed everything from failed bureaucracies to residential schools. The goal was nothing less than to "domesticate the Indian," trading cultural tradition for Victorian morality, patriarchal rule, and traditional family models. Ever resilient, the tragedies in these generations also resulted in a native population well-equipped to meet white settler politics on its own level.
I'll be finishing up Blackhawk this month, just as the really cold weather sets in! More, I'm already looking forward to what large reading I'll take on for 2027. Do you have any titles for me to consider, maybe something you've wanted to read yourself? I'm looking for a work of some size (or depth/complexity) outside of the mainstream which also has relevance to our current cultural milieu. It can be in history, pedagogy, literary theory, or any nonfiction genre of relevance! Choose one from my current list or add to the list yourself!
Book RecommendationHow to Read Now by Elaine Castillo (2022) Relentless, uncompromising, richly reflected, Castillo is a powerhouse of a writer, detonating the casually smug reading of white culture constructed atop violent and exclusionary histories. Yes, this collection of essays is racially charged, but rather than merely inflame, Castillo teaches. Couching much of her interpretative power in personal contexts, we discover our own blind spots when claiming universality for any literature. A tremendous read for teachers of literature or just readers, we are compelled to think differently about the myths we carry (for instance, that reading produces "empathy"), even while we come to dread the consequences of writers like Joan Didion or Jane Austen or J.K. Rowling. And we may find our way to celebrating poets like Tommy Pico (I've written about him before!) or Toni Morrison (especially her nonfiction) and Henry James. Think you are an open-minded and liberal reader? Check yourself, and read this.
"When artists bemoan the rise of political correctness in our cultural discourse, what they’re really bemoaning is the rise of this unexpected reader. They’re bemoaning the arrival of someone who does not read them the way they expect—often demand—to be read; often someone who has been framed in their work and in their lives as an object, not as a subject."
"Willful misreading is a violence. To warp the history of a place to serve one vision of the past—and therefore, preserve a specific vision of the present and future—is an obscenity, and yet we live in obscenities like this every day."
“The unfortunate influence of this style of reading has dictated that we go to writers of color for the gooey heart-porn of the ethnographic: to learn about forgotten history, harrowing tragedy, community-destroying political upheaval, genocide, trauma; that we expect those writers to provide those intellectual commodities the way their ancestors once provided spices, minerals, precious stones, and unprecious bodies.”
I Failed You: #LitMagWeek If you are like me, you are just today learning about a new tradition: Literary Magazine Week (#LitMagWeek) which inaugurated its first celebration this last week in September (and will likely continue then). What is it? An opportunity to discover (and find deep discounts on) literary magazines of all kinds, to herald a kind of renaissance of the literary magazine which some argue has arrived. Doubtless the 75+ magazines currently participating will be joined by dozens of others as the tradition grows. And why aren't we all in on this? It's fine (and good, very good) to read books and anthologies where we find them, but shouldn't we also (as dedicated readers) be sampling what is out there from today? Let's ask ourselves when the last time we picked up a physical copy of a literary or cultural review magazine to discover what people are saying right now? I've recently enjoyed n+1, MUSE, Electric Literature, and F(r)iction (um, obviously) mags. But I also admit I found them specifically at a book/publisher fair, so it's not like I sought them out on my own. I read bits and pieces from magazines where my friends have published (but that is a different motivation). Time to get serious about this, all of us. And I'll be sure to give fair warning next time this rolls around!
Hoping to have water and flushing toilets by the end of the week! (Such luxury.) As for you, do me a favor in the meantime: go read something! Steve What's Still Ahead?
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Waywords Studio
Explore beyond the comfortable beach read. Lever your literacy into activism! For students of all ages, educators of all kinds, and just plain out litterateurs. Grab a copy of our Readers Manifesto! I'm Steve Chisnell, an educator for 35 years and an aggressive reader for 50---Let's read and write together and I'll let you in on a few things I've discovered and am still learning!