Exit Ticket: January 2025

11 books to read, 5 songs to teach imagery, and 1 very flat cake to save humanity

If it’s been some decades since you’ve been in the classroom, an exit ticket is a short assessment students complete at the end of class that teachers scan to check for understanding.

Basically, I ask a question, and students write an answer on a sticky note. Pretty advanced stuff. (Instructional strategies are so full of themselves.)

I wish I had time to review all the great books I read each month, but, you know, life. And grading! So here’s my January sticky note.

11 Books:

• The Great Mistake by Jonathan Lee — I purchased this at Tattered Cover¹ over winter break because I liked the title, and the alternating past-and-present storyline about the murder of Andrew Haswell Green kept my attention.

• Chasing Chopin: A Musical Journey Across Three Centuries, Four Countries, and a Half-Dozen Revolutions by Annik LaFarge — If the mention of Mallorca makes you think of the time Frederic Chopin and George Sand stayed in a monastery on the remote island and not of, say, Love Island², then this book is for you. The extensive accompanying website is an amazing resource. You can listen to interpretations of Chopin’s work played on both modern and period instruments.

• The Rivals by Jane Pek — This is the sequel to The Verifiers, which I bought on a whim and loved so much that I lost it because I passed it on to one friend or another. Read one or both if you like mysteries and queer voices and if you hate AI / tech bros / online dating.

• The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea — I must have skimmed past this title countless times on best-of lists since its release in 2018. I finally picked it up at The Book Rack.³ It took me a while to get into the story (and keep track of the characters), but I couldn’t put it down in the last third.

• Damnation Spring by Ash Davidson — Not to be a broken record, but you should read this book.

• The Secret Hours by Mick Herron — The jury’s still out on this book club pick because we won’t meet until February, but I enjoyed this spy thriller.⁴ It’s best read over a few days because the twisty storyline might be hard to follow if stretched out. Read if you like AppleTV’s Slow Horses (a Herron adaptation).

• Big Swiss by Jen Beagin — I arrived at this particular party rather late, but I laughed so damn hard that it doesn’t even matter. Then I cried. It’s been a week, and this book helped me get through it.

• The Sky Was Ours by Joe Fassler — Tiffany Quay Tyson recommended this one. She never steers me wrong. This book was surprising and bewitching—and really, any book with a character who compulsively reads The Secret History and Middlemarch can do no wrong.

• The Nutmeg Trail: A Culinary Journey Along the Ancient Spice Routes by Eleanor Ford — I found this at the library, but we’ve loved so many dishes that we’ll probably have to buy it. Ford’s recipes are organized by spice profile, and each recipe includes a nugget of history. It’s an ingenious way to organize a cookbook, and the recipes are delicious (and are either gluten- and dairy-free, or easy to adapt that way, if that’s your jam)⁵. My favorite so far is the Venetian Chicken with Almond Milk and Dates.

These last two I didn’t technically read this month, but I’m giving them shout-outs anyway.

• Anything by Erik Larsen — Mondays are blah, unless they are P&P Mondays. January 27 was the first Pen & Podium event of 2025. This annual author lecture series is such a treat.⁶ Erik Larsen is one of my favorite nonfiction writers. When I read The Devil in the White City in college, I thought, Wait, historical nonfiction can do this?! His books are novelistic in terms of pacing and characterization. My stepdad and I have also read his WWII books, In the Garden of Beasts and The Splendid and the Vile, in our ultra-exclusive, two-person book club.⁷

• Penitence by

  Kristin Koval
  — If you need a refresher, here’s why you should read Penitence. I’m closing out my month with a book launch party tonight hosted by Lighthouse. TGIF! And if you’re in the area, it’s not too late to join us.

5 Songs to Teach Imagery:

During our narrative writing unit, I spend some time teaching imagery through excerpts of classical music. If you think violins + teenagers = eye rolls, I challenge you to try this activity. Every year I’m amazed at what they come up with! Before I told them the name of the pieces, students spoke of the envy and grief they heard in Beethoven’s Pathetique sonata, and they envisioned someone taking a relaxed stroll in Gershwin’s “Walking the Dog.” Grab a copy of the free lesson here.

1 Very Flat Cake to Save Humanity:

For my friend’s birthday last week, I tried to make a cute little Swiss roll. Instead of rolling into a perfect curlicue of frosting and cake, it . . . folded. Instead of an elegant coil, I got a stack of uneven slabs of cake sandwiching waaaaaay too much frosting. [Insert your own metaphor about January 2025 here.]

I attribute the flat cake 100% to user error because Katarina Cermelj’s recipes are the best. I took a picture of the Swiss roll pictured in her The Elements of Baking.

Did I eat the cake anyway?

Please. I’m not a monster. Of course I ate the cake.

Then I made my friend a delicious dark chocolate mint pie that never lets me down, which I guess is my way of saying: resist the hate. Kindness isn’t just a word to slap on a bumper sticker; empathy isn’t just a word to parrot back to others. When your cake folds, make a pie.

Everyone deserves dessert. And public education and their chosen gender identity and affordable healthcare and an inhabitable planet and and and and and and and

Until next time,

Kate

1. RIP, pre-B&N Tattered Cover of my youth. Nothing will ever compare to the long-ago Cherry Creek North location.

2. This is an abridged version of an actual conversation I had at happy hour last week. I love my friends for letting me sit at the cool kids’ table no matter anyway.

3. Long live independent used bookstores!!

4. Bonus: Reading about corruption in a country other than the US offers a much-needed break from the headlines.

5. That’s my jam.

6. Thanks, Mom!

7. Sorry, Mom!