Title: 

I picked up this somewhat obscure book (only obtained through my school library by special request) for the goodreads group I’ve been most involved with lately, The Perks of Being a Bookworm. Only after I started reading did I realize that it might be hard to find in the US because it’s actually a history of the women’s rights movement in Britain. Just learning what happened in this period of turmoil was interesting (and helped me get some references I completely missed the first time around during an audiobook “re-read” of Caitlan Moran’s How to be a Woman). The book’s real strength, however, was in the focus on issues that divided the women’s rights movement as some are still relevant today.

Initially, the book was very dry. Although the book moved forward in a generally chronological manner, it took me a while to figure that out in part because there was sometimes a jump back in time at the beginning of a new chapter. The narrative felt choppy here and the focus was definitely on the author’s analysis of the arguments for and against women’s suffrage (sometimes the same arguments for both sides!). Fortunately, later in the book the tone and the focus change.

In the later parts of the book, we start to focus on a few individual suffragists and the narrative began to flow more smoothly. The author’s original analyses were repeated enough that I felt we could have done without the beginning part. In fact, the second part did a much better job of putting the argument about suffrage in a social context. For instance, the influence of Darwinism on the Victorian mentality was just fascinating.  So, while I wished I skipped the first few chapters, at the end I was glad I’d decided to keep going. It’s always exciting to get the feel of an historical era, particularly one in which many fiction books take place, and this book left me with a much better understanding of both the women’s rights movement and the Victorian era. Definitely a worthwhile read.

Amazon|Goodreads

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

Today I’m thinking about how we use different social media as book bloggers, in part because (shameless plug here), Doing Dewey just got a facebook page! So if you like to get your blog updates that way or just like Doing Dewey, please do hop on over and like the page. I’m also just starting to really like twitter, have always loved goodreads, and am on the fence about Pinterest, so those are a few of the other sites we’ll be talking about today…

Twitter – I started using mine to enter contests, moved on to sharing my blog posts and goodreads updates that way, and am finally getting up the courage to strike up some conversations with the many wonderful authors and bloggers who use twitter. It also seems to be a great source for random and interesting bookish news.

Goodreads – I love goodreads. It’s great for getting and giving book recommendations, which is one of my favorite activities. I’ve also discovered many of my favorite reads through groups and always post my reviews there.

LibraryThing – A lot like goodreads. Oh, and both have great giveaways I forgot to mention earlier!

Pinterest – I think Pinterest is a fun idea, but I don’t use it very much. I think the lack of interaction is why this isn’t more of a favorite of mine. Although you can re-pin things, there’s not a commenting system that I’m aware of and what I want out of social media is a conversation that just isn’t happening here.

Riffle – see Pinterest. As advertised this is a Pinterest for books.

Slice  – This new book sharing website reminds me of Riffle, but is probably most like facebook. You can share status updates and comments and I think it has potential. At the same time, it still does a subset of the things goodreads does for me and I’m not sure I need another book website.

Facebook – And finally, facebook. The latest addition to my pantheon of social websites. I love that facebook connects so seamlessly to my other social media, from goodreads to klout to (best of all) wordpress. I love that I can automatically have my posts displayed on facebook, providing a new way for people to follow if that’s their blog reading method of choice. However, I feel like other people do more with theirs and am not sure if I could be using it better.

Which social media sites are your favorite? How do you use them and what do you want to get out of them? Any advice on how to best use a facebook page?

Title: 

Although I started listening to the Cat Who series with The Cat Who Ate Danish Modern, The Cat Who Could Read Backwards is actually the first in this series of cozy mysteries. The narration was just as good as in the other book. Sadly, I couldn’t say the same for the story itself.

First, I think the story is beginning to show its age in an entirely unacceptable way, as we deal with a woman the book somewhat subtly indicates is a lesbian and than very un-subtly names “Butchy”. The plot than goes on to paint her as a possible murder suspect; a highly unattractive and masculine woman; and someone who’s motives and actions are not very nice even if she isn’t the killer. I was kind of appalled. The second problem had more to do with the plot itself. Specifically, that there wasn’t one. The main character basically sits back and lets events unfold until at the end he stumbles on (literally) a character we have never met before and who turns out to be the bad guy. Talk about unsatisfying! And our main characters doesn’t even captures this bad guy, oh no. His cat does instead! Now, the cat tripping the bad guy is a plot device I’m ok with once in a mystery featuring a cat. But that happened in the other book too and twice is just too much. I don’t think I’ll be going on with this series.

Amazon|Goodreads

Proving that you simply can’t please everyone with an adaptation despite the mostly meticulous following of the book, there were still a few things I thought important that got left out! There wasn’t anything specific I feel the need to complain about though, as overall this was a very faithful adaptation. Strangely, even with most events kept intact, I felt something was missing. A lot of this story is about what Jane thinks and feels, as she explains the story to you in the book. In the movie, her thoughts weren’t always clear and I think it lost a lot of the depth and beauty of the book as a result. I might try another adaptation in the future, but this one made me feel like this was a story that’s just better told by a book.

Title: 

Today I’m going to be sharing with you the goodreads summary of the book because I think it does a great job explaining not just the action of the plot, but the character development that is the most exciting part of the story. Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity.  She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman’s passionate search for a wider and richer life than Victorian society traditionally allowed.

I’ve been having a hard time writing this review because I basically like this book for the same reason I like nearly all the classics I’ve read. I like the older style of writing, which always strikes me as more beautiful and formal than much of today’s writing, without becoming stiff. The observations on human nature are definitely there, keeping the book relevant. And I love Jane’s character. With her passion and desire to be happy, she’s much more a protagonist for today than many other heroines in older books.

Unlike some other classics, Jane Eyre didn’t have much else going for it. The plot was kind of boring, with not much action and a lot of coincidences necessary to make things work out. Some of the plot points strike me as unbelievable, especially the rare gothic or even supernatural elements. I also found Jane and Mr. Rocheter’s interactions often stretched my belief. While a lot of their flirting was witty and enjoyable in an almost Shakespearean fashion, at other times they seemed to be downright cruel to one another. Then they forgive each other everything. For me, the writing was enough to forgive all these flaws. If I sat back and analyzed, I wasn’t impressed with the plot, but most of the time, I just enjoyed reading it.

Amazon|Goodreads

Today’s post is part of yet another skirmish in the ongoing war I’m waging against my past tendency to keep all of the pictures. I’m so very bad at sorting through old pictures after I’ve picked each week’s photos for the blog! So whenever I don’t make it out to take some pictures in a week, I’m sharing some of my older pictures and trying to delete the ones I have to admit I’ll never use. Do you have a system that works for you for organizing your pictures? If so, I’d love to hear about it

Snapshot Saturday Link-Up

Title: 

I thought I should just get that geeky admission out of the way in the title since my love of this book is largely based on my love of data and the cool things we can do with it. Nate Silver is an awesome statistician best known for his model that has done a great job predicting election winners. In this book, he looks at a lot of incredibly interesting topics from public issues to sports and policy decisions to natural disasters while analyzing the common mistakes people make when making predictions about the future.

Oh my gosh, I enjoyed this book so much I almost don’t know where to start. It’s on a topic I love; using machine learning to make predictions or classifications has always fascinated me. It’s just so cool that we can get computers to make decisions too complex for us to make ourselves! And Nate Silver does an amazing job explaining this fascinating topic in an interesting and accessible way without talking down to the reader. He’s clearly passionate about the topic. He draws on a rich array of sources to make his points, not shying away from the use of large words or history lessons. And the examples are relevant to everyone (especially everyone in the US, but worldwide too). Combined with the graphs and the analogies, the examples make some pretty complex topics much easier to understand.

I loved how information rich the book was. I learned about many different topics and couldn’t stop scribbling down fun facts to use at the beginning of this review. The pop culture references and allusions to the author’s own life also made the book more engaging and made reading the book feel like having a casual but intelligent conversation with a friend.  Obviously I’m a little biased in my opinion because of my prior interest in this topic, but  I think anyone who loves non-fiction should definitely pick up this book.

Do you have any topics that you absolutely always love to read about? Topics you hate?

Amazon|Goodreads

Title: 

In a dystopian America, women are listed in the registry where they are auctioned off as brides when they turn 18. Boys are considered worthless and often thrown out to survive on their own between school and mandatory military service. Unsurprisingly, not all the men produced by this brutal system are men a girl would want to be married to, as Mia finds out from her married older sister. Sheltered as Mia is, escape will be difficult even with the help of a better educated friend and a boy working as a farm hand. Especially once the ruthless man who wanted to buy her discovers she’s run away.

Although dystopian novels have been in vogue for a while, I’ve just started getting obsessed so I was very excited to review The Registry. Initially, however, I wasn’t too impressed. Our heroine is gorgeous but hopelessly sheltered making her come across as too ditzy. It also seemed as though the plot was going to be far to predictable. The minute she runs into a handsome farm hand you know he’s going to be a potential love interest and obviously the man interested in purchasing Mia is going to be a self-entitled jerk. We also got a rather thin and unbelievable first explanation for how the society in the novel developed. Fortunately, everything got better from there!

The writing was generally very good and we quickly learn that there are many explanations for how the registry system came to be. I’m still hoping for a slightly better explanation in the next novel, but as is, it’s a mystery our heroine is getting closer to solving instead of a poor explanation by the author. The initially unlikable Mia adjusts to her new circumstances quickly, becoming braver and more self-reliant. I loved the character growth, as Mia wasn’t annoying for long and changed in believable ways. The plot wasn’t complex but the action and pacing made for an exciting escape story.

At the very end, we almost get an annoying love triangle, with Mia deciding to swap spit with the first guy who is obviously interested in her, even though she likes someone else. At first, this bothered me, but I felt Mia’s actions were believable given the sheltered life she led and given her desire not to be owned. She also always knew who she liked, which saved it from the indecisiveness that makes me hate so many love triangles. Overall, this ended up being a fast paced and enjoyable read. I can’t wait for the next book in the series!

For some other perspectives, check out the other stops on the tour, Amazon, or Goodreads.

Musing Mondays asks you to muse about one of the following each week…

• Describe one of your reading habits.
• Tell us what book(s) you recently bought for yourself or someone else, and why you chose that/those book(s).
• Tell us what you’re reading right now — what you think of it, so far; why you chose it; what you are (or, aren’t) enjoying it.
• Do you have a bookish rant? Something about books or reading (or the industry) that gets your ire up? Share it with us!
• Instead of the above questions, maybe you just want to ramble on about something else pertaining to books — let’s hear it, then!

For the first time since I’ve started blogging, I’m actually ahead on reading and behind on writing reviews! Writing a review obviously takes less time than reading a book  and so it used to be that I’d finish a book, then immediately write a review. Lately, I’ve been going through books fast enough that I haven’t needed to write reviews immediately in order to keep up with blog. As a result, I have something of  a backlog of books to review!

Personally, I think I prefer it this way. It is far less stressful to write a review at the last minute if I know I have the book read already. And it also makes it easier not to have to write reviews at the last minute, since I often have books finished well in advance.

Is the limiting step in your blogging usually reading books or getting the reviews posted? Do you prefer to be ahead on reading books or to have reviews written for all the books you’ve read?

Title: 

Like Tom Clancy, Lilian Jackson Braun is an author I rely on to basically write the same book over and over. It’s like comfort food for the brain And as such, it made for nice easy listening. This was an adorable, cozy mystery. The plot is fairly simple and it lacked the Agatha Christie sense of challenging you to solve the crime. Instead you sit back and join our main character as the mystery unfolds, often helped along by his cat, Koko.

The narration reminded me of those old-sounding, strangely formal science lectures from the 80′s that you can find on youtube. It took some getting used to! But after I got the hang of it, this was actually very easy listening. In fact, I got through this book without ever having to rewind because I missed something the narrator said. I also enjoyed that the tracks were short and the book itself wasn’t too long either. Both the narration and the story were enjoyable enough, that I started the first book in the series as soon as I finished this one.