Tag: book reviews

Bookends About Fragments

June 30, 2013 Dystopian, Fiction, Science Fiction 0

13170596Title: Fragments
Author: Dan Wells
Source: library
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Summary: I still loved the writing and the characters, but the plot suffered from some serious middle-of-a-trilogy lag.

In the first book of this series, Kira discovered that a race of manufactured super humans called the Partials contain the cure to the disease that has been ravaging the human race. Unfortunately, the Partials are facing their own imminent demise, fueling suspicion and prejudices that are pushing humans and Partials closer to another war. In order to bring the sides together, Kira needs to learn more about why they were designed the way they are. She also desperately wants to know what her unique blend of human and partial characteristics make her. Read more »

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Soundbites About Interview With the Vampire

June 30, 2013 Soundbites 4

300x300Title: Interview With the Vampire
Author: Anne Rice
Narrator: Simon Vance
Rating (Story): ★★★★☆
Rating (Narration):★★★★★

First I absolutely must thank Kim at Reflections of a Book Addict for recommending I pick up anything narrated by Simon Vance. The narration was awesome! He was fairly easy to understand, but what really blew me away were the great accents and the amount of emotion he put into the characters’ voices.  Simply amazing. Read more »

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The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England

June 26, 2013 History, non-fiction 12

16158562Title: The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England
Author: Ian Mortimer
Source: from publisher for review
Rating: ★★★★☆
Fun Fact: In Elizabethan times, assigned rations often included a gallon of beer a day.
Review Summary: The level of detail is incredible, especially since it’s presented  in a way that will not only keep your interest, but also make you feel immersed in Elizabethan England.

Have you ever wondered what people in Elizabethan England ate, what they built their houses out of, how they spoke, or what they did for entertainment? This book answers all of those questions and more, giving you a picture of daily life that many other history books leave out. Every aspect of Elizabethan life is covered in detail, with sections covering topics from religion to entertainment. Particularly unique is the inclusion of information on the lives of the middle and lower class. Read more »

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Soundbites: Digital Fortress

June 23, 2013 Soundbites 2

Digital Fortress (Unabridged)Title: Digital Fortress
Author: Dan Brown
Narrator: Paul Michael
Rating (Story): ★★☆☆☆
Rating (Narration):★★★★☆

As a fast paced spy thriller that won’t require much thinking, Digital Fortress will feel familiar to any one who has read Dan Brown’s other books.  When I read it several years ago I enjoyed it as a bit of junk food for my brain. However, as an audiobook I found its little foibles far more annoying. Read more »

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The Ascent of Woman in the 324’s

June 19, 2013 Uncategorized 2

1488401Title: The Ascent of Woman
Author: Melanie Phillips
Source: library
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Summary: Initially the tone was too dry and the information was repetitive throughout, but the action picked up enough at the end to add some excitement to this thoughtful analysis of the women’s rights movement.

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. Read more »

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Monday Musings

June 17, 2013 Monday Musings 15

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…

Read more »

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Soundbites: The Cat Who Could Read Backwards

June 16, 2013 Soundbites 6

downloadTitle: The Cat Who Could Read Backwards
Author: Lilian Jackson Braun
Narrator: George Guidall
Rating (Story): ★★☆☆☆
Rating (Narration):★★★★☆

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. Read more »

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Bookends About Jane Eyre

June 15, 2013 Classics, Fiction, Gothic, Historical Fiction 4

11016Title: Jane Eyre
Author: Charlotte Brontë
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★☆
Review Summary: The plot was a little boring and unbelievable but the writing was so gorgeous I didn’t even mind!

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.
Read more »

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I Love Data

June 13, 2013 Uncategorized 8

Title: The Signal and the Noise
Author: Nate Silver
Source: library
Rating: ★★★★★
Fun Fact: There was public outcry in 2001 when the weather channel attempted to change the color representing rain from blue to green.
Review Summary: I loved the topic and was incredibly happy that the author was able to clearly present complex computational topics without oversimplifying.

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. Read more »

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The Registry

June 12, 2013 Dystopian, Fiction, Uncategorized, Young Adult 5

theregistryTitle: The Registry
Author: Shannon Stoker
Source: from publisher for TLC book tour
Rating: ★★★☆☆
Review Summary: A respectable addition to the dystopian craze, well written with an interesting premise and great character development.

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. Read more »

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