Title: 

In a small farming town, a bad reputation is easy to get and hard to lose. By the time Patty Pugh disappears, she has such a reputation as a troublemaker that hardly anyone is surprised or bothered by her disappearance. Farmer Jack McIntyre’s daughter is one of Patty’s only friends and her concern for Patty slowly draws him in. As he learns more of Patty’s story, he becomes determined to save her, even if no one else believes he should.

I avoided The Casual Vacancy because I was afraid a story about the dark underbelly of a small town would be too depressing for me. Given that expectation, I was completely surprised by how much I liked the setting of this story. I liked the mystery, which kept me completely hooked. I also liked that the author used the setting to touch on deeper themes, making me think about how we sometimes ignore truths right in front of us and how we should sometimes try looking at our surroundings with fresh eyes.

The beginning of this story was particularly engaging. I was immediately drawn in by the beautiful writing. It was plain but poetic and felt perfect for a story told by a farmer who loves his family, his land, and his community. It reminded me of Sarah, Plain and Tall but wasn’t like anything I’ve read recently.  I found the unique feel refreshing. The characters were so real, each with their own flaws and worries and secrets. I loved learning about their relationships with each other and their complicated pasts. By the time Patty disappeared, I was deeply invested in the story and couldn’t stop turning pages to find out what happened to her. This is where things started to get strange.

For the last half of the book, I often found it hard to even follow what was happening.  As Jack searches, he gets drawn into a strange and decadent world which felt surreal and disconnected from the rest of the story. While this might have been intentional with the reader sharing the character’s feelings of confusion, I can’t say it made for enjoyable reading. Eventually there is a dramatic confrontation, which might have made all the strangeness worthwhile if it had resolved anything. Instead , Jack goes back to life as usual and we slowly learn vague details of what happens to Patty as she reaches out to Jack over the following years. Instead of the confrontation being followed by dramatic change leading to a satisfying resolution, the story trickles its way along to a somewhat flat ending. I thought this was a letdown after the promising beginning, but given the great writing, I’d definitely give this author another shot.

Amazon|Goodreads

The post When Patty Went Away appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Title: 

This is a primer on the basic ideas of relativity. It includes great, illustrative cartoons and very little math. The author addresses many of the misconceptions people might have about concepts related to relativity because of pop culture and introduces some surprising ways relativity affects our daily lives.

Even though relativity is a topic I’ve been interested in since high school, I learned fascinating new facts from this book. The author made incredibly complex and counterintuitive concepts simple. He started with facts that made sense to me and built on them to make the odder results of relativity make sense too. I liked that he revisited the same thought experiments over and over. This made me comfortable with the ideas and helped me learn.

I liked that the author talked about the implications of relativity for our daily lives. He made a pretty convincing argument for why we should all care about the concepts he teaches here. I also loved that he taught the scientific method as he went. I think this is a book that would be perfect for introductory physics classes. It’s easy to follow and  could inspire students to become interested in the topic.

Amazon|Goodreads

The post What is Relativity? appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Title: 

Michio Kaku is first and foremost a theoretical physicist, so he begins his book describing a physicist’s perspective on how the brain works. Then he describes the latest and greatest advances in our understanding of how the brain works and makes some incredible predictions for the future. These include everything from the possibility of assisted telepathy and enhanced cognition to uploadable memories and recordable dreams.

I’ve loved Michio Kaku’s books since high school, maybe earlier. He was able to write about theoretical physics in such an approachable, interesting way. Since reading his books, this is a topic which I always want to learn more about. As someone in working in science, I now also appreciate his ability to bring science to the masses. This book was not quite as good at this as some of the earlier books. There were a few places where I felt an experiment on animals was inadequately explained to the point where it sounded like a mad scientist’s experiment. There were also a few typos that led to scientific inaccuracies in my ARC, but I think these will be fixed in the final version.

That said, I thought his discussion of future technologies was fantastic. As in Physics of the Future, his educated predictions about where science will be within the century were awe inspiring. Also similarly, he transitioned very smoothly from topic to topic and did a great job discussing the ethical implications of each potential technology. To finish with a quote from my review of Physics of the Future, which also applies to this book: “I would highly recommend this book to scientists as well as any non-scientists who’d like to be better informed (which in my opinion, should really be everyone, since that’s who this science is going to affect!). But for scientists in particular, it’s important to always remember three things: the social implications of your work; the ethical implications of your work; and the big dreams we should all be striving for in order to make our daily lives better. This book does a great job bringing home all of those points.”

Amazon|Goodreads

The post The Future of the Mind appeared first on Doing Dewey.

The books she sent were both books that have been on my to-read list for far too long: The Life of Pi and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society. Both of these books are ones my mom recommended to me forever ago and which I’m very excited to read! The Life of Pi is also particularly appropriate since I’m c0-hosting a Book to Movie Challenge this year. I’m also really loving that they have the UK covers, which is fun and different for me. She also sent some truly beautiful post-it notes and matching pens which I’m already loving using. The notebook and clip will also be super useful for shopping lists and bookish notes. Thanks Ellie!

I’m looking forward to participating in a non-bookish swap, the Mug o’ Comfort Swap hosted by Chaotic Goddess Swaps. I was particularly happy to see that you can specify what hot beverages you like, since I actually don’t like coffee. On the other hand, tea, cider, and hot chocolate are all things I can get excited about! I think it will be a lot of fun to find something local to send and to sip on whatever warm beverage I receive while curled up with a good book.

The post Mail Swaps! appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Non-Fiction Friday is a link-up where you can find all of the awesome non-fiction happenings of the week. Be sure to link-up your non-fiction posts too!

• Today, two of the links I’d like to share are awesome links shared by Sophie at Paper Breathers in her weekly round-up. The first is a prize awarded to books with the strangest titles and they’re all non-fiction! And also all very strange. The second link is to Bill Gates’ bookshelf because he apparently has fantastic taste in non-fiction.
• This isn’t completely non-fiction but it is completely wonderful! Sync Audiobooks gives away free audiobook downloads all summer. Non-fiction titles in this summer’s schedule include: While The World Watched, Claudette Colvins, and The Hiding Place
• Exciting books coming out this week include:
  • Computing with Quantum Cats: From Colossus to Qubits
  • The First World War in 100 Objects: The Story of the Great War Told Through the Objects that Shaped It
  • Suspicion Nation: The Inside Story of the Trayvon Martin Injustice and Why We Continue to Repeat It
  • The Sugar Season: A Year in the Life of Maple Syrup, and One Family’s Quest for the Sweetest Harvest

The post Non-Fiction Friday appeared first on Doing Dewey.

As is so often the case, the movie added exciting but completely fictional events to the events of the book. In some ways, this might have been the right thing to do. For instance, even with the added action, my boyfriend who had not read the book found the movie a bit slow. However, I think these men deserve to be remembered and I think fictionalizing their story defeats the purpose of telling it to begin with. I found the fictionalized crush the one women had on one of the men in the movie particularly offensive because I think she seems less admirable as a result. I also disliked that exciting events were made up. There were instances in the book, such as one of the monuments men being mistaken for a spy that could have been humorously elaborated on instead of making things up from scratch. For all my complaints, I think this was a well made if slightly slow movie. It just doesn’t stand up well to a comparison with the wonderful book!

The post The Monuments Men – A Bookish Movie Review appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Title: 

I’m constantly intrigued by the many amazing true stories from the WWII period and this is another good one. The Monuments Men were a group of mostly older men from artistic careers who volunteered to go to Europe to protect monuments during the Allied offensive. They also became involved in retrieving and returning the many valuable art works stolen by German forces. As the war turned against them, German commanders were ordered to destroy art rather than let it be recaptured. Meanwhile, Russian troops claimed any art work they found as the spoils of war. Limited support left the Monuments Men trying to accomplish miracles, rescuing art as quickly as possible.

I enjoyed this book from the very beginning. The author starts with notes about sources and an explanation of how dialog in the book was crafted from primary sources. I love knowing exactly where the information I’m reading comes from, so I really appreciate books with a section like this. The author also includes small biographies with pictures of each of the major players in the story. This was incredibly helpful throughout the book. Something I’m sure it’s hard to do is to help the reader connect with the large number of people involved in a project like this. The biographies gave me something to refer back to each time a character was mentioned. That helped me keep track of everyone enough to have a connection with each of the characters. I think that was critical to my enjoyment of this book.

The book also included some personal stories about each of the men (and the one woman) involved. These were perfectly balanced with sections describing the art and sections describing the action. The author also did a great job integrating the story of the Monuments Men into the overall story of the war. There were descriptions of some of the major battles which I’d heard about before, but there were also more new-to-me descriptions of the time leading up to the war, the experience at the homefront, and the ending of the war in Germany. Although the descriptions of battles made me think deeply about whether the Monuments Men’s choice to risk their life for art made sense, the author does clearly articulate the reasons they thought this choice was worthwhile. The author did a great job telling their story in an engaging way and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in WWII or art history.

Amazon|Goodreads

The post The Monuments Men appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Title: 

Despite being a ghost, Leiyin has a lot to accomplish. To learn why she hasn’t moved on to the afterlife, she has to relive her memories of a life she’s forgotten in death. Along the way, her three souls (valuing duty, love, and wisdom) will help her achieve understanding. As she learns when she relives her life, a selfish decision made in the pursuit of romance led to her punishment with a hastily arranged marriage. These events started her on the path towards her death. However, she left behind a daughter she loved dearly and who she’s willing to protect at any cost – even if that means being stuck in limbo forever. (I’m not sure my description did this wonderful, complex book justice, so you might also check out the goodreads description. )

Not only is this book set in China, it’s set in the 1920′s and 1930′s, a time period during which I know next to nothing about China. As a result, I particularly enjoyed discovering the incredible events shaking Chinese society during this time period. The author did a spectacular job bringing the culture, the society, and the political atmosphere to life. The relationship of personal events to political ones gave the bigger issues a face and made them all the more affecting. The mythology the author created sounded vaguely familiar, but was almost completely new to me. From the reader’s guide, it sounds as though this is indeed a new take on an old mythology and I loved the author’s version.

The way the author chose to tell the story was also unique. The first half of the book is spent learning about Leiyin’s life. Her ghostly commentary truly added to the story, making her younger and sometimes more foolish self sympathetic through her ghostly self’s explanations. The souls’ different perspectives on her actions encouraged the reader to think about all sides of every issue. One of the few things I didn’t like about the book were a few decisions she made which even her ghost’s explanation couldn’t make me sympathize with. I especially disliked that these choices led to a sudden and rather pointless end to her life. The ending to the book was similarly abrupt. I did, however, love the parallels of her life to Anna Karenina and the author’s references to that book. I always enjoy literary references to books I love! At the end, I appreciated that  Leiyin was able to influence events, despite being a ghost. I dislike characters who lack agency, but that wasn’t a concern here. Despite the abrupt endings, I found this a beautiful and thought-provoking read. Perfect for book clubs.

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

The post Three Souls appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Title: 

I think objectively this book is very well done. The author includes a lot of very detailed statistics but mixes them in with fun facts, first-hand anecdotes, and fascinating stories. However, for me, this was just more detail than I needed on the topic. I felt the story got bogged down by details of exact numbers and dates. There were a number of people mentioned, but I couldn’t keep them straight because we were never given any personal information about any them and they all blurred together. The timeline was hard to follow because (at least in my ARC) dates usually didn’t include the year and in chapters that spanned multiple years, this could be confusing. I think had I finished this, I’d have given it three stars because I didn’t enjoy it, but I think someone very interested in the topic would. I made it through about a third of the book before deciding that it just wasn’t for me.

Amazon|Goodreads

The post The Bombers and the Bombed – Mini-Review appeared first on Doing Dewey.

Title: 

We all know the fairy tale story of sleeping beauty, but have you have ever wondered what that story would have looked like in real life? What would cause the king and queen to avoid inviting a powerful woman to their daughter’s baptism? Was the woman who cursed the princess really a fairy, a witch, or just a very bitter woman? And if not by magic, how was the princess cursed and then saved? Elise is able to tell a tale to answer all those questions from her time as a servant in the castle. She’ll also tell a tale of her own, including love she won and lost and the sacrifices her loyalty to the princess demanded.

This book was one of those books I immediately got so swept up in, I had a hard time making myself take notes. Elizabeth Blackwell has a masterful command of language. She used large words that I noticed not because they felt out of place but because they were always perfectly chosen. They lent her sentences a beauty that demanded to be read out loud. She brought the medieval setting to life with her vivid descriptions, from the struggles of the poor to the court intrigues of the nobility. Little thoughtful asides about human nature elevated this book to something truly out of the ordinary for me. Commentary on human nature is something I often love in classics, so seeing it in a contemporary novel was delightful and surprising.

Although you might describe this book as a darker version of sleeping beauty, I think it’s more accurate to say that it’s a sleeping beauty story for adults. This retelling makes the original story look like a sanitized version of the true story. There are deceptions and schemes behind the scenes that motivate the events of the original. There are some very low points in the story and Elise has to deal with some heartbreakingly difficult decisions. The end was more realistic than the original, but surprisingly happy and the happiness was all the more beautiful for the suffering and darkness the characters had to make it through first. The author kept me hooked throughout, dropping just enough hints about the coming events to make me desperately curious to read more. Basically, the writing, the plot, and the characters were all perfection. I simply couldn’t put this one down!

Amazon|Goodreads

The post While Beauty Slept appeared first on Doing Dewey.