Book Blogger Appreciation Week Voting

Book Blogger Appreciation Week

I am voting for my favorites for Book Blogger Appreciation Week. It’s fun to discover some new blogs. I noticed as I was casting my votes that the following things tended to catch my eye:

  • Humor and snarkiness
  • A pleasing design

I love book bloggers who can inject a bit of humor into their writing. Humor is a little lacking over here at Much Madness is Divinest Sense, but perhaps that needs to change. The one review I wrote that included a little bit of humor because I was in a weird mood that day was so much fun to write. Of course, I am not sure that’s something I could sustain, and it isn’t even appropriate for all the kinds of reviews and writing I do here, but it’s something to think about. Also, I really admire Jenny’s reviews, and she is so often funny, as are the wonderful ladies at AustenBlog.

Given we are trained not to judge a book by its cover, what does my admiration for design have to do with anything? Well, I think if your site looks nice and is easy to navigate, it tends to say something about how seriously you take it. Maybe that’s not true in all cases, and frankly, if I like your blog enough, I’m probably reading it in Google Reader and only see the design when I comment, but I did tend to prefer the blogs that looked good and weren’t too cluttered with content, but still had some extra eye candy in the sidebars and images (that worked) in the posts.

I myself was way too chicken to enter my blog into this competition.

The Gutenberg Bible Turns 554

Gutenberg BibleDid you know that it was today in 1456 that the printing of the Gutenberg Bible was completed? It was the first major book printed using the movable type printing press. Twenty-one complete copies survive, but other incomplete copies remain. Font nerds might be interested to know that Gutenberg used typefaces called Textualis and Schwabacher. Textualis is sometimes just called Gothic now. The columns were also justified, which you can see from the photograph. Of course, justified columns are still used today in books and newspapers. It was an instant bestseller, selling out of its initial print run of 180 copies. Interestingly, many buyers purchased the Bibles in order to donate them to religious institutions. I’m sure they thought that would be a check in the “nice” column for when they met St. Peter at the pearly gates. One of my own ancestors, David Kennedy, appears to have donated a Bible (not a Gutenberg, of course) to his church with a similar motivation. Germany possesses the most remaining copies at 12, but you can find 11 copies in the United States and 8 in the United Kingdom. The Library of Congress, Pierpont Morgan Library, Yale, Harvard, and the University of Texas at Austin have complete copies. I might have guessed Harvard and Yale would have the kind of endowments necessary to own a complete Gutenberg Bible, but I was surprised at UT Austin. They apparently acquired their Gutenberg in 1978 from the Carl H. Pforzheimer Foundation. The first volume has been illuminated by a former owner about which we know nothing. It also bears annotations that indicate it has been owned and loved. I adore the fact that some annotations are corrections. I correct errors in books sometimes, too.

The Hunger GamesIn completely unrelated news, I am putting The Lost Memoirs of Jane Austen on hold to read The Hunger Games. Not one person I know has had anything less than absolute and unequivocal praise for Suzanne Collins’s trilogy. I need to see what the fuss is all about.

JulietAlso, Amazon sent me an email today suggesting I might be interested in Juliet by Anne Fortier, and I am. Check out the Publisher’s Weekly blurb:

Fortier bobs and weaves between Shakespearean tragedy and popular romance for a high-flying debut in which American Julie Jacobs travels to Siena in search of her Italian heritage—and possibly an inheritance—only to discover she is descended from 14th-century Giulietta Tomei, whose love for Romeo defied their feuding families and inspired Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Julie’s hunt leads her to the families’ descendants, still living in Siena, still feuding, and still struggling under the curse of the friar who wished a plague on both their houses. Julie’s unraveling of the past is assisted by a Felliniesque contessa and the contessa’s handsome nephew, and complicated by mobsters, police, and a mysterious motorcyclist. To understand what happened centuries ago, in the previous generation, and all around her, Julie relies on relics: a painting, a journal, a dagger, a ring. Readers enjoy the additional benefit of antique texts alternating with contemporary narratives, written in the language of modern romance and enlivened by brisk storytelling. Fortier navigates around false clues and twists, resulting in a dense, heavily plotted love story that reads like a Da Vinci Code for the smart modern woman.

So who took liberties? Shakespeare or Fortier? It was no friar who wished a plague on both house (it was Mercutio). How did Juliet have descendants? And why Siena instead of fair Verona? Still, I am intrigued. And it was probably Shakespeare.

Photo credit Kevin Eng.

Battle of Maldon

Statue of Brythnoth, Earl of EssexHave you ever heard of the Battle of Maldon? It happened on this date in 991 when Vikings invaded Essex, inspiring an Old English poem that influenced the writing of J.R.R. Tolkien.

August 12 marks the birthday of the former British poet laureate Robert Southey 1in 1774. I always remember an Introduction to Literature professor I had freshman year of college tried to tell us Southey was the father of Frankenstein novelist Mary Shelley. Nope. William Godwin was. August 12 also marks the anniversary of the deaths of poets William Blake in 1837 and James Russell Lowell in 1891 as well as the death of Thomas Mann in 1955 and Ian Fleming in 1964.

August 13 marks the anniversary of the death of H. G. Wells in 1946.

August 14 is the birthday of American romance novelist Danielle Steele.

August 15 marks the anniversary of the death of Duncan at the hand of Macbeth and Macbeth himself 17 years later at the hands of Malcolm (Máel Coluim mac Donnchada). Shakespeare telescopes these events in his play Macbeth. Sir Walter Scott was also born on that date in 1771 and Stieg Larsson in 1954.

August 16 marks the birthday of T. E. Lawrence in 1888, Georgette Heyer in 1902, and Charles Bukowski in 1920. British poet Andrew Marvell died on August 16 in 17678. August 16 also marks the anniversary of the date in 1949 when Gone With the Wind novelist Margaret Mitchell died after injuries suffered when she was hit by a car on Peachtree Street.

Goodreads and Shelfari

Goodreads and Shelfari

Goodreads and ShelfariDo you use Goodreads or Shelfari? Or both? I use both services. Each has features I like, but neither one does everything I want a reading social network to do.

Sharing Progress

Goodreads gives readers the option to share their progress through status updates either with page numbers or percentage read, which is great if you’re reading on an e-reader. I really like this feature. I think Shelfari should add it. Both sites do a great job cataloging multiple versions of books so that you can add the version you are reading to ensure the descriptions, page counts, etc. all match your particular copy.

Linked to Social Networks

Goodreads also allows users to share updates via Twitter and Facebook, which is a nice feature. Facebook can be integrated nicely with Goodreads. One of my Facebook friends told me he joined Goodreads because of seeing my updates on Facebook. My status updates show up on Twitter, and occasionally, people who follow me on Twitter ask me about what I’m reading, so the integration is a nice feature. Shelfari isn’t linked up with social networks. I think it would be a good feature for Shelfari to add.

Look and Feel

Shelfari’s site and bookshelves are beautiful. Shelfari allows users to select a material out of which to construct their shelves (wood or metal, etc.). Book covers are displayed on the shelves in a way Apple’s iBooks emulated for their app. Shelfari also makes beautiful shelf widgets for users to put on their blogs. In terms of look and feel, Shelfari scores big marks over Goodreads. I’d like to see Goodreads beautify their look and feel, too, but I suspect it would involve a major overhaul, and the site is perfectly functional as it is.

Re-Reading Books

Shelfari has much better support for re-readers than Goodreads. On Goodreads, you can mark a book as “Read” or “Currently Reading,” but not both. Shelfari allows for those users who re-read to mark a book as both. It would be a simple feature for Goodreads to implement, I should think, as it would mean changing the radio buttons they currently use to check boxes that allow for multiple selections. In addition, Shelfari allows users to add new “finished” dates each time a reader finishes a book. If a user has read a book three times, he or she can add three different finished dates. Goodreads allows only one, and you need to either keep the first finished date, or change it to a new one. Again, I think this is a feature that Goodreads could easily add.

Community

I like the community at Goodreads. They are serious readers. If you want the true skinny on a book, their reviews are often more helpful than Amazon’s. Users can also add trivia questions and join groups. I am a member of several groups on both Shelfari and Goodreads, but not too active. I think Shelfari could add some features to foster a livelier community. I think starting with social network integration would be a good idea, but further than that, I like the idea that users can add quotes and trivia to Goodreads. If Shelfari added these features, they might keep users on the site longer. Both Goodreads and Shelfari allow users to add content to book descriptions and change book information. On Goodreads, you need to apply to become a librarian. I haven’t noticed any egregious vandalism of books on the more open Shelfari, but perhaps it’s not a terrible idea to set some kind of bar. Goodreads just asks that users who want to become librarians have 50 books on their profile. It’s a good way of keeping occasional users or non-committed users from making random changes they shouldn’t.

Book Tallies

Goodreads and Shelfari both tally your total number of books, but Shelfari has a nice feature that you see on your home page when you’re logged in: the total number of books you’ve read this year. I love this feature. I try to read more books each year, and Shelfari totals the number you’ve read and compares to your reading during the previous year. If you have not read as many, it will tell you you’re behind your pace. If you’ve read more, it tells you you’re ahead of your pace. It’s a nice little pat on the back to log in and see I’ve nearly reached the total number of books I read last year, and it’s only August. I think Goodreads could add this feature, too.

Reviews

Both sites allow users to post reviews, but I like that Goodreads allows HTML in their reviews because I simply link back to my reviews here on this blog. As an English teacher, I appreciate being able to italicize titles using HTML, too. I think Shelfari should add the ability to use HTML in reviews. I don’t like leaving a blank review on Shelfari, so I usually copy and paste my reviews into their review space. But I often have links and other HTML in my posts that does not transfer. Both sites also allow you to assign starred ratings to books, but neither has 1/2 stars. The plugin I use to rate books here on this site allows for 1/2 stars, and I like that. Sometimes a book is not a 3 or 4. It’s a 3.5. It would be nice for Goodreads and Shelfari to give wishy-washy reviewers like me who can’t come down on a 3 or 4 the option of a 3.5.

The Bottom Line

Both sites have some great features, but each of them could be much better with a few simple changes. I have an account with LibraryThing, but I don’t use it. I don’t agree with their restriction of 200 books for free accounts. When Shelfari and Goodreads have excellent features for free, it seems silly to pay for LibraryThing. I don’t really understand Shelfari’s “Should I Read X?” feature. I should think users should be able to read reviews and figure out for themselves if they should read a book. It seems superfluous to me. Goodreads has a lot of authors on board, and it can be fun to interact with them. I’ve even seen Lev Grossman reply to reviews of his work.

What do you think? Do you use Goodreads, Shelfari, or even LibraryThing? If so, what features do you wish they had? Oh, and feel free to “friend” me on Goodreads or Shelfari.

Kindle

New Kindles

KindlePerhaps the biggest book news this week has been the impeding release of the latest generation of the Kindle, Amazon’s e-reader device. The new Kindle will be available in two colors: white or graphite, marking the first time you could get the Kindle in more than one color. The biggest news is that the Kindle will be available in wireless only and wireless + 3G versions. The wireless only version will be an affordable $139. I paid $259 for my Kindle with wireless and 3G in April, but this version of the new Kindle will cost only $189. The new Kindle will also be lighter by about 2 ounces. The battery life has been extended. With wireless off, the battery will now last a month. It will also have double the storage of the current Kindle. The new Kindle is also supposed to have sharper contrast and quieter, faster page-turns. I have to say that had I known this new Kindle was coming down the pike, I would have waited a few months. I’m hoping owning a Kindle isn’t going to turn into the same frustrating cycle as being an Apple customer. Are you planning to get one? They’re sold out for now, but you can put your name on a list. Amazon says as of today that if you order today, you can expect your Kindle on September 4. I think it’s great that Amazon is working to make their excellent e-reader even better.

A lot of my friends have said that they like the feel and smell of books too much to get an e-reader. I have to say that just because I bought a Kindle doesn’t mean I gave up print books. In fact, according to an infographic in the latest issue of Newsweek, only 15% of Kindle users stop reading print books.

In other news, I thought this podcast about Emily Dickinson’s poem “Because I Could Not Stop for Death” was interesting. Give it a listen.

Anniversaries and birthdays this week:

August 3: Birthday of Leon Uris (1924), death of Joseph Conrad (1924), death of Flannery O’Connor (1964), death of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (2008).

August 4: Birthday of Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792), death of Hans Christian Andersen (1875).

August 5: Birthday of John Hathorne, hanging judge in the Salem witch trials and ancestor of Nathaniel Hawthorne, (1641); birthday of Guy de Maupassant (1850); birth of Conrad Aiken (1889); birth of Wendell Berry (1934).

August 6: Birthday of Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809); birthday of Piers Anthony (1934); death of Ben Jonson (1637).

August 8: Death of Shirley Jackson (1965).

August 9: Henry David Thoreau publishes Walden (1854), birth of P. L. Travers (1899), birth of Philip Larkin (1922), birth of Jonathan Kellerman (1949), death of Hermann Hesse (1962).

Celebrating Georgette Heyer

Celebrating Georgette Heyer

Celebrating Georgette HeyerIn honor of Georgette Heyer’s birthday on August 16, Laurel Ann of Austenprose is hosting a month-long celebration of Heyer’s work. Yours truly is participating with a review of Charity Girl, which will be my first Heyer read. Please join us at Laurel Ann’s for the festivities.

In other book-related news this week, on this date in 1054, Siward, Earl of Northumbria, invaded Scotland to aid Malcolm Canmore against Macbeth, an event depicted in Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Can’t wait to teach that one again this year! It’s also the birthday of Alexandre Dumas fils and the anniversary of the death of Gertrude Stein.

Tomorrow marks the birthday of Beatrix Potter and the anniversary of the death of Cyrano de Bergerac.

Friday is the birthday of novelist Emily Brontë. I hope I can have a review of the novel Emily’s Ghost ready to commemorate that event. Friday also marks the anniversary of the death of British poet Thomas Gray.

Saturday we celebrate the birthdays of J. K. Rowling and her creation, Harry Potter. On July 31, 1703, writer Daniel Defoe was also put in a pillory following a conviction for seditious libel. He was pelted with flowers.

On August 1, 1944, Anne Frank made the last entry in her diary. August 1 is also Herman Melville’s birthday.

Monday August 2 is Caleb Carr‘s birthday and also marks the anniversary of Raymond Carver’s death and William S. Burroughs’s death.

Mark Twain’s Unexpurgated Biography Published

Mark Twain via the Library of CongressMuch speculation has surrounded Mark Twain’s autobiography because of the stipulation in his will that it not be published until 100 years after his death. Many have wondered exactly what he said that was so controversial. Readers won’t have to wait much longer. The New York Times reports that the first of three volumes is set to be published by the University of California Press this November. You can preorder it on Amazon right now. No word yet on when volumes 2 and 3, which are said to contain most of the previously unpublished material, will be published.

Are you going to try to read it?

Other book news this week:

Thursday, July 15 marks the 172nd anniversary of Ralph Waldo Emerson‘s famous Divinity School Address at Harvard Divinity School. Emerson declared Jesus to be a great man, but not divine, and he discounted biblical miracles in this famous address. The controversial speech resulted in Emerson’s not speaking at Harvard for 30 years. You can read the speech here.

Friday July 16 marks the 95th anniversary of the date when Henry James became a British citizen. I can only think of one other American writer—T. S. Eliot—who became a British citizen. Because James died less than a year after becoming a British citizen, most people don’t think of him as an English writer, whereas some people do think of Eliot as English. Can you think of other American writers who became British citizens?

July 16 also marks the 59th anniversary of the publication of J. D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye. This book continues to speak to students even today. You can read my reflections about teaching it here and here.

Mickey Spillane died four years ago on July 17.

On July 18, 1925, Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf. William Makepeace Thackeray was born on July 18, 1811. Jane Austen died on July 18, 1817. Horatio Alger also died on that date in 1899.

On July 19, 1692, five women—Sarah Good, Elizabeth Howe, Susannah Martin, Sarah Wildes, and Rebecca Nurse—were hanged for witchcraft in Salem, MA. (my visit to Salem begins on that date next week!) The Salem witch trials served as inspiration for Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible, as well as one of my favorite YA writers Ann Rinaldi’s book A Break with Charity. Elizabeth Howe is an ancestor of modern writer Katherine Howe, who also used Salem’s witchcraft history as inspiration for her novel The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (read my review).

On July 19, 1963, Australian author Garth Nix was born. I enjoyed his book Sabriel. My daughter loves his writing.

Transcendentalist writer Margaret Fuller died on July 19, 1850. Irish-American writer Frank McCourt died a year ago on July 19, 2009.

My Life in Books: To Kill a Mockingbird

To Kill a MockingbirdMy first encounter with To Kill a Mockingbird came in sixth grade. As a reward, our classes were allowed to watch the movie during school. It was such a great story. Two years later, I was looking at the books my language arts teacher had on her library rack, and I picked up the copy of To Kill a Mockingbird. With the unerring sense of an English teacher sniffing a student interested in a book, she was at my side in a moment asking me if I would like to read the book. I sheepishly put it back on the rack. I was scared to read it at that time, and I can’t think why. I had read other adult books, and one could argue that this, despite it’s cover, was not even an adult book. The cover was yellow with some adult-looking print.

Yellow To Kill a Mockingbird

I thought it looked like a mystery or a spy novel. I don’t think I put it together with the movie I had already seen.

To Kill a Mockingbird was assigned reading in my 11th grade English class (American lit.). I usually have a hard time keeping up with a school reading schedule, but I stayed ahead in this book. I devoured it. I read more than I was assigned. I was entranced by the characters. I fell in love with the book. It was the first assigned novel I read for school that I really liked.

What Harper Lee did masterfully in this book is capture real people. I knew folks just like all the characters in the book. While the book has some critics, I still consider it one of the best books I’ve ever read and one I would definitely consider worthy of its place in the literary canon. Parts of this book still have the power to make me laugh aloud and cry real tears. My favorite books have almost always been character-driven. I love good characters, and I am willing to forgive flawed writing and hackneyed plot if the characters are good. I think I trace that love of character to my first experience reading To Kill a Mockingbird.

In the years since that first reading over twenty years ago, I have had the pleasurable experience of teaching the novel, and many times, students react to it in the same way that I did. Harper Lee has famously described the novel as “a love story.” In a way, it is. It’s a snapshot of a moment in time and place. It’s a moving homage to Lee’s own father, Amasa Lee, who was her model for Atticus—Harper Lee gave Gregory Peck, who played Atticus in the film, her father’s own pocket watch. It’s a loving tribute to the innocence of childhood. To Kill a Mockingbird means so many things to so many people. My personal hero Morris Dees says he became a lawyer because of Atticus Finch.

Happy 50th birthday, To Kill a Mockingbird.

Is Reading on the Kindle Slower?

Past and future 1Yesterday, PC World reported findings of a study conducted by Dr. Jakob Nielson that suggests people read slower on e-readers like the Kindle and iPad than they do paperbacks.

I know for a fact I read faster on a Kindle, and therefore, I was surprised by the results. Until I took a good look at the article. Nielson’s sample consisted of only 24 people. In addition, the readers sampled read short stories by Ernest Hemingway. I think if we really want to learn whether or not people read more slowly on the Kindle, the sample size needs to be much larger if it is going to represent the population, and a variety of types of reading should be part of the experiment. As it is, the difference in reading time on the iPad versus paperback amounted to about a minute, whereas the Kindle time was almost two minutes longer.

Other book news:

On today’s date in 1942, Anne Frank and her family went into hiding in the secret annex above her father’s office. In 1893, Guy de Maupassant died.

Other anniversaries this week:

July 7, 1930, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died.

July 8, 1822, Percy Bysshe Shelley drowned off the coast of Italy. July 8, 2004 YA and children’s author Paula Danziger died. (I loved her books The Cat Ate My Gymsuit and There’s a Bat in Bunk Five when I was a tween/teen.)

July 9, 1764, Ann Radcliffe, better known as Mrs. Radcliffe, the author of The Mysteries of Udolpho that served as inspiration for Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey, was born. Famed romance novelist Dame Barbara Cartland was born on July 9, 1901. Dean R. Koontz was born July 9, 1945.

July 10, 1871, Marcel Proust was born. July 10, 1931, Alice Munro was born.

July 11, 1960, To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (still one of my all-time favorites) was published. On July 11, 1899, E. B. White was born. On July 11, 1930, Harold Bloom was born.

July 12, 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born. July 12, 1904, Pablo Neruda was born.

photo credit: Jandro S

Kindle

I have been saving funds earned as an Amazon affiliate to purchase a Kindle, and if you have visited recently, you may have caught my post about whether to buy a Kindle or a Nook. I settled on a Kindle after doing the research. The iPad is far outside of my price range for a e-book reader. I purchased the Kindle, but I had to wait some time before it shipped, and I’m not sure of the reason.

The Kindle arrived on Dylan’s birthday (April 16). Steve unboxed it before I could get home from work, but I took some pictures of the Kindle.

I bought a cover for the Kindle, and I’m happy I did. I’m not sure how I’d have kept it safe otherwise. The Kindle all snug in its cover looks like a nice Moleskine notebook.

KindleHere’s a picture of the opened cover. The buttons are small but easier to use than the iPhone keyboard. Navigation didn’t take very long to learn.

KindleThe Kindle changes the display on the screen when you put it in sleep mode. Most of the images have been of authors, like this one of Mark Twain, but I have also seen what looked like an illuminated manuscript.

I already ran into an issue when I tried to download my textbook for Educational Research onto my Kindle. I already have it on my Kindle for iPhone and for Mac. Well, I kept receiving a message that said the book could not be downloaded onto my device. I did a search online and discovered this problem can be traced back to the publisher who most likely set the number of times the book could be downloaded onto a device very low. It figures a textbook author would do that. I don’t blame Amazon for that issue; it’s the textbook company.

I have been happy with the Kindle so far. I checked out some of the free books, but I’m not sure what to download. It’s all so overwhelming right now.

I know a lot of the romantics think I’ve committed heresy, but I will say this. I love reading. Period. Books, e-readers, online (although reading books online is very hard for me). It doesn’t matter to me. I’m sure there were folks who romanticized manuscripts when the printing press was invented and books came into being. The book’s run is not over, and I have not defected to the other side. I have simply added a tool that will allow me to read books more easily on the go. I just don’t understand why it has to be an either/or prospect.