A few good books

I know it's a bit after summer but here are a few of my good reads to take us into fall. Many of these are on my LibraryThing but I wanted to add my thoughts on these. I hope to add a few more posts like this soon.

Austenland by Shannon Hale
This is a book published this year which was a great fun read. I am a Jane Austen nut so the story was right up my alley. The main character, Jane Hays gets to live out her Jane Austen fantasy at a period strict resort. A little contrived but fun all the way through.

Pride and Prejudice And Mansfield Park by Jane Austen
OK, I can't write about my good reads without including my favorites.

P&P is the classic romance tome with the wonderful language and wit of Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth Bennett as they struggle with and against pride, prejudice and love. I have read and watched (many versions) so many times my husband doesn't know what to do with me. Each perusal bring something new so I just can't resist and it's just such a nice relaxing read.

Mansfield Park is such a different book. Romance and marriage are a key themes but there is much more to explore. Fanny Price is the poor offspring of a family with too many children sent to live with wealthy relations. Class divisions are very evident in this book but it creates a wonderfully woven story speaking to class, love, lust, and finding one's true self. I love this book for the triumph of goodness and for making the reader think about consequences of one's actions.

Pride and Prescience: Or, A Truth Universally Acknowledged by Carrie Bebris

I am a purist and don't always like to go beyond the story, but this was very different. A mystery story beginning right after Elizabeth Bennett becomes Mrs. Darcy. The plot isn't a classic who-done it but contains magical themes and grabs the reader with the familiar characters with a little bit more development.

Post 2.0

Now that I've finished this project, I'm trying to keep more up to date. A colleague emailed the page below on concepts all librarians need to know. It was very interesting but still a little techie for me. Definitely good to be aware of what all those acronyms mean and where to go for more information.

http://otherlibrarian.wordpress.com/2007/09/06/under-the-hood-of-web-20-the-top-ten-programming-concepts-for-librarians-to-understand/