Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Book Review - All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane


I stumbled upon All Roads Lead to Austen: A Yearlong Journey with Jane by Amy Elizabeth Smith while searching for an ebook to read on the train this summer. I browsed through Freading ebooks since I knew everything would available for download immediately (no wait list!)  While I'm not an Austenite, I do seem to gravitate to books centered around Jane Austen's books ... The Jane Austen Book Club is a good example of this.

I'm also an armchair traveler so I really liked that All Roads Lead to Austen is part travelogue. During a yearlong sabbatical from teaching, Smith journeys to six countries in Latin America (Guatemala, Mexico, Ecuador, Chile, Paraguay, and Argentina) to conduct reading groups using three of Austen's novels - Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, and Emma - in an attempt to discover if Austen's books translate across time and culture.  Since this book is a memoir, it was lots of fun for me to "meet" real people from these Latin American countries, not just fictional characters created by an author. 

My absolute favorite part of the book is when Smith asked the members of her reading groups to suggest the authors from their country that they thought she should read. I diligently jotted down the author's names, vowing to read as many of them as I possibly can (translated into English, of course). I won't embarrass myself by revealing how many of the authors were new to me.

If you are curious about All Roads Lead to Austen, you can check out additional reviews on Goodreads.

This book review was submitted by Jill S.

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Freegal 4.0 Is Here!


If you're not already familiar with Freegal Music, it allows you to download 3 FREE songs per week from a collection of over 7 million songs!   The songs are downloaded as MP3 files and they are yours to keep forever. Freegal Music currently has music from over 28,000 labels, including the complete catalog of Sony Music Entertainment.

In addition to songs, you can now download music videos from Freegal.  The music videos count as 2 credits compared to the 1 credit cost of each song, but like the songs, the MP4 video files are yours to keep forever. Choose from over 10,000 videos from artists including Adele, One Direction, Miley Cyrus, Michael Jackson, and many, many more.

Another feature new to Freegal 4.0 is the ability to create a wishlist of songs that you'd like to download in the future.  This will come in very handy when you see all the new songs being offered!

Each person with a Matawan Aberdeen Library card is given 3 credits per week (Monday to Sunday) which you can used to download songs and videos. To access Freegal 4.0, please visit our website at www.matawanaberdeenlibrary.com, click on Electronic Resources, select Music, and then click on the Freegal icon ... or simply click here. You can browse without signing in, but you must sign in with your library card number in order to download videos or songs.

Enjoy!

This post was written by Dennis K. and Jill S.