The post originally appeared on Book Riot. 

Big brother knows what you’re reading….if you read ebooks.

It’s not really a secret that big companies like to collect big data on their customers. Free online services aren’t really free — you pay in personal information — and even services that cost money for often ask for an additional payment of information.

Over the holidays, The New York Times ran an article about new and existing services that track user behavior in while reading ebooks (not one to avoid an alarmist headline the NYT headline noted “ebooks are reading you”). Some of the findings the article included were interesting, if not entirely surprising:

The longer a mystery novel is, the more likely readers are to jump to the end to see who done it. People are more likely to finish biographies than business titles, but a chapter of a yoga book is all they need. They speed through romances faster than religious titles, and erotica fastest of all. …

Oyster data shows that readers are 25 percent more likely to finish books that are broken up into shorter chapters. That is an inevitable consequence of people reading in short sessions during the day on an iPhone.

While my initial reaction to reading the story was to toss down my tablet and return to the world of print books as soon as possible, the more I think about, the more excited I am about the idea of collecting my personal reading analytics. And I know I’m not the only one — a recent Book Riot post about strategies for tracking reading has garnered more than 100 comments already.

Right now, it’s pretty easy to keep track of which books I pick up and which books I put down. But wouldn’t it be cool to collect information about the point I quit a book? How quickly I read? Whether chapter length makes a difference in how fast or likely I am to finish a book? Those are data points that are cumbersome to track by hand, but easy to gather and analyze automatically if you are reading electronically.

A really great personal reading analytics program would also be able to pull in information about the books I read — when were they published? What is the author’s gender or race? What genres do I read most or fastest? Combine that with the number of hours spent with audio books and you’d get a fascinating look at an individual’s reading life. Giving up data can be a little scary, but this is one area where I think it would be worth it.

Title: Smarter Than You Think: How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better
Author: Clive Thompson
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2012
Publisher: The Penguin Press
Acquired: Bought
Rating:

Review: There have been quite a few books in the last five years arguing that technology is ruining our minds. In Smarter Than You Think, Clive Thompson acknowledges that technology is changing the way we think, but argues that these changes are for the better because they are ushering in a new style of intelligence that is improved by the resources that technology can provide.

Thompson suggests that there are three major ways technology is changing the way we think — it can give us an enormous external memory, it can make it easier to find connections between things, and it encourages more (almost too much) communication and publishing. The key to being smarter than we think is learning to harness the power of new technology while addressing the problems they can create.

In the book Thompson looks at the way technology changes mental habits by focusing on three observable areas: “cognitive behavior, the quality of our cultural production, and the social science that tries to measure what we do in everyday life.” Each chapter looks at a different aspect of technological thinking, exploring where we are, where we could go, and some of the pitfalls of technology in that area.

I really loved this book and took a whole slew of notes on different aspects of the book… so much I could write an incredibly long review. But that’s boring, so I’ll keep things brief. I loved that Thompson took a broad look at technology, connecting new tools with old tools and how we’re actually using those tools now. And while he acknowledges concerns with technology, he’s not willing to assume that the tool is entirely the problem.

In that way, Smarter Than You Think is also a great companion piece to one of my favorite books of 2013, The Distraction Addiction by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang. Thompson mentions the importance of mindfulness several times, noting, like Pang, that humans have always been easily distracted. A key to letting technology help you be smarter is to tame your brain and practice focus. The connection between the two books is likely another reason I enjoyed Smarter Than You Think so much.

If you are interested in technology and intelligence, or just like to learn about the cool ways people are putting new technology to work in creative ways, grab a copy of Smarter Than You Think. It’s great. With that, I’ll end with one of Thompson’s closing thoughts that I think is especially apt:

As with all new tools, we’ll also have to negotiate how not to use it. … We have to interrogate our most destabilizing new technologies and be aware of their dangers (economic, political, and social), to flat-out avoid the tools we find harmful — yet not be blinded to the ones that truly augment our thought and bring intellectual joy.

Other Reviews: Book Riot |

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Title: Priscilla: The Hidden Life of an Englishwoman in Wartime France
Author: Nicholas Shakespeare
Genre: Nonfiction
Year: 2013
Publisher: Harper
Acquired: From the publisher for review consideration
Rating:

Review: As a kid, novelist Nicholas Shakespeare was fascinated by his glamorous but mysterious aunt, Priscilla. Family rumors hinted that Priscilla, who struggled with a drinking problem and a temperamental husband late in life, had been captured and tortured by Germans during World War II while serving as a member of the resistance in occupied France.

After Priscilla’s death, Shakespeare discovers a trunk of her belongings and her personal scrapbook. From these few details, Shakespeare begins a hunt to uncover what really happened during the war that impacted Priscilla for the rest of her life. Although Priscilla is ultimately more speculative than a historian might be comfortable with, Shakespeare’s search for the truth of Priscilla’s life is an illuminating look at how women fared in Nazi-occupied France.

Priscilla is an interesting book about an equally interesting woman, set during a time and place that I don’t know much about. After the Nazi’s invaded France, British citizens caught there had few options. Female British citizens had even fewer. Priscilla, hiding in Paris from her French in-laws and disconnected from her British family, made a lot of questionable and complex choices that Shakespeare discovers, explores and contextualizes. I won’t say more than that for fear of spoilers, but if you know anything of World War II history I’m sure you have some ideas.

As a story, Priscilla was quite good. Although some sections could be disjointed, particularly as Shakespeare revisits old assumptions with new information, in general the plot moved along and kept me engaged with the book. One of the things that troubled me about the book (and what probably pulled the rating down just a bit) is that the review copy I was reading is very light on citations. There are some scattered throughout the text, but the notes in the back, though long, are not especially detailed when it comes to specific assertions in the text. This doesn’t always bug me, but I feel like accurate, detailed notes are important in a book that is so focused on digging through “stuff” to uncover a true story.

(After I finished writing this and was digging for other reviews to share, I came across this passage in a piece about the book in the New York Times, which I heartily agree with:

Mr. Shakespeare is also telling the story of how he got Priscilla’s story; both chronology and perspective can be tricky to parse. And while he offers some overview, you may wish the whole had been framed less as a series of mysteries and been allowed more analysis — not to mention a timeline of the principal’s life and a cast list or, at least, an index, deficiencies probably to be laid at the publisher’s door. A map of France would be handy, too.)

Despite that caveat, I think Priscilla is a book that many people, especially those with an interest in WWII or the role of women during the war years, will want to read. Priscilla’s story is uniquely her own, yet dovetails with the experiences of many other women during that time period. Their stories are worth reading and deserve to be told. 

Other Reviews: The New York Times | The Observer |

If you have reviewed this book, please leave a link to the review in the comments and I will add your review to the main post. All I ask is for you to do the same to mine — thanks!

Time // 11:15 a.m.

Place // My desk in my updated office, which now includes an Expedit shelf and Alex chest of drawers from IKEA. A week from now it will also have a new wireless printer that I got for Christmas.

Eating // Fruit snacks! I’m mostly biding my time until I can eat lunch, homemade chili.

Drinking // A new tea blend, Republic of Tea’s holiday spice blend, Comfort and Joy.

Reading // I kicked off the new year with a great week of reading. I finished three books: I Don’t Know by Lean Hager Cohen, Empty Mansions by Bill Dedman and Paul Clark Newell Jr., and We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler. This morning I started another book, Trapped Under the Sea by Neil Swidey (February 18 from Crown). They’ve all been great so far, which I hope means good things for my reading in 2014.

Watching // As a result of the holiday hiatus, I finished watching the final, six-episode season of Nikita and started watching Arrow, a CW superhero show that my sister recommended. I didn’t love the way Nikita had to wrap up so quickly, but I’m glad the characters got a thoughtful send off. Arrow is ok so far, but I am excited that my favorite shows are coming back. The boyfriend and I really liked the new episodes of Community, and I’m looking forward to Parks and Recreation, New Girl, Brooklyn Nine Nine and Sleepy Hollow.

Listening // I’m in love with the playlists for every mood that Spotify recently added. The Mood Booster list is perfect for staying upbeat when doing boring things like washing dishes.

Blogging // Last week was very heavy on posts about blogging, including a look back at my reading stats for 2013 and a look forward to my plans for 2014, tackling my unread books. This week, I’m hoping to get a couple of reviews posted — depends how much I can get written today!

Promoting // Yesterday I posted about another year-long workshop I joined, One Little Word by Ali Edwards. Choosing a word — curate — and working on the prompts for January have really helped solidify the direction I want to go in 2014. I’m really excited about this project.

Hating // I’ll give you one guess… if you guessed “the weather” you are correct! It’s so cold in Minnesota that the governor cancelled school state-wide for tomorrow. That hasn’t happened since 1997. Le sigh.

Loving // I organized my shelf of review copies this week and I am so happy to have that project done. I’d let it slide a bit in the end of 2013, but this year I pledge to be more organized!

Avoiding // I need to do the dishes… and I don’t want to.

Anticipating // This week is one of my favorite weeks of the year, Youth in Government! YIG is a program I’ve been involved with since I was a high school student. Every year in January about 1,500 kids gather in the Twin Cities to put on a mock legislative session. I work with the students in the Youth Secretary of State’s Office, and we have a great crew this year. I leave for YIG on Wednesday night and will get back home, exhausted, sometime on Sunday night. It’s a ton of work, but so rewarding to give back to a program that gave me so much when I was a teenager.

I could gush about YIG all day… but I won’t. Happy Sunday, everyone. What are you reading today?