Reading is Enriched with the Internet

As most of you probably have figured out, I am a reader. No surprise there since I have chosen librarianship as my profession. I constantly am reading and also listening to audiobooks. While I read, I quite often will pick up my iPad to look something up. I’ll be reading and something will strike my curiosity. Sometimes it is the mention of a place or a historic event. I have explored castle ruins and have strolled through the streets of small towns in Europe using Google Earth. I have googled historic names and events, sometimes to see if they really existed or happened....or to simply learn more.

Today I am reading a book called The Alice Network. It is a book about a young teenager named Charlotte (Charlie) who embarks on a daring journey to England just after the end of WWII to try to locate her beloved missing French cousin, Rose. Adding to the adventure is the fact that Charlie has a “little problem”...she is 3 months pregnant. She had originally been in England with her mother on a stopover enroute to Switzerland to take care of “it.” After ditching her mother to pursue her real purpose for arranging this stopover, Charlie goes to London to meet up with a woman who may know something about her missing cousin. Enter Eve Gardiner, who has a story of her own that takes place during WWI. The story commences by toggling between Charlie and Eve’s stories every other chapter.

So far, this story has prompted me to look up clothing styles of the 1940’s and 1914-1918, small towns in England and France, what a Lagonda LG6 looked like, and to find out more about the spy network mentioned in the book. Seriously, what did I do while reading before the existence of the Internet? The only negative is that it can slow reading down and the completion of a novel...but I think that’s a rather small trade off to learning so much!

Incidentally, this book has been made into a movie starring Reese Witherspoon. As soon as I’m done reading this, I am definitely seeing it.

Does anyone else enrich their reading experience using the Internet? It’s really great! I’m only on the 4th chapter and I can tell this is a great book. If you are looking for a great historical novel to read, consider picking this one up.