After two books broke my heart, I decided to take a quick break from Fantasy. As much as I love that genre, sometimes it’s just too much. Thankfully, my break gave me time to read and review two of Sarah Davis’s short nonfiction books. If you’re taking a break like me, or are just looking for something different consider picking one of these up! Both of these books can be found on Kindle Unlimited.
**I received free copies of these books in exchange for honest reviews.
A Purrfect Collection of Cat Quotes: 200+ Wise, Witty and Wonderful Quotes About Cats
Author: Sarah S. Davis
Genres: Nonfiction
Pages: 101
Links: Goodreads, Amazon
ISBN: 1691514314
I was extremely happy to get my hands on a copy of this book because… I love cats.
A Purrfect Collection of Cat Quotes is a celebration of cats with 5 chapters full of different reasons to love cats. Each chapter has a short section on successful cat lovers, and how they incorporated their furry friends into their lives.
My favorite part of this book was how it portrayed living with cats, and the stereotypical lifestyle that goes with having cats, in a positive light. Everyone knows about the “crazy cat person”, and we like to assume those people are exclusively sad, lonely recluses. But that is far from the truth! I was most surprised and excited to learn about Freddie Mercury’s love of cats. Yet another reason to love the icon lead singer of Queen.
“There is, incidentally, no way of talking about cats that enables one to come off as a sane person.”
Dan Greenberg (One of the many quotes you’ll find in A Purrfect Collection of Cat Quotes)
I loved that Davis organized this book into different sections, which will make it easier for me to go back and find quotes. I especially loved the last section “Funny Felines”, which kept me smiling and giggling to myself. Cats are odd creatures, and it’s important to have a sense of humor when living with one.
I also loved the section on wisdom we get from having cats. I love my cat, and it was interesting to think about his mannerisms as wise rather than just silly or “pretentious”. I’ll have to go back to that section next time I’m in need of cat wisdom.
There were only two issues that kept me from giving this book full stars. There was one quote from H.P. Lovecraft, who named his cat a racial slur, and I wished his quote had been left out of the book. I was also disappointed that a few of the quotes had authors listed as unknown. While I understand that it would be impossible to find the author of every quote, I think it would be better to just leave unknown quotes out of the book. That being said, there were only a few quotes that I had issues with. The vast majority were from amazing authors, some I was able to recognize immediately.
If you’re looking for a great list of reasons to love cats, this book is perfect for you. I am so glad I got to read and review this book. I love having a book full of cat love to go back to whenever I’m having a hard day.
Book Blogging Hacks: Tips and Tricks for Book Bloggers + 365 Book Blog Post Ideas (How to Blog About Books #1)
Author: Sarah S. Davis
Genres: Nonfiction
Pages: 147
Links: Goodreads, Amazon
ISBN: 1983093742
After picking up this book I couldn’t even get through the first page before opening a google doc and starting a page of notes. Book Blogging Hacks is full of information on what to write about on your blog and how to generate unique blog posts that will drive in traffic.
If you’re looking for an explanation on how blogging platforms work or how to market your blog, this is not the book for you. Davis’s book focuses on the content of book blogs, and how to make your everyday mundane posts into something unique and timeless. If you’re a new blogger or just find yourself in a slump, this is an amazing resource to help you create content for your blog.
The most useful information I took out of Book Blogging Hacks was how to take common posts (e.g. reviews, wrap-ups, lists) and turn them into something that is unique to my blog. I also loved that Davis mentioned ways to organize my books so that I can create lists without having to scour my memory of every book I’ve ever read. In her short book, Davis manages to share a plethora of essential and easily overlooked bits of information about writing blog posts.
Most of this book is just an extended list, but I was glad many of the prompts had open-ended questions. I could tell Davis cared about teaching bloggers how to come up with their own unique prompts in addition to the ones she provided. She is very conversational and unpretentious in her writing, yet she manages to pack in tons of information.
Although this is a great blogging resource, there were a couple things that kept me from giving it a higher rating. First, I noticed several writing errors/oversights in the book, which may or may not be unique to the free copy that I received. I also noticed that a few of the writing prompts were listed more than once and the organization of the book seemed scattered at times. These errors were annoying to find, but none of them took away from the information in the book.
If you are a new blogger or just looking for more ideas to drive traffic to your blog, I recommend picking up Book Blogging Hacks. Despite its flaws, it taught me more about blogging than any of the short posts I read from other bloggers (not that they weren’t helpful!). I am extremely glad I can use Book Blogging Hacks as a resource now and in the future.
May your days be full of magic and dragons,
Peyton
Isabel
Peyton