Topic: Books You're Currently Reading?

@Ravix Time is a very precious commodity around these parts so wasting it listening to something that will refuse to register in my mind is really not on the cards. I'll never rule it out entirely; I've been wanting to give the Buffy revival a go, but for now I'll let my eyes do the reading
I've nothing against audiobooks; I am in fact quite envious of those who can listen to them whilst doing something else and still manage to absorb the content. My mind simply refuses to do that.

@FuriousMachine I get it. I’m probably somewhere in the middle — I can enjoy listening to audio content whilst doing mundane things, but I struggle to maintain comprehension if I’m listening while doing something intellectually active. And unfortunately 90% of my day is spent doing things that do require some active cognitive processing, but I do have a small amount of commuting to and from work, some occasional chores at home (laundry and dishes, yard work), and a small amount of my job that I can complete on autopilot, brain functionally dormant. I also am going to use audiobook listening as a motivator to get back into exercise and that’s a good ‘2 for 1’ where I can double up productivity by doing two things simultaneously that I’ve been wishing I did more of. We’ll see how it goes. Even with an idle mind, I have had problems with keeping attention to detail while listening if the narration is poor or the book isn’t interesting enough. And the listening while exercising is a mixed bag — although my mind is inactive during that time, if I’m having a heavy enough work out I sometimes struggle to concentrate. Probably some issue of poor oxygen or nutrient delivery to my brain when the body is under duress. Most of the time I can do both though.

Some people can play certain video games while listening to podcasts or books. That is something I have never been able to do. Even with a grindy game where my mind is shut off, I find it distracting to have unrelated audio being piped in. Even when I multitask with playing a simple game on the Portal while watching sports, I find that I have to turn down the volume of one of them. Fortunately a lot of sports can still be enjoyed (and sometimes more so) with the commentary muted. 😅 And definitely the commercials are much better with audio off!

@Th3solution @FuriousMachine yeah, I wouldn't do too taxing an activity while listening, unless I literally just wanted background noise. And the absolute ideal is late evening/night in place of a show or game, just absolutely chilling, meditative and focused on nothing but the words. But Audiobooks are great on long journeys to replace the drone of the open road (or the drone of other people 😄) That's when I really go into them most, I think. And it was choosing a book i'd already read (literally The Last Wish) that started me on this path. I knew I wanted to reread the Witcher books, had a long journey planned and knew I couldn't read and travel at the same time anyway and proabably wouldn't be dedicating enough time to actaully reread them all in book form as there are too many other things to devote time to. Excersise is also a good one for audiobooks, light exercise, anyway, even just walking. Anything more intensely active then music is better.

If you ever find you need sleep but aren't drifting off, a near guaranteed trick is to decide "I will definitely listen to a chapter or two in bed" and by half way through you will realise your mind isn't focused and you're ready to drop off. That requires rewinding to where you last remember taking in the words to avoid any confusion, though.

I think you'll find a way, Sol. Even if Furious cannot be lured in to my web to get the full Peter Kenny experience!

@Ravix I've yet to try audio books and also still to try the digital route. I love a nice hardcopy, I'm not overly fussy about hardcover or paperback. There is nothing quite like cracking open a book and smelling that paper old or new.

If I was to try audio books are there any stand outs that you would recommend? I hear Dungeon Crawler Carl is excellent in that format. Me being me wanted the nice hardcover for my shelves though.

@Th3solution @Ravix @MightyDemon82 I've long since realised that I'm incapable of multitasking; I'm barely capable of singletasking! (fun fact: research indicates that very few people, if any, truly multitask; the processing is continually switching between the tasks, incurring a cognitive penalty for each task as the brain continually resets, making each task take longer, become more error prone and memory retention suffers. There are levels of this, of course, reciting Shakespeare while balancing your budget will be more difficult than the famous combination of walking and chewing gum).

I use music as background "noise" for pretty much everything I do, as it can easily fade into the background when I'm concentrating on other things and it won't bother me. When the same thing happens with a podcast or audiobook, I actually get a little cranky. If I were to put my mind to listening to something I want my mind to retain, I must focus on that and I find it difficult to keep my mind from wandering. Which is why, in pretty much all the scenarios you guys mention - commuting/traveling (I've never had a driver's license, so I'm never driving), wanting to wind down with something other than a game, a movie or a show - that's when I read. I will also read during most meals. Exercise and very mundane housework, like doing the washing up, are activities where I can listen to a podcast, but even then my mind would drift, so I prefer music for those activities as well.

When I want to actively listen to music, I am able to play very simple games such as solitaire or the likes, and still give most of my attention to the music. This is what I typically do when I take an LP out for a spin on the old turntable.

As for physical books, I miss them dearly (I too love the smell of cracking open a proper book), but issues with my eyesight and having very little available space for them makes digital my best option at this time in my life.

@FuriousMachine As for physical books, I miss them dearly (I too love the smell of cracking open a proper book), but issues with my eyesight and having very little available space for them makes digital my best option at this time in my life.

• That sounds so hard to imagine going through, my books are like my children and I've seen 'some' of your collection (I haven't looked in a few weeks) I was talking to a pianist a couple of weeks ago about some music I wrote and I wanted to forward a piece to hear their opinion. They told me they simply can't because their hearing is starting to go, it made me turn my music down. Can you not get reading glasses or is it an issue with the light too? Like you enjoy the dark and you are losing focus because of it so you need the light of a Kindle or other device to provide that clarity.

Which reminds me I still have you as a friend on there, I just had to change my account name again. It's still up, just under a different name.

@FuriousMachine @GirlVersusGame I'm incredibly lucky to be almost 44 and still don't need glasses. I wore for a brief period as a kid, but my eyesight must have corrected itself. The optician was happy with my sight the last time I visited so for the time being I feel lucky considering all my younger siblings all wear glasses.

My books are also like my kids 🤣

@MightyDemon82 Well this is embarrassing I thought you were eight two years old, now I just noticed it's your date of birth. Glasses absolutely work on some people, I've used them as fashion but they were obviously non-functional and you could tell.

Here's some of my kids
https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/70717790-away-with-the-fa...

Be warned it's a bit of an eccentric collection and that's maybe half. I've managed to catalogue six thousand+ online and eight thousand+ offline, I've been doing it since 2017 and it takes forever. I don't watch the news media so if something happens like say a terrorist attack I'll wait for the book and read every book on the topic then make my mind up. Or for example during lockdown when so many people went stir-crazy and followed conspiracy theories. I read eighty of those too (unfortunately) True Crime is at about six hundred because there's a lot of bad in the world and the only way you'll understand it is by reading the facts, disturbing as they might be.

@GirlVersusGame It's a bit complicated, but it boils down to the fact that my eyesight changes frequently due to diabetes and changes in my blood sugar due to medication for another (hopefully temporary) condition, so after having spent a small fortune changing prescription for my glasses four times in three years, I made the decision to simply use disposable contact lenses, which is way easier to change prescription for (and without extra cost, I just order the next batch of lenses with the new prescription when it changes). An unfortunate side effect is that, even with multifocal lenses, I have difficulty reading small print without taking them off so reading Kindle on my phone or tablet is way easier as I can resize the font as needed (I carry a small magnifying glass in my pocket at all times for other occasions).
Hopefully my eyesight will stabilize enough when the current medical issues are resolved and I get a handle on my blood sugar levels to be able to go back to use glasses, which will then make it easier to read printed books again (as it is now, it is only really feasible to do before I put in the lenses in the morning or after I take them out in the evening).
There are perks for digital only as well, I automatically have my entire bookshelf with me wherever I go and, as mentioned, shelf space is something I don't have much of, so even if I get my eyesight sorted, I will probably still primarily read digital and continue buying only hardcovers of books I've read and loved and simply "must own".

@MightyDemon82 I've been wearing glasses and/or contacts for over 35 years so I've long since gotten used to it; it's only gotten complicated because of other medical conditions. Still, not needing glasses at all would have been preferable, so I hope your eyesight will continue to be strong for as long as possible (I guess some time in the next 44 years you'll probably need glasses in some capacity, but hopefully that day is still a long way off )

@FuriousMachine There are perks for digital only as well, I automatically have my entire bookshelf with me wherever I go.

• That's why I get my books scanned then boxed away. I know they'll be safe and then as I travel I have a kind of home Kindle App that dials into the that library of books and away you go. I was looking into a new A.I. system to make that scanning faster but I've been using the current company so long that even if it takes longer I'd be depriving them of work. I like (as you said) the smell of a good book but I'm practical too, if I'm queuing up eighteen at a time I'm not carrying around eighteen heavy books and I'm wary of damaging them. I'm trying to preserve knowledge. It might be a kind of Fallout mentality but when a flame touches paper it takes those pages and you never see them again. I'm also looking into hosting certain volumes on the deepweb, some countries are denied access to knowledge, others can't afford it and I believe education and knowledge should be available to all. I'm still balancing the ethical implications.

I owe a lot to reading, it's shown me and continues to show me so many opinions and ideas, even if I don't always agree with them, it's a kind of lifeline. It's harder to read Fiction, it's enjoyable but I always have that little feeling like 'I could be learning right now'. Then like you I have to update the lists and you know how time consuming that actually is. we're screwed if Goodreads ever goes down, trying to organize anything will be a nightmare. Finding similar recommendations too, which is a big part of why I use it.

I've only tried contacts once, they were for cosplay so they aren't exactly something that would help there. I don't know how you get used to contacts, but you don't have long nails either. If you did you'd have no eyes left, you'd be like The Pale Man in Pan's Labyrinth with your eyes in your palms.

@GirlVersusGame. If I live to 82 that will be a fine age, just a shame that when I'm gone I won't be able to see my family bitching about what to do with all my books 🤣.

That is quite the collection. Eccentric is good. I'll have a proper look sometime and no doubt add many to my TBR pile.

@FuriousMachine being able to carry an entire bookcase with you does sound amazing.

Here's hoping that your eyesight does indeed stabilize and you're able to enjoy reading long into the future.

I know what you mean about spending a small fortune on your prescription, as my other halfs eyesight is always changing. Very kind of you to say so. That would be the time to embrace audiobooks if our sight does start to fail us.

@GirlVersusGame Very cool that you're working to preserve knowledge (and that you resist the temptation to let AI deprive honest workers of their livelihood - AI would most likely do a poor job of it and you would have to spend a lot of time making sure that it hasn't changed or damaged the text. All AI requires scrutinous quality control and, as such, can end up taking longer and more effort than if you had a human do it in the first place).
The ethical conundrum of what you are considering is indeed a difficult one. Putting those things out on the deepweb will ensure that it will be available for those who would otherwise not have access to it, but it will also be available for those who simply can't be bothered to pay its worth for it, again potentially impacting livelihoods. I'm sure you'll figure out what you feel is right

I'm very glad that I didn't read your comment before going to bed last night, otherwise my night would have been filled with nightmares of Goodreads disappearing and me having a blank to-read list. At first blush that may seem like a good thing, having a fresh start and all that, but then I think of all the magnificently interesting books I have on my list that I probably would forget about and that loss would haunt me

If you'll ever need them you'll get used to handling contact lenses very quickly, long nails or not. The trick is to not put the lenses on the tip of your nails when applying them to your eyes, but rather on your finger pads (poking one's eye with one's nails is a mistake one only does once, I feel confident assuming). Of course, if you have fingernails so long that they are curling inwards you may have some difficulties, but in such case I believe everything involving finger dexterity would be troublesome

Interestingly, the location of the eyes is pretty much the only thing separating me from the Pale Man... oh, yeah, I also have a nose, but other than that: spitting image!

@MightyDemon82 Thank you, I hope so too, but as with most things, one finds a way around these things if they become permanent.

You asked for audiobook recommendations and while that is a question better answered by @Ravix (who's most likely off on a tangent elsewhere in these forums at the moment, but will get back to you in due time, I'm sure ), I seem to remember us talking about Stephen Fry's Mythology series a while back, but I can't remember if you ever got around to reading them or if they were still on your to-read list. I would imagine they would be pretty good as audiobooks, though, as I understand Mr. Fry narrates them himself. I would imagine pretty much any audiobook narrated by him would be a good bet, though

@FuriousMachine That's a good shout. I've yet to get to those so could be a great choice for audiobook.

@FuriousMachine Interestingly, the location of the eyes is pretty much the only thing separating me from the Pale Man.

• That was far funnier than it should have been, I almost choked on my drink.