RogerBW's Blog

Bookmonth, January 2014 19 February 2014
  1. Posted by Owen Smith at 10:00am on 19 February 2014

    I don't read 13 books in a year.

  2. Posted by RogerBW at 10:25am on 19 February 2014

    How on Earth do you manage that? I mean, there's so much that one can only get from books.

    When I was still commuting I'd get through about a book a day. Now I need to make time for reading, so a book takes a bit longer. Since I started publicly reviewing everything, I've started to feel faintly embarrassed at the amount of crap I read, which has slowed down my pace as I read longer and more complexly-written books.

    (I do listen to the occasional audiobook too, on long car trips. I'm not marking those out separately.)

  3. Posted by Michael Cule at 11:07pm on 19 February 2014

    I don't read nearly as much as I used to and I'm not reading as much as Roger is. Part of it is the distraction of the Internet (Look! Shiny!) and part of it age. My concentration wanes, I put a book down and then come across it days or weeks later and start again.

    I suspect, as I've said before, that my brain is filling up and good use a good defragging. Something like Merlyn did for Arthur in THE BOOK OF MERLYN.

    That said I can still gallop through a few books that are a positive pleasure to read (a new Terry Pratchett had best arrive early in the day or I'm going to lose sleep that night) and make my way through a good book in a couple of days. But I can put a book down and come back to it months later when I recall that I promised to give it to someone when I finished.

  4. Posted by RogerBW at 11:41pm on 19 February 2014

    I do indulge in a certain amount of video too (for example, the Doctor Who re-watch). But a book gives me a higher-density entertainment experience than anything else. (I have to speed up television by at least 50% in order to enjoy it.)

  5. Posted by Owen Smith at 12:13pm on 20 February 2014

    My eyesight is becoming a problem for reading books, I get eyestrain. Plus crap paperbacks give off dust and fumes that set my asthma off, so some books I've started I've simply had to stop reading for health reasons. It's frustrating so I daren't start some books because of the disappointment I get if I can't read it. Glossy or semi glossy paper is much safer, so a lot of my reading is actually articles in the Radio Times which I buy anyway.

    I've tried electronic reading on my iPad and that has different problems. It's a bit too heavy so holding it becomes an issue. And the Kindle app doesn't let me resize the text, so part of the benefit I get of PDFs being able to zoom in to help my eyes isn't possible if it's a Kindle ebook.

  6. Posted by RogerBW at 12:31pm on 20 February 2014

    Of the books I listed, all but one was read on the kraken (Kobo Glo), which for me is the best of all worlds: very light, lovely (e-ink) display, no DRM or "apps" to muck about with, just copy on the epubs/mobis (USB mass storage interface) and there you are.

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