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Ever since I started using my iPhone as a Kindle, I've returned to my natural voraciousness. I enjoy reading, but in recent years for some reason I've drifted away from it. Thanks to electrons (and protons), I've found myself getting back there. Business trips also help.
Yapette, who is on the plane thinking "Oh, I just can't wait to get to That Country Where It's Nine Million Degrees!" must also be entertained. Perhaps it takes her mind off the Triscuit-sized bugs by which she's about to be eaten.
I have little experience with audio books. I did enjoy listening to the Harry Potter series while driving home from New Mexico ages past, but I think I like the comfort of a book I've already read, versus one I have to pay attention to. There's a comfort in listening to a story you know.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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I envy your enjoyment of audiobooks. They'd be a perfect fit for fits of insomnia. Only problem is I don't like people reading to me. I can pinpoint it to one day in fifth grade, a slim book of short stories and each student tapped in turn to read. Halting, stumbling kids hurt so much when my turn I'd finished the book and was staring at patterns of cracks on the spine with no idea what story we were on, much less where. Retired marine drill sargeant teacher vs pugnacious child-Fink would've triggered lockdown in a modern school.
That slab of too much information aside, there are exceptions. Books where flow is everything (Joyce) or clumsy writers who singsong galumph (Tolkien) click as audio. A lot of poetry, also audio.
Has anyone read Dictionary of the Khazars? I've got the female version. Love to have someone doing a read-a-long because so far I can't decide if it's Calvino, Borges tricky brilliance or a peed on my shoe con. Or both.
grooowrrrr! [menace menace] rrrrowwwr!
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No, no, no Finkbug, I said good readers. Any combo of crappy book (like those Westerns, Koontz books, that kind of crappy) and/or abridged and/or crappy narrator is NIX-NULL-VOID.
I've been listening to audio books since early 70s when my small southern town library of modest budget must have served a perponderance of elderly or infirm or shut-ins. Lots of audio books, at that time cassette tapes resulting in 15-20 tapes/ea. Move to cds was a blessing of less cubic volume. Digital is the second coming.
A good reader enhances the book – truthfully! [Image Can Not Be Found]
I know in present quarters it's sacrilege to admit I listened to The Hobbit & all three Lord of the Rings books. But the reader….he was beyond wonderful with a different "voice" for every character. Harry Potter's reader did likewise. A couple of hours into the reading and characters are recognized by voice rather than he said, she said.
Rob Inglis does The Hobbit & LotR Trilogy (here's Hobbit sample on YouTube).
Jim Dale did the H.P.'s., many excerpts on YouTube but couldn't decide which to link.
Both award winning narrators.
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The only audio book I ever listened to was a Koontz book, Intensity. I was supposed to be scouting rivers around Eugene, Oregon and ended up parked by the side of the road utterly entranced and nearly got fired. It was also the only Koontz book I ever even remotely enjoyed so that helped too. I space out too much to listen to books usually and the iphone is way too little for me to do anything but talk into it and occasionly drop it. I think I'll eventually get a cheap tablet or a kindle as I like the idea of instantly downloading a book instead of actually...you know...waiting to buy it. But I do like my paperbacks.
Mostly I've lately been playing with new word processors...but that is a little off topic for this thread even for TR.
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Scout, in your line of work it seems like audio books would be almost a necessity. That and a good GPS. I can imagine you spend hours a day in the car when on an assignment.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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I can't "do" audio books unless I'm sitting perfectly still and concentrating thus defeating the entire purpose of audio. I've only done one - An Incomplete Revenge by Jacqueline Winspear - the woman who read it was very good as she used different voices for all the characters, but I just couldn't follow the story well enough except while motionless so I ended up buying a dead tree version.
Since getting my kindle (even before on my phone) I, too, have returned to my voraciousness of consuming the printed word. I've actually (re)purchased books that I have in my to-read pile because it's easier to carry around. I'll donate the tree versions to Friends of the Library. Or resell them to one of the many used book stores in my neighborhood.
I've probably got a dozen samples, if not more, loaded as well including The Passage. I'm considering adding Martin's Ice and Fire series to it so that I can re-read it when/if he ever finishes the damned thing.
Now if they could somehow inject the Kindle with that wonderful paper and ink smell, I'd be in heaven.
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I'm considering adding Martin's Ice and Fire series to it so that I can re-read it when/if he ever finishes the damned thing.
I hate to do this to you, Toger, but if you've only read them once you're doing yourself a disservice. They're so complex and nuanced that you'll get 1,000x more out of a second read, and another out of a third.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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Steerpike said:
I'm considering adding Martin's Ice and Fire series to it so that I can re-read it when/if he ever finishes the damned thing.
I hate to do this to you, Toger, but if you've only read them once you're doing yourself a disservice. They're so complex and nuanced that you'll get 1,000x more out of a second read, and another out of a third.
I totally agree with you, I just gotta spread those kindle purchases out just a wee bit. It's stupid-easy (and dangerous) to buy on that thing. [Image Can Not Be Found]
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Oh Toger, I can't multi-task & listen to audio books either. I listen to them waiting in looooong lines where idiots are nattering (post office), MD offices or any other place with a blaring TV, 3:30 am in the dark when I can't sleep, airports, airplanes. Usually during severe jet lag recovery or sometimes to reward myself for menial tasks accomplished (afterwhich I sit motionless).
For me, audio books are a method of drowning out environmental buzz or when so wearified that I must limit to one sensory input.
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Earlier in the year I was listening to Stephen King's Dark Tower books while training it to work - otherwise, if I have to pay attention to stuff, there's no way I can absorb a audio book.
A man goes to knowledge as he goes to war, wide awake, with fear, with respect, and with absolute assurance. – The Teachings of Don Juan
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I tried Audible for about a year. Even when the narrator is excellent, I found myself missing the tactile goodies that come with physical books. And the smell. And the fun of taking the dustjacket off and looking at the binding and endpapers of a new hardback. I never seriously considered buying a Kindle, but I downloaded the app for my Touch. Again, missing the sensory pleasures of a book. Too, hard to page back 10/50/200 pages to reread something.
As Toger and Yap said, multi-tasking while "audio-ing" doesn't work so well for me either. When I read I go someplace else, which is to say I get so absorbed in what's going on in the book that I'd, for example, cut a finger off if I tried to audio read while cutting up veggies. [Image Can Not Be Found]
I've decided that I am going to get a 2nd gen iPad early next year. If, as rumored, they release a smaller Pad by holiday time I will go to the Apple Store and play with them both. I'm thinking though that the bigger one will be best for games. Probably wouldn't use it for books, but I'd like to see if paging is any better in a format larger than my Touch.
"…you just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake."
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Spike said:
I've decided that I am going to get a 2nd gen iPad early next year. If, as rumored, they release a smaller Pad by holiday time I will go to the Apple Store and play with them both. I'm thinking though that the bigger one will be best for games. Probably wouldn't use it for books, but I'd like to see if paging is any better in a format larger than my Touch.
Oh my goodness, yes! The difference in size between reading on my phone and the kindle is worlds better. No matter what you switch to, if it's bigger than your Touch, you'll love it.
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Size. Doesn't. Matter.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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Steerpike said:
Size. Doesn't. Matter.
Yes. It. Does. Anyone telling you different is lying. [Image Can Not Be Found]
"…you just keep on trying 'til you run out of cake."
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Spike said:
Steerpike said:
Size. Doesn't. Matter.
Yes. It. Does. Anyone telling you different is lying. [Image Can Not Be Found]
All about the smell and sensory pleasure.
Way too early in the morning to make the dust jacket jokes. [Image Can Not Be Found]
grooowrrrr! [menace menace] rrrrowwwr!
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Hey Steerpike!
Have you seen the trailer for Game of Thrones? I might have to get HBO just to watch this. (Now I really need to re-read the series)
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They're making a series of that? Cool!
I wish Martin would hurry up with the next book, though I am beginning to doubt it'll ever see the light of day. The dragon girl was my favorite character, and there was never enough of her.
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I've been following that with great, unbridled Geek Joy. HBO has about a 96.9% trustworthy rate, so I'm really hoping for the best. Seems like a big investment, though, if they run for all the books.
One of the show's producer/writer/creators is D.B. Weiss, author of Lucky Wander Boy, a book I reviewed here years ago. He actually emailed me and asked if we'd do a review. Nice to see his career is going strong!
I have faith Martin will finish. At least, I hope he does. I want to know what happens.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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I finally started reading the first book in the series after having it on my shelf unopened for years. I'm not the biggest fan of revolving door POV fiction though so I don't know how far I'll get. I do like the character who I think will become the dragon girl. That's the horse girl queen in the Avatar-people grass lands place right? She has the hot rocks...
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Hot rocks girl, yes.
Give it time Scout, my first read I was disoriented for a ways through the novel. Things sort of come together after a time and you realize what a grand web is being weaved. Woven.
Life is the misery we endure between disappointments.
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