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I’m Nobody! Who are you?
Are you – Nobody – too?
Then there’s a pair of us!
Don’t tell! they’d advertise – you know!
How dreary – to be – Somebody!
How public – like a Frog –
To tell one’s name – the livelong June –
To an admiring Bog!
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I just finished reading “After I do” by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I read it in a day, I couldn’t put it down.
This book (novel) actually belongs to my girlfriend, one of her friends recommended it, so we got a used copy off of Abe Books. I was curious about it (based on the title), read the first few pages and got hooked.
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I need to catch up on my entries. For now, though:
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The Dorito Effect.
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I admit, when I got a smartphone in 2014 or so (yes, I held out that long), my reading of actual books fell off a cliff. I’m trying to fix that though. I recently started The Last and First Men by Olaf Stapledon. It’s an epic sci-fi book written in 1930’s England, that purports to be a message sent back to us, the first race of man, from our descendants 2 billion years in the future. It’s full of interesting ideas, some of which remain prescient and vital, and some of which are hopelessly ‘of their time’. What is noteworthy is the quality of the writing. Sci-fi authors are not usually known for their literary skills. The language deployed by Asimov, Bradbury, Clark, et al is usually practical and economical. One does not often look to descriptions of robotic servants or space battles to find nice turns of phrase. Here though, it’s clear that the ‘authors’ of the message (as well as Stapledon himself) wish to make an emotional, as well as rational appeal to the reader, and the language reflects that beautifully.
This book was, improbably, made into a film directed and scored by Jóhann Jóhannsson. Worth checking out.
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Do you mean you listened to audiobooks instead?
Don’t I wish. No, I meant that I usually end up scrolling on my phone here or reddit or other nonsense in those spaces where I might otherwise be reading books.
I’ve never really picked up the audiobook habit. I’m not generally an extended road-trip type (a thing I notice seems to breed audiobook fans, understandably) and, well… I always felt like audiobooks were ‘cheating’ somehow. Authors write. Readers read. The author’s job is to get JUST the right words, description, punctuation, etc. to convey tone of voice, word emphasis, etc. When something is read TO you, you aren’t getting the author’s words, you’re getting one actor/speaker’s INTERPRETATION of the author’s words.
That bugs me, even as I can acknowledge it’s distinction that’s mostly without real meaning. Lots of folks seem to do audiobooks or podcasts while cooking, but I find that nearly impossible. I can’t both listen attentively to something AND pay attention to a new recipe.
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I got started on trips, but by plane.
I know people who shun audio books, and read articles about how it engages you differently, including in terms of how the brain processes it, but it beats television sometimes, and I can listen in the garden. The narrator has a tremendous impact and get their own reviews! I wonder how authors feel about it.
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It would entirely depend on the level of royalties being paid. I have the same attitude towards Kindle.
For example, the first of my books is available at £15.23, yet the Kindle version is £3.99. I receive the same percentage of sale price (generally 7%). So, roughly speaking, I need to sell nearly four Kindles to earn the same as one actual book.
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I know that occasionally some authors read their own books. I think Neil Gaiman has done some of them.
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Yes, Michelle Obama reading Becoming was a delight. My other favorite was Carly Simon memoir, Boys in Trees, where she narrated and also sang in between chapters.
I listen to the majority of books on Audio now usually when I’m walking and when I’m really involved I carry it around the house listening while I’m doing chores, cooking or gardening. Narrator is really important, but I’ve only stopped listening once and got the book on kindle and I’ve listened to hundreds of books.
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Jo Nesbø’s Killing Moon, the latest Harry Hole novel.
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Ultra-Processed People: Why We Can’t Stop Eating Food That Isn’t Food by Chris Van Tulleken.
If there’s anything that will make you put down that pre-packaged food and drink, this book is it.
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Now there’s a coincidence. It was only the other day, I was watching an episode of the BBC’s family history programme “Who do you think you are” which featured the Van Tullekin twins. It was a fascinating story which traced ancestors back to Dutch colonial times in Indonesia and to one slave owning ancestor in Guyana. They are both hereditary members of the lowest rung of Dutch aristocracy.
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I’m glad you recognise that there is no real cause to hold onto that position (audio as cheating, or inferior somehow.) Would we assume a partially sighted or blind person is cheating, or not really reading if they were using audio books or text to voice technology? Yes there are sensory dynamics of every experience that people are going to experience differently, but I’m leery of the way value judgements can get applied even when unintended. (And I should emphasise ‘unintended’ because it’s fairly clear to me you are flexible and sensitive around issues. I’m not assuming the worst, but showing some of the extrapolations or unintended consequences of dismissing assistive technologies.
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Family history can fascinating. I recently did some DNA testing and found that my heritage is a huge mix of all over Europe and the British Isles. So much for people not travelling as much before planes, trains and automobiles were the norm.
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I haven’t read it yet; I’ll have to do a little comparison shopping on the subject, but I stumbled on this, reading about turkey tails.
Anyone read it, or something similar?
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I read Klara and the sun, on holiday and forgot how much I’d enjoyed Remains of the day when I read it many years ago. I got this and Never let me go for Xmas.
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Not to be a pedant but nobody has ever said that people didn’t move in great numbers prior to the invention of newer automotive technologies. However, individuals did not move around nearly as much as we do within our lifetimes. (There[s some really fun maps).
As for what DNA “heritage” tells you, I won’t go into that.
