Stuff

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[pete]

It definitely depends on the person.

My daughter has a vivid imagination and she sees and hears characters in her head, and audio is just too distracting for her, dampens her enjoyment.

For me, though, I don't imagine voices or faces, and I am there for the words and the emotional content and my brain lights up with that with a good narrator.

I will also have a tendency to get distracted and...skim...or skip at times, and an audio book won't allow that.

yes, definitely depends on the person, and the author, and the narrator.
i've listened to several patrick o'brien 'master and commander' auso book . and loved them, but i came across one that was narrated by a woman with a thick english accent that was too difficult to concentrate on, had to give it up

certain audio books have a "skippable" quality to them, james patterson's works come to mind. miss a few lines here or there and you're still able to follow along

 

[Recidiva]

Hahahahahaa

Steam pinky.....


I have to go to bed with G now i think.

Thank you for that smile

Sleep well!

 

[Fata Morgana]

She's Steam Pinky from now on Reci!

 

[Recidiva]

I'm always actually reading a book and then listening to an audiobook (for the car, chores, etc). It took me forever to get into audiobooks because it was hard for me to focus on what was being said, but I think a lot of it has to do with the narrator. I seriously now read the reviews of the audiobook because I think the narrator can make or break a story. I did Amy Poehler's "Yes Please" on audiobook and it was fantastic! I think it has to be better than the physical book because she has Kathleen Turner "play her" sometimes and she also has other guests pop in. Now I've heard Aziz Ansari basically berates people in his audiobook for being lazy choosing audio so that I will read.

I wondered if you had read Anna Karenina - I felt Count of Monte Cristo was more difficult. And I know people say Anna is a tough read. Once I got into it, I loved it. Of course, I only love romances when they don't live happily ever after

Tina Fey's "Bossypants" is fantastic with her narration.

John Lithgow's biography deeply touching with his narration.

It depends. I will listen to a few people read the phone book...James Marsters, Robin Sachs (rest in peace, Robin) and now Nicholas Boulton...read anything.

And then a bad narrator can really destroy an excellent book.

I love Amy Tan but she should not have narrated her books, her voice does not have the expression required or the characterization needed, and it was so much better when Joan Chen narrated.

Someone's asked me to put together an audio version of one of my stories and I'll be starting that project soon, and then I'll have to make fun of myself because it includes an Australian accent (which I know I cannot do) and a Persian accent (oh shit) and well...maybe I'll just...uh...but I can do the singing bits at least.

One of the weirdest narrations was Thomas Harris narrating "Hannibal" himself...guy with an American Southern accent, twanging his way through the lines of Italians. I love him so...go Thomas.

Aziz won't mind if I tell him to fuck off with love and respect. He's cool.

 

[Recidiva]

She's Steam Pinky from now on Reci!

Never forget!

 

[Recidiva]

I do listen to books on radio sometimes. I think the short slots makes it easier. It seems harder work to me.

But i read like......a glutton. And my eyes let me do that. Faster than speech, in my own voice, in my pace, in my inflection and imagination.

I'm just lucky that my...lack of visual or audio imagination is trumped by my thirst for the information, so the Kindle and Audible are absolutely perfect for me.

I'm not gonna be shamed. Fata can try, but that just means I get attention from her, so I win.

 

[Recidiva]

yes, definitely depends on the person, and the author, and the narrator.
i've listened to several patrick o'brien 'master and commander' auso book . and loved them, but i came across one that was narrated by a woman with a thick english accent that was too difficult to concentrate on, had to give it up

certain audio books have a "skippable" quality to them, james patterson's works come to mind. miss a few lines here or there and you're still able to follow along

Stephen Fry narrating Harry Potter is my favorite version and I have to pirate it.

I love Jim Dale...I really do...but Stephen kicks your ass, Jim, even you would admit it.

I also had to go very far out of my way to find a pirated copy of an audio version of "The Silmarillion" because copyright hell and rights...and we had to sort through a few versions of it in German...

 

[Fata Morgana]

I'm just lucky that my...lack of visual or audio imagination is trumped by my thirst for the information, so the Kindle and Audible are absolutely perfect for me.

I'm not gonna be shamed. Fata can try, but that just means I get attention from her, so I win.

Damn your Kindles, you gadget loving cunt. I'd like to lock you in a dusty secondhand book shop and cover your hands with a million papercuts from a first edition of The Vampire Lester* and make you peel me a whole bag of tangerines.










*Autocorrect changed from Lestat but it amused me no end. Imagine Tom Cruise playing the Vampire Lester. Much more fitting for the pipsqueak.

 

[Bookishleigh]

I'm just lucky that my...lack of visual or audio imagination is trumped by my thirst for the information, so the Kindle and Audible are absolutely perfect for me.

I'm not gonna be shamed. Fata can try, but that just means I get attention from her, so I win.

I am more upset when I cannot find my Kindle over my phone. Priorities...totally get it!

Damn your Kindles, you gadget loving cunt. I'd like to lock you in a dusty secondhand book shop and cover your hands with a million papercuts from a first edition of The Vampire Lester* and make you peel me a whole bag of tangerines.

And I have to admit I am just as guilty. The Glowlight Kindle was made specifically for me I think. I'll never forget the time I checked out a book from the library after owning a Kindle for a bit. One night I got in bed with the book and my then husband said, "What are you going to do with that?" That's when it hit me that the book would not light up when I opened it. And of course, he complained if I had a light on to read. *Sigh*

I do really love actual books - but sometimes I need them to light up!

 

[Recidiva]

Damn your Kindles, you gadget loving cunt. I'd like to lock you in a dusty secondhand book shop and cover your hands with a million papercuts from a first edition of The Vampire Lester* and make you peel me a whole bag of tangerines.










*Autocorrect changed from Lestat but it amused me no end. Imagine Tom Cruise playing the Vampire Lester. Much more fitting for the pipsqueak.

Kindles is correct, I am on my fifth, having worn them all out, until their little exhausted guts fade, unable to be recharged, as I sucked the life from them slowly.

Fear me.

You may reign over dust and nostalgia, but my realm is the trembling void of the wish fulfillment of immediate delivery of whatever the fuck I want right now, free or deeply reduced in cost. Mine is the sucking void of the...uh...something literary, I'm sure.

Oh, and can we do Clementines? They're so cute. I'll have to peel more, if that helps.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRRvXTFqXF0e9xpNd_3mxQaqVstJ7qGgMXDuAKn4CHn2j6h3IuO

Oh Gods of the tacky underworld, I was going to make up another cutesy vampire name and I found this on wiki...

I'll just...leave this here...

"Lestat: The Musical

The novel formed the basis for the short-lived 2006 Broadway show Lestat. The musical, which was composed by Elton John and Bernie Taupin and written by Linda Woolverton, had a pre-Broadway tryout in California in late 2005 and ran for a total of 33 previews and 39 official performances at the Palace Theater in New York."

 

[Recidiva]

I am more upset when I cannot find my Kindle over my phone. Priorities...totally get it!

And I have to admit I am just as guilty. The Glowlight Kindle was made specifically for me I think. I'll never forget the time I checked out a book from the library after owning a Kindle for a bit. One night I got in bed with the book and my then husband said, "What are you going to do with that?" That's when it hit me that the book would not light up when I opened it. And of course, he complained if I had a light on to read. *Sigh*

I do really love actual books - but sometimes I need them to light up!

For me, really, it's a budget thing and also that I am massively possessive of my books and I consider them family. Reading one is adopting one and although last time I moved I donated thousands of them...

I will go broke if I buy everything I want, and I will run out of storage.

This way I get to keep everything and my possessive, adopty little book heart is not broke and not at risk of being on the show "Hoarders"

 

[Recidiva]

https://40.media.tumblr.com/9da878f2f70d0283a44b6c0bbc215e2d/tumblr_nyyvk3Z3Z11t0gs1do1_540.jpg

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Recidiva]

Everything mentioned about both books and kindles applies. NOTHING beats real paper, the smell, the feel. I love second hand books with other people's folded pages or under linings and annotations too, in a way I hate can feel annoyed mildly when highlighting by others shows up on my ebooks.

But reading in the middle of the night on my ipad is less disturbing to Gianbattista. Free books are available, even if they are not what I necessarily want to read , and in feasting amounts.

What I would say is that kindle for ipad and the access to free or cheap books does mean the quality of my reading matter had dropped substantially, because my abibliophobia is fed not with quality but speed of availability versus spend minimum. . In short: I have started reading a lot of crud. Its like junk food for the mind.

I have mostly in the last year switched to reading what friends of mine are writing, and I use my Kindle to download what they've done, what I've done during the day, and then I can read it, take notes, give feedback...until I get back to my computer.

Me and my love of bubble baths, that means I get to do that for long spans of time not spent at my computer, or to multitask while we're otherwise watching TV.

When Amazon came out with the $10 deal a month with pretty much unlimited reading, I did that for a few months, but access mostly meant every 1 out of 20 things that I started were worth finishing, which was okay, I could chug through. I gave it a solid try, even gave up TV mostly for a few months.

But I eventually canceled it and went back to customer feedback as my litmus test and I'd just buy a few best sellers a month, again, to check them out, because wading through all that crap was not terribly productive.

Fortunately for me I also hooked up on Tumblr and that gives me a nice straight line into a bunch of books, TV, games, media that has inspired people, and some friends with good taste to trust on the subject. We canceled our cable a few years back and the only things I try outside my friend-created circle of stuff are things where people are making .gif sets and having conversations that sound interesting to me.

 

[La damnee elle la licorne]

 

[Recidiva]

I do the kindle unlimited. And yes, its lots of things I don't finish, I used to not be able to do this, but now I realise that books are like relationships, and there are good books out there, and the longer you stay with one you dread coming home to, the less time you have to meet one who makes your toes curl, or just gives you a small smile.

I am a fast reader. I read with greed and selfishness. A glutton I push the words in, often without due appreciation. I cannot afford to buy all the books I need for my binge reding habit. . Especially this year ( Gianbattista is on sabbatical this year and or income reflects the different nature of employ) . The library doesn't allow me to check out enough at a time...and one of the librarians always wants to talk to me...which would be fine.....but not while I'm flirting with books, you know? After wards, afterwards....

I'll read a book several times, with joy. But I need to gobble it, . Its very unattractive.

It's a struggle between trying to educate myself as a writer and a human being and seeing different points of view...and really wanting to be entertained.

My main excuse is that I am not a professional author, and I've been a professional editor of mass market fiction with Simon and Schuster and realistically...so...much...put out...is crap.

I say that with love and the Zen sense that everyone's where they need to be in their path to expression...and it's great that it's out there, but I really don't have to sit through exploitive or boring stuff out of respect.

So yeah, I judge fast and I toss it over my shoulder and sometimes I haven't given stuff time to develop. I am looking for the lightning strike that starts on the first page and rumbles through the whole thing. That is rare. A frog's got one kiss and I may not wait for a transformation, I may be outta there so fast...

But once I find that prince/princess, I am there for that. My favorite kind is when I get to the last page and go "THAT WAS AMAZING..." I'm gonna do it again...

THAT is why ownership for me becomes necessary. Also because I grew up before Google and I'd remember some quote from something and I would need the physical book, it would make me nuts otherwise.

I used to write down lists of questions through the week and then go to the library to research whatever an author brought up. Robert Heinlein would send me to the library all the time, and I ended up with a replica Rodin sculpture from "Stranger In A Strange Land" and a load of questions, including looking up floccinaucinihilipilificatrix and researching astrophysics, reading the Gray Lensman series...he sent me all over the place in a fantastic treasure hunt and I love the people that inspire me to do that.

 

[Fata Morgana]

For me, really, it's a budget thing and also that I am massively possessive of my books and I consider them family. Reading one is adopting one and although last time I moved I donated thousands of them...

I will go broke if I buy everything I want, and I will run out of storage.

This way I get to keep everything and my possessive, adopty little book heart is not broke and not at risk of being on the show "Hoarders"

I feel this way too.

 

[Recidiva]

I feel this way too.

There have been times in my life where there was nothing but me and a car. In that car in the trunk? Boxes of books.

Get a bigger place to live? More places for books. Need a vacation? Walk around a book store or a library.

I have always had more books than I did any other thing. Still true after giving away thousands of books. I have never sold a book, would never do that. I will only give them away. Next to the bed? Piles and piles of books. Multi tasker, I tend to read bits and pieces from books in series. I remember when I first found a Christopher Moore book in the library and had no idea how much I'd love his stuff. I remember staying up all night and reading "Into Thin Air" and several books where I realized...I have not been paying enough attention and this book is kicking my ass while I'm feeling lulled...

In "Shadowlands" the author had C. S. Lewis say "We read to know we are not alone" and for me that's absolutely true. Boxes in the trunk or little flat bit of electronics, every single thought that has sparked something matters and I keep them close.

 

[Recidiva]

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and generic y'all be happy sorta thing!

Hope everyone's well and I hope your holiday or non-holiday goes beautifully.

It's been an amazing year, and I'm grateful to have spent some of it here.

Just shared some bahn mi, macarons and egg nog with family with some ice cream cake, hope everyone enjoys themselves!

 

[Bookishleigh]

I'm doing wine for dinner - because I can. Trying to decide if I'm going to bed after my glass or making a night of it. We'll see how the first glass goes down. I know next Christmas will be better. This one....I'm just ready for it to be over.

- The Grinch

 

[Recidiva]

I'm doing wine for dinner - because I can. Trying to decide if I'm going to bed after my glass or making a night of it. We'll see how the first glass goes down. I know next Christmas will be better. This one....I'm just ready for it to be over.

- The Grinch

Egg nog for me. Finishing up Jessica Jones.

Low key here. I didn't do a tree this year.

Here's to you having a better year!

 

[Bookishleigh]

Egg nog for me. Finishing up Jessica Jones.

Low key here. I didn't do a tree this year.

Here's to you having a better year!

Jessica Jones is on my list to watch. I may pop in Making of a Murderer - because nothing says Merry Christmas like potentially being framed by the police

 

[Recidiva]

Jessica Jones is on my list to watch. I may pop in Making of a Murderer - because nothing says Merry Christmas like potentially being framed by the police

David Tennant is fantastic, puts everyone else to acting shame.

I haven't seen Making of a Murderer.

 

[Bookishleigh]

David Tennant is fantastic, puts everyone else to acting shame.

I haven't seen Making of a Murderer.

It just came out on Netflix. A guy is set free after 18 years for a sexual assault he couldn't have possibly committed. He is likely about to come into a huge sum of money from a lawsuit because the initial investigation was so botched when a dead body turns up on his property. It is really interesting - makes you wonder if the police are truly that corrupt or he just thought he could get away with murder. It's all true too. It's like the podcast Serial but with visuals!