alicebentley (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
alicebentley) wrote2025-12-07 06:34 am
alicebentley) wrote2025-12-07 06:34 am
Reading now includes Listening for me
My love affair with reading books started early, helped along no small bit by enthusiastic parents with a hodgepodge but large collection of books. The actual -amount- of books I read has varied wildly, impacted by work, activities, inclinations and supply.
I was reading very few books during the last handful of years of my bookstore, for instance. Just too busy/tired. And for a span of time after that, as if I'd lost the knack.
In previous decades acquiring a book always meant a paper copy to me. I'd nab the occasional ebook when that was extra convenient, but I really love the whole experience of holding a book, turning the pages, enjoying all the design choices the publisher makes to bring them into being. But as we all know, that leads to having thousands of books to provide habitat for, or potentially (shudder) move. So over the last half-dozen years I've been making a concerted effort to buy ebook variants, and gift or sell a bunch of the paper ones.
It's not the same experience, but it's easier on my aging eyes (thank you backlights and adjustable text sizes) and storage issues are much reduced.
A couple years ago my process at work changed. My day was filled with assembling models, sometimes ones I'd already done many times. The perfect environment to have an audiobook on headphones - especially if it's an audio version of a book I'd already read and didn't need to be completely immersed.
The books that really swayed me to this was Murderbot. I had already bought and read each of Martha Well's books as they came out, usually with a re-read of all the previous ones once a new one arrived. Kevin R. Free's audiobook was an unexpected delight, bringing me a way to revisit this favorite story while giving me a new view of the characters and events. And while still getting good work done!
After that I started binging audiobooks quite as badly as I've ever tucked into paper - and it's past time I wrote up more of these experiences. That's my big plan for more DreamWidth posting and I hope I will hold to it.
I was reading very few books during the last handful of years of my bookstore, for instance. Just too busy/tired. And for a span of time after that, as if I'd lost the knack.
In previous decades acquiring a book always meant a paper copy to me. I'd nab the occasional ebook when that was extra convenient, but I really love the whole experience of holding a book, turning the pages, enjoying all the design choices the publisher makes to bring them into being. But as we all know, that leads to having thousands of books to provide habitat for, or potentially (shudder) move. So over the last half-dozen years I've been making a concerted effort to buy ebook variants, and gift or sell a bunch of the paper ones.
It's not the same experience, but it's easier on my aging eyes (thank you backlights and adjustable text sizes) and storage issues are much reduced.
A couple years ago my process at work changed. My day was filled with assembling models, sometimes ones I'd already done many times. The perfect environment to have an audiobook on headphones - especially if it's an audio version of a book I'd already read and didn't need to be completely immersed.
The books that really swayed me to this was Murderbot. I had already bought and read each of Martha Well's books as they came out, usually with a re-read of all the previous ones once a new one arrived. Kevin R. Free's audiobook was an unexpected delight, bringing me a way to revisit this favorite story while giving me a new view of the characters and events. And while still getting good work done!
After that I started binging audiobooks quite as badly as I've ever tucked into paper - and it's past time I wrote up more of these experiences. That's my big plan for more DreamWidth posting and I hope I will hold to it.