Well, yet again I’m feeling like the old man on his lawn, shaking his fist but I refuse to do audiobooks. To me, a big part of the reading experience is sitting down and holding the book in your hands, turning the pages, and most of all, leaving everything up to your brain to “picture the story”. From what the characters look like, to how they sound, how they move, what landscapes look like, etc. and I think that’s what makes reading really wonderful, it is unique to each individual. You and I can both read the same book, and if we were asked to draw/describe certain locations, certain characters, we would both draw different things. Sure, if the guy has a red car we’ll both draw a red car, but how we imagine it in our minds will inevitably be different. I have to be very still and undisturbed to listen to an audiobook so I can process/digest what I’m “reading” and it just feels odd to be so uninvolved in discovering the story. But, hey, I’m not knocking it, I know many people like it and to each his/her own. I just prefer reading the book myself, but hey, I also prefer reading the actual physical newspaper versus reading it online so go figure.
I need to dig up the “Old man yells at cloud” meme.
All jokes aside its just practicality for me. I’d much rather read a real book too, infact i still mostly do, but I keep an audio book on the boil as there are lots of times my hands and eyes are busy but my ears are free
Well said. I agree.
Audiobooks are great for long drives; I try to pick out an “easy read” book such that, even if you “miss” a paragraph or two, doesn’t really matter lol.
Kinfolk by Sean Dietrich
I liked this one too.
So, I completed the book right after “Cabinet of curiosities”, called “Still life with Crows” & greatly enjoyed the book. I’m on the next book in the series, “Brimstone” I believe I’m on page 292, so I’m about 200 pages from being done with that one. Then it’s on to “Dance of Death” & then “The book of the dead”. I managed to snag Brimstone & The book of the dead from my library across the street, but they didn’t have Dance of Death so I just bought it on Amazon, my patience is thin and I had already had a hold put on the book for almost 2 weeks yet the book was not yet delivered to my library, so whoever has it checked out hasn’t bothered to bring it back. I guess THAT’S the problem with libraries not having fines for overdue books….people that are lazy or just self centered check out books, but then can’t be bothered to return them to the library, knowing that they won’t incur any fines. So I said screw it and just bought the hardcover on Amazone, it arrives tomorrow. I “might” be done with Brimstone by tomorrow, but seeing as how I have to get up crazy early to go to work, that means no staying up late tonight reading.
I can definitively state now that Preston & Child are for sure my current favorite authors, I find myself finishing each of their books and being very, very satisfied with their books. I would highly recommend them
My family is starting a secret society book club (don’t tell anyone, it’s super-secret) with 3 kids and 6 adults.
Wow. I thought I read quickly. You burn through books!
Haven’t been in this thread in a while!
I usually strictly read non-fiction but decided to finally get abck to some fiction just for fun.
Currently reading Project Hail Mary! Has kept me captivated so far!
Also just realized they are releasing a movie based off of it this year so will be fun to watch after reading.
Thanks, but yeah, when I really am enjoying what I’m reading, I can’t put it down and I start blazing through it.
I finished Brimstone (Preston & Child) and am now on the next book, “Dance of Death”. I had to wait for Amazon to deliver that one. But, I’ve got the next 2 books after this already checked out from my library, so I’ve got some cushion haha.
My wife had a good point last night when she told me to slow it down, that I was going to burn through all this authors’ books and then I’d be back where I started, searching for yet another author. She was like “slow down maniac, these books aren’t going anywhere, no one’s going to take them from you.” She did have a good point, but, I reminded her that I’ve always read books “like a maniac”, to which she just shook her head & laughed.
I hope your reading of the Prey series books is going well….are you close to finishing your first one?
I’m about halfway through. I’ve been limited with time. It’s my oldest’s senior year and we are busy with graduation and college stuff. It’s good that I’ve been forced to slow down. I’m really bad about burning through a series too. Then being lost without something to read. Lol
I loved this book. I tried “The Martian” after it but I could not get into it
Well now I want to keep reading but I have to go to sleep. Darn you!
Sorry…..BUT do what I do, about an hour before you want to go to sleep, just get in bed and read your book. It’s amazing how much better I sleep when I read for awhile before turning off the light versus watching TV. So, win-win…..you get to make some headway in your book AND you relax and calm yourself right before you want to sleep.
I do this, too, and am almost always ready to turn the lights off. On rare occasions I have a hard time putting the book down, but mostly not. Generally my eyes are swimming before it’s even sleep time.
My two kindle books right now are “Metamorphosis” by Kafka and “Myth of Sisyphus” by Camus
Audiobook is still “Hyperion” by Dan Simmons. It’s taken me a while to get through it just because I’ve been listening to podcast and some lectures on philosophy
My book for school is “Of Grammatology” By Jacques Derrida. I’d be a liar if I said I liked it but it’s super intriguing and the prof is teaching it in an engaging way
Finished. Excellent. Book two starts tomorrow. 
I am reading In The Weeds by a director of several of Anthony Bourdain’s shows. It is very good. I am fascinated by Bourdain, having read all his works. I really do believe that widespread travel to real places encourages patience, and diminishes prejudice by teaching how similar people everywhere actually are. And, along with the unifying power of a good meal, literally no one embodied this principle better than Bourdain.
That’s great! I’m so glad you enjoyed it and I hope you will continue to read the Prey series. What’s the next one up?
As for me, let’s see, I’ve been busy…I finished “Dance of death” earlier this afternoon and am now reading “The book of the Dead”, the next book in the Preston & Child series (with Agent Pendergast as the continuing main character). Again, like the other 3 or 4 books before this one, the last one I read was great! I find myself thoroughly enjoying all of the historical aspects of the books and really appreciate the amount of actual research the authors must have done to mix that into the novels.
With this winter storm upon us, I went ahead and bought the next book “The Wheel of Darkness” (my library didn’t have it and I had placed a hold over a week ago) out of impatience[Amazon came through today], but I did manage to get the one after that at the library “Cemetery Dance”. So, I’ve got my current book I just started reading, plus 2 in the queue so I’m good to go for this freezing weather!
It’s funny, I’ll take a break to see what’s on TV, but more often than not, after mindlessly clicking around and seeing the usual garbage, I just prefer to read these books as they offer much more intrigue, action, drama, etc. than the TV.
Shadow Prey. It starts out very dark. I’m already hoping that the murderer kills at least one person. Lol
I’m the same way. My husband gets irritated when I have the remote because I usually end up watching previews for an hour and then turning off the TV. Lol. We’ve actually gotten to the point where we watch very little TV. Every now and again we will binge something (most recently The Mighty Nein and Vax Machina). Or I’ll watch Christmas movies throughout December or my husband will watch some sort of music documentary, but usually my TV doesn’t get turned on. It probably helps that we don’t have anything to watch. Amazon Prime is the only streaming that we have and that’s only because of our membership for the shopping. I laugh when you talk about the old man shaking his fist on the lawn cause that’s me with TV and social media. I’m like a mean old lady yelling that I’m not gonna waste my time on “that crap”.
Obviously with the exception of T-Nation. Although I am getting slightly better about that. Now that I’ve been here long enough there isn’t much left for me to deep dive into that I haven’t already. Now I only spend exorbitant amounts of time here if I’m having an actual conversation or just catching up on logs.
Yep, I am the same way, I have no social media…except LinkedIn, which is useful for just keeping up with the job market, industry news, etc. But even then I’m not “active” on it, and maybe check it every few weeks, if my phone hasn’t already put the app to sleep. But I don’t have facebook, instagram, twitter or X or whatever, tik tok, etc. I never feel like I’m “missing” out on anything, or if I am, it’s something totally stupid.
For instance, I only recently found out about some “6….7” weird shit?! The only reason I found out was I was watching one of those end of 2025 year in review shows, and it talked about the “big hype” about 6/7, and I was like “WTF is this stupid crap?” and my wife laughed and said “you never ever heard of 6/7?” I just looked at her and was like “no, I don’t look at my phone/social media all day, and even if I did and saw something like that, I wouldn’t go around saying it and laughing like some sort of mental patient”.
We do have several of the streaming platforms but only because we like a couple of series (Landman, Reacher, Tulsa King, etc)….naturally they’re spread about on different platforms [racket].
Enjoy Shadow Prey, it’s a really great read…..although I cheated and read the summary just now online because I couldn’t remember the plot, but once I saw it I remembered how great of a read it was. Get your reading on TODAY Beth! It’s cold outside so you have to be stuck inside…you can make a big dent in the book. Have you already gotten the next few books in the series? If not, what the hell are you waiting for 