For years I have been tracking my reading, whether by Goodreads or Audible but more recently, within the last four months, or so, I also started using Bookmory, booktracker and a fourth one but I don’t remember the name. The one whose name I forgot was abandonned because it forgot my login information after an app update and I couldn’t be bothered renewing it, especially as I was been nagged to pay a monthly fee.
I have been an audible member for years at this point and in that time I have “bought” hundreds of books. I write “bought” because I payed for a Platinum account for years and got credits and got the books with those credits. Over the years I have collected more books than I can read in a year.
That library lived in the cloud, rather than my devices, for years. I would download the books I was listening to but not those that I had finished, or would read later. That’s because laptops and mobile phones have smaller hard drives than I require for my books.
According to Goodreads I am currently reading 97 books but in reality I am reading between three to five books consistently at the moment. I read several books at once because it gives me time to absorb ideas from one book whilst reading a second book, and then a third, and so on.
Although the book was written in 1950 it is still worth reading today. It shows the way people thought about computers back then. It shares the idea of huge robots, because of how big components were at the time, but it also theorises about how robots could seem irrational but have rational reasons for such behaviour. “Why are the robots dancing? I won’t continue down this topic because I don’t want to spoil the book for those that are not reading the book yet.
Between last night and this morning I began to read Iberia by Michener and the introduction is pleasant. It takes us back to a time when people trailed by coal ship to Italy, before bouncing around and dropping into Spain to pick up oranges. The scene described within the first few pages is a nice one. It reminds us of an age that is long gone. The notion of ships picking up oranges, the spain of poor seaside towns that rely on fishing, or orange sales and more.
Yesterday I cycled from Haute-Morges to Nyon along the top. I did this because I was curious to see what route the GPS would recommend. The natural thing to do would be to cycle downhill towards Rolle and the lake.
Trees and a meadow in a road bend
The Route
Instead I cycled upwards towards Montricher. From there I cycled west vila Mollens to Bière, and from there, down and across towards Saurraz, Marchissy, Le Vaud before Bassins, Le Muid and then finally down from Genolier towards Trelex and from Trelex down through Grens before heading down towards Nyon.
I recently noticed that I had Andrew Keen’s The Cult of the Amateur book as an audiobook on Apple Books. I have had the book for at least a decade but have only got around to reading it recently. Over the last week I have listened to him speak about the closing of Tower Records and it encouraged me to write more about the scarcity of choice, that comes with online browsing and shopping.
When I lived in Weymouth I would go to WHSmith and look for new books, and then when I lived in London a few years later I would look for books at Waterstones. I spent hours in that book shop and often wanted to buy plenty of books but resisted temptation. The beauty of book shops is that you can look within a section and quickly see hundreds, or even thousands of books.
Recently I noticed that Audible is great for dummies. To be more specific I noticed that if you are an Audible paying subscriber you have access to dozens of Audible For Dummies books available within the subscription.
They have books on goat keeping, bee keeping, ham radio and more available for us to listen to for “free” within the subscriptions that we have. This is great, not because we ever finish For Dummies books, but because we can read them for cheaper than usual.
I am confused by Apple reading goals because they measure how many days you have reached your goal, as well as how much you read for the current day, but once today is yesterday it loses all of that information. It tells you that you have a. streak but you have no way of knowing anything else.
It would be nice to know how many hours you read per week, as well as how this has varied from one week to the next, from one month to the next, and from one season to the next. With this information you could see whether seasons and other factors affect how much you read. None of this matters, except that because it is tracked it is a shame not to keep that information available for users.
Sometimes when you go for a walk you spend time watching birds. In the video below you see a flock of gulls flocking around a tractor as it prepares the field for a crop. You see hundred of gulls wait for the tractor to open up the ground and then they rush in to find some snacks. I think they’re happy with worms, insects and small rodents. Anyone that thinks that vegetarianism doesn’t result in hundreds of animal deaths is wrong. These birds love to explore behind tractors.
According to the Kindle app on my phone my longest Kindle Reading Streak was 126 days. I say “was”, because I lost it two days ago and now I am back to a one day reading streak. I hate that apps like Kindle count reading streaks as “days of reading in a row” because sometimes simply opening the app, and reading one page was enough to count it as a streak.