My Kindle Reading Streak

My Kindle Reading Streak

Byrichard

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.


The information is meaningless. I would like a different way of counting streaks. Imagine if we could have streaks such as “Read at least one book a week” streaks. It would be nice to have more flexibility, and to have goals that have more meaning.


The paradox of losing that reading streak, on one app, is that I read from Audible almost every single day, and from the kindle almost every day. In effect I do read every day. I have been reading every day for years by now, so whether n app counts my reading or not doesn’t matter.


As i said a few days ago, by losing my streak it gives me the opportunity to read through the books I pick up on my daily walks, rather than electronic books. I need to read through the physical books because they take physical space, and either I need new shelves, or I need to read and put those books back into circulation.


Although called a “reading challenge” by GoodReads I prefer to think of it as a reading goal. The goal of reading 52 books in a single year, the goal of reading one book per week. Reading every day is easy, it is finishing books that is a challenge. I have a lot of unfinished books. My reading goal will help me work my way through the unfinished books. Once they’re finished I can drop them at one of the six or seven reading libraries I visit on my daily walks.


And Finally


Twitter wants to start revenue sharing with its users, but only those that buy in. I see this as a mistake. Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and many other networks lost value because they focused on encouraging spamming and clickbait rather than valuable content and conversations. If I didn’t think I would regret it, I would delete my account.

The 2023 Reading Challenge

The 2023 Reading Challenge

Byrichard

We are one month into 2023 and so far I have read four books in four weeks. The aim of reading one book a week, so far is going well. I have read Last Book to Woodstock, A Man Called Trent and Riders of the Dawn as well as The Hunt for Red Octobre and The Cold Killer.


I have a tendency to buy and collect books faster than I read them. Having a love of books is good, because it shows that we want to read/hear stories and that we want to learn about a diversity of topics. As I read in one article “a library is a catalogue of the things that we would like to learn more about. I like this idea. I like the idea that books are about what we would like to learn.


As I have said more than once, collecting books is easy, it takes seconds to pick one up. The challenge is to devote seven or more hours per book, once you own them.


Three out of four of the books I finished this year areaudible books. Audio books are more expensive than normal books in many circumstances but I find them easier to finish. If I read a book it’s usually at night, until my eyes are too tired to stay open. With audiobooks I read when I am walking, cooking or driving. I walk and hike a lot so that gives me an hour and a half to read, per walk/hike. That gives time to read one book a week.


Now is a good time to think about taking the time to read because people are getting excited by the prospect of having AI write instead of humans. At a time when people no longer take the time to read, getting AI to generate more material to read seems a step in the wrong direction. I like to read. I like to be taken on a journey by writers. I don’t want to read something written by chatGPT. I want to read something written by a human being. I want to listen to books read by human beings. Apple is using AI to read books aloud, instead of Humans.


And Finally


I think reading challenges are negative because they encourage us to choose short books that we can read quickly, rather than longer books. Having said that they encourage us to listen to books rather than podcasts. I used to love podcasts but this pandemic has changed that. Now I like books. With any luck I will eventually read books faster than I collect them. I left the Inspector Morse book I read as a physical book, in a lending library. If I read physical books I can start leaving them in the villages I walk through.



Reading Streaks

Reading Streaks

Byrichard

I read using the Kindle App, with a specific account for over one hundred days before making the mistake of logging in with a different account, and moving the primary account to an older phone. I lost my streak and now I feel free.


Reading streaks are fantastic when the numbers are going up, and when you’re getting close to beating your record, and beat it. The drawback is that reading streaks, on one kindle account is a prison. We have physical books, we have kobo books, we have kindle books and we have Audible books. Each account has a different way of encouraging people to use their app, rather than another. Each one tries to trap you with gamification.


The grand winner out of all of these is Audible of course. I love being able to read while I’m walking, driving, cooking and more. Audible is the most versatile of reading books regularly without having to take time to sit down, and read. With books, kindle, kobo and others you need to devote yourself entirely. With Audible you can do two things at once.


Now back to that feeling of liberation.


During my various walks I found the entire collection of Inspector Morse books so I wanted to read them, but I was stuck with my Kindle reading streak. Now that I broke my streak I can start reading those physical books, and as I finish one I can leave it in a lending library, until I finish the collection.


Audible.com badges earned
Audible.com badges earned


I like gamification and earning badges but I also like to have the freedom to flit from one device and book source to another. My real goal is to read 52 books in a single year, to read one book per week. This is a challenge worth trying for. It has more meaning than a reading days in a row streak.


The drawback to this challenge is that I don’t want it to stop me from reading thicker books. I don’t want my reading to be skewed trying to reach a reading goal. I like to read. The challenge is just a side project.


Time spent reading on Audible
Time spent reading on Audible


The problem I have with reading streaks is the same as I have with fitness trackers that want to track everything, but don’t share it with their competitors. They want to force you to be loyal to them, but in so doing they encourage you to break from them, as if they were toxic, or addictive. I want reading to remain a pleasure and I want watch wearing to be up to my mood of the day, rather than up to the app that tracks everything twenty four hours a day.


There are thousands of books dotted in various villages and if we’re trapped to a single app, then we cannot enjoy the breadth and depth of free books that are available around us. I am happy to read Colin Dexter books in physical form for now, and then to leave them for others to read. This is convivial. It also means less screen time.


And that’s it for now.

The 2022 Reading Challenge

Byrichard

Earlier this year I set myself the challenge of reading 30 books this year and I have read 24 books out of 30 so far. In the grand scheme of things reading challenges don’t mean more. They mean you managed to start or at least finish a certain number of books within a given period of time.


I like the reading challenge because it encourages me to read more than I might otherwise but I am slightly frustrated that it doesn’t show the number of pages we have read in total, across various media. If we counted articles, podcasts and more then the count would be higher.


I also dislike that it encourages me to read shorter books, that I think I will finish sooner, rather than other books, that would take longer, and thus skew the number of read books, but boost the number of read pages. There is no challenge for “read pages” yet.


I have to read 29 books in a single year to reach my personal best. I think I will. I listen to books rather than podcasts when I walk and I listen when I cook.


I am two books behind schedule. This has been the case for almost the entire year. I should have read 26 books, rather than 24.


I need to read one book a week to reach my goal. That’s a comfortable goal, especially if I find books that take less than seven hours to read. One of the most unexpected books this year was Harmonica, Harps and Heavy Breathers. If my curiousity about harmonicas had not been woken during a walk I would not have picked up this book and I would not have spent a certain amount of time reading it almost every night for weeks.


My reading is not regular. I will probably read a few pages every night before going to sleep but sometimes I read at other times of the day. Whilst it annoys me that the Kindle App logs days in a row, rather than reading time I like that it encourages you to read every single day. It isn’t demanding. Reading one or two pages is enough. On that note I will leave this post for now and continue reading.

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YouTube and the Million Follower type

Byrichard

I used to really like YouTube. It was a place where normal people could share videos of their normal lives, for normal people to enjoy, and to discover organically. Today YouTube is a way of forcing people to watch adverts before watching content that has been seen half a million to a million times by people with a million subscribers who keep saying “i have a million subscribers” and showing off. This makes most YouTube content unpleasant.


Don’t boast about your audience, or about your community. Give me good quality video content that I want to keep watching. Give me content, not boasting about how you got awards, got a big audience etc. I am not on YouTube to flatter your ego. I am on YouTube to watch content that is interesting as I eat dinner. If you don’t fill this niche then I can slide towards another content creator, or video network.


Content viewing, at this point in the pandemic has become hard. If the content is about friends and family then this is a long distant memory, in the middle of the pandemic, with no hope of an end.


Documentaries would be fun, if they weren’t edited by a hyperactive bumblebee. If I watch a documentary, speak, give me information, and don’t sensationalise it. If you do I will tune out within minutes, or even seconds in some cases.


I would watch films but either modern story writing makes them so dull that I lose interest within a few minutes, or they make me long for pre-pandemic, or post pandemic life.


Content is not made for single people living in solitude during a pandemic but it should. Good documentaries, good films, good series.


I enjoyed watching people play computer games for a while, but then eventually I grew tired of the content. I felt that at least one or two people were playing towards a stereotype, rather than being genuine, Eventually I stopped watching.


I often listen to audible books as I cook. Recently I thought about listening to audiobooks as I ate, or even in the evening, rather than watch video content. The beauty of audio books is that they’re 3-20hours long. Find a good book and you will be entertained for a week to 20 days.


Recently I have been listening to Louis L’amour books and I find them fun. They’re not the genre I used to listen to. I am in the right frame of mind. I like these books because they’re light, easy reading. They’re not like Gulag, or other books. It’s a trip back in time to frontier America, when bison were plentiful, land was being taken away by the Whites, and more.


As I read Louis L’Amour I know that some topics may anger or frustrate people who feel that the writing is from another age, and it is. Listening to such books is a cultural trip to see what life was hypothetically like, and to explore a different genre. I usually read factual books.

Books I Am Reading.

Byrichard

I usually read several books at a time. This is because I start books but find that my interest is drawn to another topic. As these are usually factual books I can afford to take a break from one book and return to it later.


The Aeronaut: Travels in the Air


I started reading this book last night. A meteorologist from, the mid 1850s wanted to study the weather more accurately and in order to do so he wanted to measure the weather from a variety of altitudes. De Saussure’s climbing up the Mont Blanc to measure climate data is interesting.


My interest in this book was peaked when I saw that Amazon Prime wanted me to watch the film. I saw in the title sequence that it was based on a book so I looked it up and now I’m reading what promises to be an interesting book.


Divided: A Walk on the Continental Divide Trail


I am now over halfway through this book. I have been reading this book as the last thing I do every night for a few days. I like reading these books, about journeys, about taking a break from the world, about filling the gap between one winter contract and another. I also like the idea of going for a multiday hike. One multi-day hike I’d like to embark on is the Via Alpina, a 6000-kilometre journey from Slovenia to Monte Carlo across the alps.


To The Limit, An Air Cav Huey Pilot in Vietnam.


Whereas I usually read books on the Vietnam war I am now listening to this book as an audiobook. The experience of listening, rather than, reading a book on this topic is noticeable.


Usually, as I read I visualise the experiences being told, and I’m drawn into that reality, for the time I’m reading. I find that with an audible book I am more distant. Whereas I’d be in a dark room, with just the e-book reader as a light source I’m up and doing things like cooking, or walking when I listen to an audiobook, so it’s easy to half-listen. I don’t know whether I notice because I’m so used to the genre, or because I’m used to reading, rather than listening.


Digital Apollo: Human And Machine in Space Flight


Although I recently finished reading this book I’ll mention it. When we watch the Right Stuff, or when we read about the space program we hear about the pilots, we read about The Trench, and we read about reaching and punching through the sound barrier. What we don’t hear about is the evolution of technology, to assist pilots with flying their aircraft.


It discusses the process by which pilots and engineers ran simulations on the ground, to develop the software, that would help pilots fly their planes. In effect it covers the development of flying instruments and Instrument Flight rules, before helping humans break the sound barrier, and eventually pilot capsules, that would be renamed spacecraft, as they are flown. I found the book really interesting and recommend it.


A break from Marketing


Social media, radio, television and other facets of life are filled with constant adverts. Twitter is no longer about conversations between people working on projects, Facebook is no longer about conversations between friends and radio and television want you to spend minutes an hour watching or listening to ads.


By grabbing a book and reading you cut out all the noise. You’re focused on the book for minutes or even hours, and you might even miss sleep because you’re so engrossed, and when you put down your book your mind has relaxed. I’ll leave you with this article titled How Reading Books Helps Your Brain Recharge. I’ll see whether this becomes a regular blog post.

The Phone Box library Walk
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The Phone Box library Walk

Byrichard

If you’re looking for a reason to walk from one village to another the practise of using old phone boxes as free libraries are common in Switzerland. This means that if you’re shopping around for books in Switzerland you can either go to the shops and buy them with the car or you can go for a walk and see if any of the nearby villages have the books you’re looking for.


Former phone box used for sharing books
Former phone box used for sharing books


In Gingins, Grens, Eysins, Nyon and other towns, you can swap books. In Gingins you can get books from the recycling centre where instead of recycling books they re-share them. You can also get them from where the old post office was. In Grens and Eysins they have book sharing as well. These are open twenty-four hours a day.


In Grens it is especially amusing because they have labels for French, English, German, Italian and other language books. If you’re learning a language you can get books to read for free.


Instead of walking from one village to another for a coffee or to play on the swings (if you’re accompanied by children) you can walk and see if you find interesting books.


They have children’s books, cookery books, fiction and factual. If your bag is large enough, and if you have enough energy you could even pick up some of the heavier books. I found one about North African cooking, two about avalanches and others that are about dinosaurs and other topics.


I think that it’s a great way to share books. Instead of throwing books away or letting them sit on a shelf after they have been read you can place them in these phone boxes and the next reader can pick them up and read them in turn. By walking from village to village it helps you keep fit. By walking in towns and going to the different book sharing points the same benefit is present.


The beauty of phone boxes is that they are often protected from the weather so instead of having one library in a building to serve several villages each community shares books internally.


Goodreads, or some other reading sharing app, should add functionality to the app so that people with their app on their phone could catalogue which books are in which village. If other users of the app are looking for a book they can see if there is any book sharing point with this book. Books would then be read and shared more easily.