Goodreads was independent, once upon a time, and then Amazon bought it and it became part of the Amazon universe. At that point Goodreads stopped being an interesting option because we were helping a billion dollar company rather than an indipendent project.
Bookmory and storygraph are two alternative projects. Bookmory imports the goodreads csv faster but Storygraph provides more analytical data after the fact. Storygraph simplifies importing the book CSV from Goodreads to Storygraph but once I got the Goodreads CSV I could migrate my data to both services with ease.
The difference in price is 31 CHF per year for Bookmory and 39 Euros per year for Storygraph.
I started using both yesterday so I haven’t made up my mind about which I prefer. I do like that I can track my reading streak via StoryGraph rather than via the Kindle app, Apple Books or other apps.
Last night I was reading from a book, rather than from a kindle or audible book. As a result I had to keep the bedside light on. I also had to ensure that the light light the pages of the book. I was reading from the book “Beneath My Feet, Writers on Walking” introduced and edited by Duncan Minshull and I came across an exert written by Karl Philips Moritz. He wrote Journeys of a German in England in 1782.
In this book he writes about walking in England and about how people were puzzled that someone would want to walk from London to Richmond and back. People couldn’t fathom that someone would want to walk such a distance on foot.
Pleasant English Miles
At one point he says “Walking four miles in England feels like walking one mile in Germany”, to paraphrase. He enjoyed walking in England. He speaks of stopping by the side of the road, finding the shade of some bushes and reading. Apparently people on the road were puzzled that someone would stop by the side and read.
What is so striking about this writing is that it is from 241 years ago, before cars, before the steam age, and before the forms of transport we are familiar with today.
Several centuries later another eccentric would go for long walks, Grandma Gatewood. People were puzzled that someone her age would walk the Appalachian Trail alone, more than once.
Confused
According to Google Bard walking was normal in 1782, as was horse back riding, horse drawn carriages and sailing ships. Given the context it’s interesting that so early, before steam and trains people would have seen walking from Point A to Point B as strange.
The idea we have that the car encouraged people to stop walking is erroneous, in that people did not walk from A to B long before then. The idea that the carriage was an ordinary form of transport to get from A to B, rather than walking is interesting. Was the writer trying to save money, for his travels, or did he simply enjoy the act of walking?
And Finally
I found copies of the book in electronic format so I will take the time to read a copy, to understand more about the reasons for this long walk.
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.
It contrasts to the news stories we read about Spain and tourism today. Today with AirBnB tourism is destructive, rather than constructive and cultural. It’s important to be reminded that travel was not always a one hour hop on a plane from A to B to go partying and clubbing. In the past travel was a journey.
The Alaska Introduction
The book Alaska has a different introduction. It starts by telling us what is real, what is based on reality, what is invented based on fact, and what is entirely fictional. It then speaks about plate Tectonics and moves on to mastodons and more.
Sixty Hours of Reading
According to the Kindle App both books combined will take about sixty hours to read. One of the advantages of lowering the number of books I want to read this year is that it has freed up my time, to read longer form books. At a time when people speak of not being able to read more than a page or two at a time I am planning to read two voluminous books. If I succeed then that will be interesting. I will have learned a lot.
Kindle Read
I could get the books on Kindle, and listen to them as I walk, drive or cook but I prefer to read them on the Kindle app. In my experience long books, in audio form require a good reader, not to become tiring. Part of the reason I was tempted to read these books is that they were cheap. 3 Euros 81, as I check now on Amazon.fr.
And Finally
Until I reached my reading goal for the year I was choosing shorter books. Now that I have reached my book reading goal I can enjoy longer form content. Of course, if I want to get through these books I will have to read for more than a few minutes a day before falling asleep. I think I will be transported back in time, with these 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.
Usually, at least in Switzerland, For Dummies books cost 20-30 CHF each, unless you find them in lending libraries in villages, for free, but that’s a matter of luck, rather than reliably.
In the past when we bought books we would go to a library and we would thumb through the book, and see whether the content engaged us. With digital books, whether audio or e-book we can’t do that so easily. We can read a sample but the sample doesn’t give the same “try before you buy experience” as leafing through a book.
With Audible having so many For Dummies books to choose from we can listen to bit and pieces of books, and see whether we want to buy the book, after all, or not.
I was curious to read “Blogging for Dummies” but because the book is old, and because I’ve been blogging longer than the writer of that book I thought “The book is a waste of money”. By getting the book included with my Audible plan I can read it for “free” and see whether it is as much as a waste of time as I thought it was. I have listened to some of the book but haven’t formed an opinion yet.
If I was producing a For Dummies book I would remove the introduction about the symbols and what they mean, as well as remove the part about “you can read it in any order you like”. With an audiobook we usually read them from beginning to end, without skipping around like in a printed book.
And Finally
Not all for Dummies books are included within the Audible subscription so you might be lucky and find the book you’re curious about, or not. I share this as a curiousity. This is an opportunity to learn about new topics whilst walking, cooking driving, etc.
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.
Apple Books has the same flaw as plenty of other Apple Apps. If you live in Switzerland it is assumed that you speak German, and because of this assumption it is hard to browse for English, and even French content. You are obliged to know what you want to find, instead of having the freedom to browse. Apple must lose a lot of business by forcing German language version of content, rather than looking at system settings and using the system default. We’re decades into regionalisation, and yet tech giants don’t cater to people who do not speak the majority language.
And Finally
I thought I was going to go for a walk today but didn’t. I walked to breakfast and back and then spent time standing, so when I saw that it was 1400 I thought that I should go for a walk but didn’t. This is unusual for me. Today has been a crap day. I didn’t get to focus on my goals as I wish I could have. Days like today frustrate me.
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.
Yesterday I went for one of my usual one and three quarter hour walks and when I came into one village I noticed a green cupboard so I opened it and looked inside.
A green cupboard – “When I think of all the books I have yet to read, I feel happiness.”
From the quote on the front you would guess that it has something to do with books but I came from the side, and didn’t notice the writing until I had opened it. It is filled with books. Five shelves of books. The shelves are not just filled with one row of books. The books are two to three books deep. This cupboard is filled with books. If you want to own a lot of books then this is the system to use.
I felt real joy at finding this cupboard. Not only is it close to home but it is really filled with books. You could easily spend half an hour going through all the books, to find something to read. I didn’t expect that such a site would fill me with happiness but it does.
A cupboard filled with books
Every time I come across a village where there is a library like this I am happy. I don’t think I have any desire to read most of these books. It’s just that I love that we don’t need to keep hundreds of books at home, to have hundreds of books to read. With lending libraries like these in every village we have a vast choice of books to read, then then share. We have enough to read, for years.
When I was a child we had book libraries that opened for a short period of time on some days. We also had book shops where we could buy books. Now that book shops and libraries are rare due to people buying books online, it’s nice to find book lending libraries like this.
I am not writing where it is, on social media, because I don’t want thieves to go and empty the books.
Some people look for geocaches. I look for these communal book lending libraries. Every village should have at least one.
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.
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
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
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.
Recently I have read three out of four DI Barton books and I enjoy them. One of the things that I enjoyed about these books is that I’m interested in both sides of the story, rather than reading about character A but being frustrated when reading about character B. With these books I like both.
The first book is about a seasonal killer, and it moves on from there. I could give more information but I don’t want to spoil the books for you. These books are available via Audible’s Premium plus package, for the first three books, and you need to spend one credit per book for the last three books.
I don’t like writing book reviews. I think that the speed with which I read books tells you whether these books are good or not. I read the first three within two or three weeks and I enjoyed them all, hence the purchase of the fourth. The books are presented from the DI’s perspective and the serial killer’s point of view in turn. As you read you learn more, until the final dénouement.
We should spend more time listening to audiobooks and discussing them. It is easy to find articles and news about films and more, but less so about audible.com among other projects. We could see every book as a series, especially since they last about seven hours. I like reading books with my eyes but I also enjoy listening, whilst walking, driving etc.
Long drives are one of the most enjoyable moments for listening to audiobooks. As you read them you imagine the stories you’re reading, but you also associate one book with a bit of motorway, or a season. I used to enjoy listening to podcasts but I think that with their minutes of adverts per episode they have become too much like the television shows and radio programs we got into the habit of avoiding.
With audiobooks there are no adverts, just stories that help you stay focused on long drives, especially if you’re driving alone. Don’t be tricked. Most of my reading is done either while cooking or while walking. With books a solitary walk becomes an excuse to “read”, uninterrupted, for a period of time.
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