Reading

Leslie - Jan 3, 2022

These long walks.treks fascinate me as well. I’m not at all religious, but I think the experience of walking for days, stopping in small hotels/B&Bs along the way, connecting with other walkers, would be wonderful. Someday, someday!

The easiest walk to do is the Via Alpina route that starts in Liechtenstein and ends in Montreux. A train ride to the start, and then walk back towards “home”. Physically it would be demanding as it is through the Alps, It’s around 21 stages.

Over the last month or so I have been reading Le Camino Seule, ou enfin presque and it is one of my favourite hiking books. It might simply be because it was written in French, by a french woman rather than in English by Brits or Americans but it made me feel more than other books. She often references Sylvain Tesson’s book Forêt de Sibérie, a book I read a few years ago.

What do snails have to do with chairs, I wondered as I listened to a book speaking about our addiction to sitting and chairs. It turns out that snails and other animals are programmed to move, walk, slither or other in an individual way. He started, by discussing sleeping in class, and having chalk thrown at him. Movement is an integral part of our lives and apparently, and as we have seen, children move a lot more than adults.

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.

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.

This year I am replacing Social Media with Book Reading because social media is no longer a conversational place. It has become a place for sensationalism and the spreading of fake news and emotional news. As a result of these factors the potential gain of new friendships and interesting conversations has declined. For this reason you might as well find some interesting books and broaden your horizons. [caption id=“attachment_3412” align=“aligncenter” width=“300”] Replacing social media with book reading[/caption] I currently have hundreds of books on Kindle and Audible and my collection on the Kobo reader is bound to grow. Recently I read Too Loud A Solitude. This is a book I came across by accident. I was browsing through Goodreads recommendations and it came up. The book is interesting because it tells the story of a person who worked compacting books for 35 years. Every chapter begins with the phrase “For 35 years…”. The journey is an interesting one because we see how someone with a passion for books rescues some before they are destroyed. It is worth reading when you have the interest and motivation. Another interesting book I read is Tartarin Sur Les Alpes. This book is interesting because of its age. It is about the early days of Alpinism. It speaks of various mountains and locations that are easy to get to today but that were accessed by horse and carriage at the time. It also explores the early days of tourism. Books require an investment of time of several hours in the same way that television series require. You can read a chapter or “episode” a day or you can binge through them reading several chapters in a single day. They usually require from seven to 21 hours to get through just like television series seasons. It’s easy to lose entire days. I like e-books and I like audible books. As a result of this I can walk around with hundreds of books at a time and read from one book and then another. It transports me to different time periods and places. For a moment I stop living in the present. With audio books I can drive, hike or walk at the same time. I can be a bookworm without being stuck in a building. It’s a shame that we don’t read more.

When I’m online I love reading. I read articles everyday. I see what people are doing. I see what’s happening in the world through text. When I see some information that may be of interest to me in video form I’m lazy. I hardly ever bother watching that video. I’d much prefer to have the text version. I’ve often watched mobuzztv and Iused to enjoy watching the videos but recently I find myself watching them less and less, probably in part due to bandwidth constraints. I especially avoid watching certain types of interviews because they’re dull. The interviewer has a bad technique and there’s no editing. I don’t want to hear someone talk for three minutes for something that can be summarised into one sentence. It’s a shame that video bloggers have not yet learned how to conduct proper interviews. An interview should be well researched, both material wise, knowing what the person knows about the topic and then charisma wise. Get an interesting subject but unresearched and the questions won’t give good information. Get a poor speaker and there’s a good chance the audience will lose interest and stop listening. get some cut aways and illustrate what the person is saying. Talking heads are boring. Finally avoid being arrogant, don’t gloat because you’ve got an interview with someone most people have never heard of or care about.