November Group Read: Second Check-In

[kalloway]

Wait, that means November is halfway over. How did that happen? How is everything going? Are you working through your pile/shelf/chosen media?
(It is perfectly fine if the answer is a long silent scream, of course.)

For added optional discussion, if you'd like- Do you have a preference between hardcover, paperback, ebooks, audiobooks, etc.? Or are books good however they get into your brain?

Comments

[kalloway]

It has not been a week for reading or viewing anything on the list, really. I did get through The Comic Artist and His Assistants, which is the anime adaptation of a (unlicensed) manga by a creator whose previous series I'd really liked. This one was too far over the ecchi/perverted/panty-jokes line for me, however, and while I got to the end, I wasn't entirely paying attention to every second of it.

I have been participating in a shared-viewing project with taichara, which has been informative if not consistently enjoyable. (For content reasons, not companionship!)

As for books, I admittedly like paperbacks best for both ease-of-holding (tiny hands) + space reasons. I can sometimes do audiobooks; my first experience with Stephen King decades ago was a boombox and tapes of his short stories around many campfires over many nights! But if there's anything else going on, it's too easy for me to space out. ^^;; But in the end, whatever gets me the story/information!

[rmc28]

I like paperbacks but am a convert to ebooks, especially the ability to take literally hundreds of books with me in far less than the space / weight of one paperback.

I like audiobooks but I need to be doing something else (walking, cooking, household chores) while listening, or I get bored. I routinely use audiobooks of books I've already read to send myself to sleep. Worst case scenario, if I can't sleep I at least listen to a few more 30-min instalments of a good book. Most typical case: I'm asleep before the initial 15 minute sleep timer runs out.

[rmc28]

I am ... failing to read anything but some very long old favourite fanfic series. It has been that kind of a week.

[kalloway]

Nothing wrong with revisiting a fave, and I hope this week goes better~

[lebateleur]

I've finished three books from my notional list: Everyone Knows Your Mother Is A Witch, Isolde, and Star Mother, and made inroads into two more.

As far as format goes, definitely paperback for books I read in paperback as a child (Alexander, McKinley, O'Dell, Pratchett, Tolkien, etc.), ideally the same edition/cover art; otherwise, I prefer hardback. I use ebooks while traveling because I can never accurately predict what I'll want to read on any given day and thus need to have 8 billion options available. For commuting, I'll stick an electronic copy of whatever I'm reading at home on my phone so I can keep reading without lugging the physical copy around with me.

[kalloway]

Yay for your progress!

ideally the same edition/cover art

Same. I was looking at replacing a tattered old favorite and the new cover is a travesty.

[peaceful_sands]

I've now finished Eve Green, The Diet Myth, Consider Phlebas and Do it like a woman. I've DNF'd another book - Roadside Picnic.

This makes me slightly ahead of my plan - I wanted to read or decide that they weren't for me on 10 out of a list of 14 (that went up to 15 when I read something different in the first week). I've now DNF'd 2 and finished 7, so I'm pleased with that position. I'm now part way through The Cranford Chronicles.

I read mostly paperbacks and audiobooks. When travelling on the bus or similar an ebook would be my preference. I am finding that I have to be more selective about the print and the size of a book as I'm increasingly struggling with reading older books with tight spacing of the print or yellowing pages (both induce headaches) or holding heavy books without inducing too much pain in my thumbs and wrists - my current solution to that is to tackle the bigger books in audio and stick with lighter weight books in paperback. This is also because I buy a lot of my reading materials in charity shops and so it's substantially more expensive to buy the ebooks. I'm using less from the library because their books are almost always hardback and therefore too heavy and I've largely exhausted the audio collection of books that interest me - I check in regularly to see if they have anything new.

I guess ultimately I will move to reading more ebooks - but probably need to look at a dedicated reader (my phone is too small to read on for too long and my ipad too heavy to hold - although at least it is easier to prop up than an actual book and the print size is adjustable) but I do still love having a good physical book.

[kalloway]

You're making excellent progress!

I really need to get my kindle app onto a smaller tablet, it (and my small book collection) is currently on my oldest, heaviest tablet and that's not terribly convenient.

[taichara]

Still trundling along with my selected textbooks; also took a bit of a detour and (re)read Kriegsmesser, Cairn, and the Forgotten Realms "old Grey Box".

Started in on a selection of L5R sourcebooks, and the Pathfinder 2e corebook.

I really should finish off the Through Ultan's Door zines ...

And yeah, that certain group-read thing is sure turning out to be a Thing, isn’t it.


As far as book format, I'll take hardback or softback and don't much care, but it needs to be dead tree if I can at all manage it. If I can't find it, if there's a pdf I'll make the book myself.

Ebooks are a no unless I absolutely have to (mostly for practicality purposes; I can't spread a half-dozen ebooks or pdfs across a desk). I don’t do audiobooks fullstop.

[kalloway]

And yeah, that certain group-read thing is sure turning out to be a Thing, isn’t it.

SURE IS.

[taichara]

I WILL PEEL SKULLS LIKE CHESTNUTS

[kalloway]

Only a dozen parts to go?

[taichara]

Maybe enough parts for someone who should know better to smarten the hell oh who am I kidding, wtf this story (_ )_

[glinda]

This week, I have actually been reading! I started a non-fiction book (Black and British: A Forgotten History by David Olusoga) from my shelves, I’ve been reading a chapter a day for the last few days - it’s a total doorstop of a book - and really enjoying it.

On my preferred book format, I’m definitely a ‘all books are good books’ person (audio books definitely count) but my preference is always for paperbacks over hardbacks, I find them much easier to read. I like my reading portable and generally find hardbacks too cumbersome to carry around. I’m not a big ebook reader, as I prefer to have a physical copy of something if I’m paying for it, but I do find it the ideal format for reading short stories or novellas that I’m probably only going to read the once, or if I just want to support an upcoming author. (I just realised that this corresponds with my music buying habits, I prefer to buy singles or EPs as digital files, but if I’m buying a whole album I want a physical CD if I possibly can - the digital albums I’ve bought are pretty much all only otherwise available in the UK on import or not at all.)

[kalloway]

Hooray!

I definitely use the kindle app for 1) public domain books and 2) when authors have freebies of book one of a multi-book series and I want to get a feel for their writing. Then if available, I end up buying paperbacks... It doesn't help that my kindle app is on my huge old tablet which probably weighs as much as a doorstop hardcover. ^^;;

[glinda]

Ah yes, I do like the unexpected freebie ebook thing - A good way to trial out a new author! Yeah, I'm using the kindle app on a tablet too, so not the ideal size for portable reading but pretty handy if I'm on-call or on the road for work and space/time are at a premium.