gtluke
The Moped
1.8x speed is the only way to go. Those damn audiobook readers talk slower than a southerner.
what do you read?
- Thread starter bonefishjake
- Start date
1.8x speed is the only way to go. Those damn audiobook readers talk slower than a southerner.
gtluke
The Moped
I prefer to not have a book read to me by a chipmunk.
do you really read at 1.0 speed?
start creeping it up. The voice pitch doesn't change, just their pace of reading does. It does autotune to their voice and mainly chops out redundant sounds and empty spaces. At 1.3 it's hardly noticeable. After 1.5 it starts to sound like they did a lot of coke.
Try it, it lets you burn through books way faster. After an hour you'll never notice again. And if it goes back to 1.0 speed you'll start getting anxious from the slowness.
gtluke
The Moped
I've been doing drywall so I've been burning through books.
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guine.
This is the Berkely Leftist fountainhead. But they are too busy crying on facebook to actually read it.
Dude gets stranded on the wrong side of a planet and the only person willing to help him escape by crossing a Siberia like snow continent is a non binary gender person.
Jurassic Park - michael Crichton
it's 99.7% exactly the same as the movie. It's a tad more gruesome but it's damn identical in every scene.
The Stars My Destination. - Alfred Bester
This was actually really interesting.
Dudeman gets abandoned in space and potential rescuers choose to ignore him. He survives anyway but he's left with his entire face tattoo'd as the face of a tiger. This makes plotting his revenge odd, but then he has the tattoo removed. But it comes back when his blood pressure rises. So he has to enact his revenge while keeping cool through yoga practice or he'll be identified and people freak out.
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
We find this abandoned alien civilization on an asteroid. It contains hundreds of alien ships which work, but nobody can figure out really how to operate them. You can enter predetermined routes that the aliens had previously used and that's it. Nobody knows where they actually go through space time, but there is a decent chance you come back. If you bring back artifacts or new knowledge, you are greatly rewarded. But the chance of never returning is pretty large. How long do you play this russian roulette?
The Left Hand of Darkness - Ursula K Le Guine.
This is the Berkely Leftist fountainhead. But they are too busy crying on facebook to actually read it.
Dude gets stranded on the wrong side of a planet and the only person willing to help him escape by crossing a Siberia like snow continent is a non binary gender person.
Jurassic Park - michael Crichton
it's 99.7% exactly the same as the movie. It's a tad more gruesome but it's damn identical in every scene.
The Stars My Destination. - Alfred Bester
This was actually really interesting.
Dudeman gets abandoned in space and potential rescuers choose to ignore him. He survives anyway but he's left with his entire face tattoo'd as the face of a tiger. This makes plotting his revenge odd, but then he has the tattoo removed. But it comes back when his blood pressure rises. So he has to enact his revenge while keeping cool through yoga practice or he'll be identified and people freak out.
Gateway - Frederik Pohl
We find this abandoned alien civilization on an asteroid. It contains hundreds of alien ships which work, but nobody can figure out really how to operate them. You can enter predetermined routes that the aliens had previously used and that's it. Nobody knows where they actually go through space time, but there is a decent chance you come back. If you bring back artifacts or new knowledge, you are greatly rewarded. But the chance of never returning is pretty large. How long do you play this russian roulette?
ilnadi
Well-Known Member
serviceguy
Well-Known Member
Currently reading Blue Labyrinth by Preston&Child. I like all of their books, at least the ones I managed to source so far.
I am also curious how two men can write a book together.
I came about them out of curiosity after reading the non-fictional The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston which I liked for many reasons, being familiar with both the subject and the exposing of bad police practices in Italy and specifically in Florence. I think I am going to try Trial by Fury (about Amanda Fox)by Preston as well, I guess I enjoy reading how badly our (Italian) justice system represents itself to the rest of the world.
Speaking of fictional work I am also an avid reader of whatever these guys write (or wrote):
- David Baldacci
- John Grisham
- Michael Connelly
- Tom Cancy
- Michael Crichton
Will have to read Asimov again as I I went through pretty much all of his work in Italian and would like to get the original version.
I'll spare you the Italian authors that I've been reading during my first 40 years.
I am also curious how two men can write a book together.
I came about them out of curiosity after reading the non-fictional The Monster of Florence by Douglas Preston which I liked for many reasons, being familiar with both the subject and the exposing of bad police practices in Italy and specifically in Florence. I think I am going to try Trial by Fury (about Amanda Fox)by Preston as well, I guess I enjoy reading how badly our (Italian) justice system represents itself to the rest of the world.
Speaking of fictional work I am also an avid reader of whatever these guys write (or wrote):
- David Baldacci
- John Grisham
- Michael Connelly
- Tom Cancy
- Michael Crichton
Will have to read Asimov again as I I went through pretty much all of his work in Italian and would like to get the original version.
I'll spare you the Italian authors that I've been reading during my first 40 years.
Kaleidopete
Well-Known Member
I just started the book "Two Wheels North" . , pretty good read, but then I love these early American travel/adventure stories.
In 1909, Vic McDaniel and Ray Francisco, just out of high school, set out from Santa Rosa, California,
on second-hand bikes, bound for the great Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle.
In 1909, Vic McDaniel and Ray Francisco, just out of high school, set out from Santa Rosa, California,
on second-hand bikes, bound for the great Alaska-Yukon-Pacific Exposition in Seattle.
The new installment of the Pierce Brown Red Rising series came out this year: Iron Gold
It has a long waiting list from any of the libraries that I belong to (e-book format)
I read most of it but it expired and went back before I could finish. Now I'm on the list again to finish it.
I like it as I liked the others.
It has a long waiting list from any of the libraries that I belong to (e-book format)
I read most of it but it expired and went back before I could finish. Now I'm on the list again to finish it.
I like it as I liked the others.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Reviving an old thread ... some of my favorite reads. Including some links in case any of these might catch your interest ...
For most of the last 20+ years, my reading habits have leaned hard into one specific area that endlessly fascinated me (and still does.) It's probably too specific to be its own genre - I usually describe it as "historical disaster". It all started when my mom gave me "In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick for a birthday present. I devoured it and that kind of kicked off an obsession where I couldn't get enough of true stories where people faced unimaginable hardships - sometimes of their own making and sometimes just unfortunate fate: expeditions gone wrong, natural disasters, etc. Just to name a few - "Touching the Void", "Alone on the Ice", "The Bounty", "The Race for Timbuktu", "The Pirate Coast", "The Long Walk" and (my all time favorite and one I'd recommend to anyone at any time), "Skeletons on the Zahara". (What the men in that last one suffered defies imagination.) There are probably a hundred more I could list. I'm just fascinated by what people were (and perhaps still are) able to endure. In most of these stories, at least one person somehow survives to tell the tale. In some cases, that's unbelievable.
But lately, I've been trying to expand into other genres. I was never a big sci-fi/fantasy fan, but I've been coming around lately. Again, I think I have my mom to thank - last year, she gave me Cixin Liu's "Three Body Problem" trilogy for my birthday. It was so riveting, I think I finished all three books in less than two weeks. The scope and imagination of Liu's writing is incredible - I mean, he can somehow convincingly span hundreds of years in his stories while still keeping them grounded in science. It's kind of like nothing else I've ever read. I just finished another work of his (Ball Lightning). The writing itself can seem clunky in some spots, but that's almost certainly because its a translation of the original Chinese. And even if it weren't, he's just such a good storyteller you wouldn't mind. Since reading that first trilogy, I guess I've been on kind of a sci-fi/fantasy kick the last year or so - right now, I'm in the middle of three different series (waiting on the release of the second in the brand new Foundryside series from Robert Jackson Bennett, just picked up the second novel in the very loose Stallo series from Stephen Spjut, and waiting on the finale to the Kingkiller Chronicle series by Patrick Rothfuss.) And earlier this year I read Neil Peart's (yes, that Neil Peart) "Clockwork Lives" (I'd read the original "Clockwork Angels" companion novella to the Rush album of the same name a few years ago.)
Right now, I'm only about a hundred pages into a novel called "Wanderers" by Chuck Wendig, which more than one reviewer compared to Stephen King's "The Stand". I've never read much Stephen King, so I don't know if that would make me more or less likely to have picked it up. But I had trouble putting it down after just the first chapter. So that's promising.
Also queued up are some other non-fiction works that caught my eye: Deep Medicine by Eric Topol, which is about the role of AI in the future of medicine, and The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, which is supposed to be a very stunning and direct examination of climate change. Kind of putting off that last one a bit because I'm anticipating a gut punch there.
Anyway, thought I'd kickstart this old thread again with a few of my favorites. What have you all been reading lately?
For most of the last 20+ years, my reading habits have leaned hard into one specific area that endlessly fascinated me (and still does.) It's probably too specific to be its own genre - I usually describe it as "historical disaster". It all started when my mom gave me "In the Heart of the Sea" by Nathaniel Philbrick for a birthday present. I devoured it and that kind of kicked off an obsession where I couldn't get enough of true stories where people faced unimaginable hardships - sometimes of their own making and sometimes just unfortunate fate: expeditions gone wrong, natural disasters, etc. Just to name a few - "Touching the Void", "Alone on the Ice", "The Bounty", "The Race for Timbuktu", "The Pirate Coast", "The Long Walk" and (my all time favorite and one I'd recommend to anyone at any time), "Skeletons on the Zahara". (What the men in that last one suffered defies imagination.) There are probably a hundred more I could list. I'm just fascinated by what people were (and perhaps still are) able to endure. In most of these stories, at least one person somehow survives to tell the tale. In some cases, that's unbelievable.
But lately, I've been trying to expand into other genres. I was never a big sci-fi/fantasy fan, but I've been coming around lately. Again, I think I have my mom to thank - last year, she gave me Cixin Liu's "Three Body Problem" trilogy for my birthday. It was so riveting, I think I finished all three books in less than two weeks. The scope and imagination of Liu's writing is incredible - I mean, he can somehow convincingly span hundreds of years in his stories while still keeping them grounded in science. It's kind of like nothing else I've ever read. I just finished another work of his (Ball Lightning). The writing itself can seem clunky in some spots, but that's almost certainly because its a translation of the original Chinese. And even if it weren't, he's just such a good storyteller you wouldn't mind. Since reading that first trilogy, I guess I've been on kind of a sci-fi/fantasy kick the last year or so - right now, I'm in the middle of three different series (waiting on the release of the second in the brand new Foundryside series from Robert Jackson Bennett, just picked up the second novel in the very loose Stallo series from Stephen Spjut, and waiting on the finale to the Kingkiller Chronicle series by Patrick Rothfuss.) And earlier this year I read Neil Peart's (yes, that Neil Peart) "Clockwork Lives" (I'd read the original "Clockwork Angels" companion novella to the Rush album of the same name a few years ago.)
Right now, I'm only about a hundred pages into a novel called "Wanderers" by Chuck Wendig, which more than one reviewer compared to Stephen King's "The Stand". I've never read much Stephen King, so I don't know if that would make me more or less likely to have picked it up. But I had trouble putting it down after just the first chapter. So that's promising.
Also queued up are some other non-fiction works that caught my eye: Deep Medicine by Eric Topol, which is about the role of AI in the future of medicine, and The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells, which is supposed to be a very stunning and direct examination of climate change. Kind of putting off that last one a bit because I'm anticipating a gut punch there.
Anyway, thought I'd kickstart this old thread again with a few of my favorites. What have you all been reading lately?
TL;DR. More pictures next time plz.
1speed
Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
But wouldn't pictures of books just be a bunch more words, thereby exacerbating the original quandary?
one piece crank
Well-Known Member
Factory workshop manuals for the various vehicles in my fleet - that's about all I can find time for...
A Potted Plant
Honorary Sod
In all seriousness this is about all I can stand to read how to, instructions, reference books, anything I can apply I would read I can stand stories.
TimBay
Well-Known Member
Does this thread exist yet?
Anywho, I decided to re-read Big Sur, by Jack Kerouac.
It's funny how books can bring you back to a moment in time. Movies sort of can too, but a movie is a 2hr endeavor. A Book usually lasts days, weeks, months to get through. It's a more intimate and dedicated commitment. This Book makes me think of 2009, when I was early on in my first career in the music industry and I cleared the music for an unsuccessful Kerouac doc called "One Fast Move Or I'm Gone", which was about this book. I got a free special DVD/cd/Book copy and read the book. I had first experienced Kerouac on tour in a band via "Dharma Bums" and "On The Road" and always gravitated toward his vagabond, go with the wind attitude. If you haven't read Jack Kerouac, this and Dharma Bums are good introductions. On The Road (his most famous book) is a little harder.
Anywho, I decided to re-read Big Sur, by Jack Kerouac.
It's funny how books can bring you back to a moment in time. Movies sort of can too, but a movie is a 2hr endeavor. A Book usually lasts days, weeks, months to get through. It's a more intimate and dedicated commitment. This Book makes me think of 2009, when I was early on in my first career in the music industry and I cleared the music for an unsuccessful Kerouac doc called "One Fast Move Or I'm Gone", which was about this book. I got a free special DVD/cd/Book copy and read the book. I had first experienced Kerouac on tour in a band via "Dharma Bums" and "On The Road" and always gravitated toward his vagabond, go with the wind attitude. If you haven't read Jack Kerouac, this and Dharma Bums are good introductions. On The Road (his most famous book) is a little harder.
TimBay
Well-Known Member
Nice. I knew it had to be somewhere, but got tired of searching...after about 30 seconds of effort. Anyway, I wasnt digging the book, so I played guitar instead. Might try Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy Instead.
I did like the series and I have that audiobook in my queue. Looking forward to it.