Good Books and the Winter Blues

@OldCatLady

I own that audiobook, haven’t got to it yet.

The book and audiobook appear to be the accompaniment to an 8-part TV series also created by Melvin Bragg.

It can be seen on YouTube here:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbBvyau8q9v4hcgNYBp4LCyhMHSyq-lhe

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventure_of_English

https://www.amazon.com/Adventure-English-Biography-Language/dp/1611450071

Bragg also did an earlier radio series, The Routes of English (mapping the history of the English language). Available on Audible and other audiobook sources.

http://www.audible.com/search/ref=a_search_tseft?advsearchKeywords=The+routes+of+English+complete+series&filterby=field-keywords&x=0&y=0

@Barney One Year After was decent, but not on the same level as One Second After. But I didn’t even know that “The Final Day” was even out so thank you for letting me know it was a trilogy.

So far, the Audible ‘Exhale Anytime Meditation Channel’ looks like a winner.

@OldCatLady Channels had “A Christmas Carol” read by Tim Curry. Then Chick-Fil-a offered it free with their app. I’m listening to it again next year.

@OldCatLady
The audible app has gotten to be as good an audiobook player as any I have found.

If you the “whispersync for voice” on a kindle book listing or an audible book listing, go to the kindle book listing and check the combined price. Often the combo price is cheaper than the audiobook by itself, esp for classics. In order to get the combo price you must either purchase the kindle book first or purchase them at the same moment, on the Amazon kindle book page, not the audible page.

You will not see “whispersync for voice” info on an audible listing if you shop audible using the mobile site, so always use the full site at audible or start with the kindle listing in Amazon (web page not app).
Same with the audible app and Amazon shopping app if you shop using either of them (android): no “whispersync for voice” info on the books using the Amazon app or audible app

The Amazon mobile page, the Amazon non-mobile page, and the audible non-mobile page have this info.

Overdrive was not nearly as good a player last time I used it, but hey, the books are free.

Do you know: What is the relationship between Amazon Prime books and Amazon Unlimited books, besides that the first comes with Prime and the second costs $10 a month? Are the Prime books a subset of the Unlimited books? Or are they different sets of books? Or the same group of books?

@sammydog01

Audible often does a free book in December. Sometimes Xmas-related, sometimes not.

I haven’t messed with audible channels yet, since my backlog of books is huge. So I don’t know what’s in there. Someone give me a clue what you’ve found.

@f00l Bedtime Stories for Cynics, Slumdog Millionaire, Silver Linings Playbook, Dracula, Sense and Sensibility plus other books, a ton of short stories, and some series including one about zombies this month

@f00l They’re both for Kindle versions. The FAQ for Kindle Unlimited Books is here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1002872331#faq (You’ll have access to more than a million books.)

Kindle Prime is more limited, with access to about a thousand books and magazines. More info here: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-dbs/fd/learnmore-pr?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pageType=FEATUREDOC&pf_rd_p=2641082382&pf_rd_r=XPKV06H4AM362W8EFM83&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_t=47101&ref_=dbs_o_r_s2_2641082382_3&pf_rd_i=dbs-desktop-prime-pr

@f00l What does ‘I haven’t messed with audible channels yet, since my backlog of books is huge’ have to do with material included with Prime? Unable to compute. At this point, I figure I have two ears and three different places to listen to audio content, so that’s six. Unfortunately I also found podcasts. Oh look, ‘Buddhism for Beginners’ by Thubten Chodron, aka His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Squirrel!

@OldCatLady

What I mean is: have enuf to listen to or read to fill 6 lifetimes as it is - not including podcasts and my huge video backlog and stuff.

So I see these notices for audible channels and just haven’t looked. Am curious what’s there. And I see kindle Prime books and kindle unlimited books and haven’t looked.

Perhaps, if someone makes it easy for me, I can find new things to put on my never-gonna-get-done lists and distract myself with each day. A desirable and serious motivating factor.

Methinks many here have a similar disorder. You? Guilty as diagnosed?

@f00l Always happy to make someone’s reading list grow too long for 10 lifetimes. So try BookBub for an ever-changing list of free and reduced-price books (many only available at the reduced price for one day) that can be tailored to your interests.

@rockblossom I love BookBub.

@f00l IRT Amazon Prime and Audible content, this covers it, but I don’t remember getting an announcement from AMZN itself. It’s apparently a dynamic concept. Watch this space. http://www.aftvnews.com/amazon-prime-members-now-get-exclusive-audible-content-for-free/
@rockblossom, I had to stop getting BookBub, because I have no self control. Or rather, I have it, but I choose to use it on other things. Rather than buy a book, I check to see whether it’s available at my local library or on Hoopla, and that’s a whole new rabbit warren.

@OldCatLady
I have no self control either. So thx for Hoopla. I did not know. A new venue fir covering things! Happy happy!

Hey, is there some sort of a coupon to join audible? I would really like to try it, but not sure audio books is for me, I tend to go to sleep every time the book starts.

@Bufyn

If you don’t know whether you like audiobooks, consider trying Overdrive first. It’s similar to audible - instant download and listening - but it’s FREE. You’ll need a library card that’s up to date to do this. Call or visit your library to find out if Overdrive is enabled for your account and how to use it.

If you want to go ahead with audible, which has a larger catalog:

Audible has several method of listening and getting books, depending on your relationship with Amazon.

1. FREE if you have Amazon Prime: you get books and podcasts in the audible channels area for free. To see what’s there, if you have Prime, download the app audible onto your smartphone, login with your Amazon Prime account and then go to “channels” to see what’s available this month. These change out monthly I think.

2. FREE If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited ($10/month): a large # of audiobooks are free. I’ve never listened using this method. Google how to do it or call Amazon and get them to walk you thru it.

3. Buy a book outright from audible. Use the audible app to download and listen to the book.

4. 1ST BOOK FREE Take a subscription to audible. The cheapest monthly subscription is about $15 a month. That buys you one credit (which means one book) per month. You can spend that credit to purchase any audiobook on the site. Then you own the book. Audible always has deals when your first month is free, therefore your first book is free. You can cancel the subscription at any time.
   This is the cheapest way too actually purchase books.
   If you try this method, be sure to read the subscription FAQ before you subscribe, so you understand how it works.
   This method is good for people who will keep wanting more audiobooks, or for people who will remember to cancel their subscription when they don’t want more books.

@f00l Wow thanks, there is definitely some way that gonna suit me.

@OldCatLady Laughter is good for both the body and soul.

@mfladd

@Barney Awwwww…

@mfladd Love ya, mfladd. Hang in there.

@Barney Thank you. You too, my purple friend.

@mfladd

Not judging. Joining. Could use a new mind (seriously).

Have not heard of this book. Is it about what us sometimes called “deep learning” or “deep practice”?

What do you make of the book so far?

@f00l It’s premise is based on quantum physics and meditative techniques. I am still on the science portion of the book, but I find it very interesting.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006M7A8JI/ref=oh_aui_d_detailpage_o00_?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I became very interested in quantum physics after reading a fascinating book in my youth called “Stalking the Wild Pendulum”.

https://www.amazon.com/Stalking-Wild-Pendulum-Mechanics-Consciousness-ebook/dp/B00AO9JTP4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1484438722&sr=1-1&keywords=stalking+the+wild+pendulum

I will keep you updated.

@mfladd

This sounds interesting.

but I tend to become a bit more skeptical when I hear that quantum physics is being applied to learning, personality, and brain science. It starts to sound a bit more poetically metaphorical rather than scientific, with a dose of wishful thinking perhaps.

I just don’t know any hard, funded or published research science that covers both the brain and the quantum universe with applicability toward personal growth.
But wtf I don’t read the journals, there may be some research out there to prove me an id10t.
(Don’t mind being an id10t. Id10ts seek their own levels, like water.)

Which is not a commentary on this book. I know nothing about this writer. Sometimes a great metaphor is worth a thousand words, so to speak, anyway. And if he offers a useful POV or good techniques, he’s worth some reading time.

@f00l It’s definitely a stretch in what they are implying with this concept, but what the hell, I am willing to keep an open mind at this point.

I think you might like “stalking the wild pendulum” though.

@mfladd
I think I read that one a long time ago. Not sure tho. Periodically I pick up something unknown and then, say 30 pages in, realize I’ve been there before.

And sometimes I remember that I read a book, when what actually happened is that I read something on that topic or something similar, intended to read the book in hand, and never got around to it. I just realize after a bit that I have zero memories of the phrasing, tones, scenes, or arguments of the book in hand.

@sammydog01

I own some Moore. Looks to be fun.

Have you read
"Where’d You Go, Bernadette?"
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_c_3_8?url=search-alias%3Ddigital-text&field-keywords=where’d+you+go+bernadette&sprefix=Where’d+%2Caps%2C181&crid=N3G4FDDOPQYC

That was my last purely fun read that comes to mind.

@f00l I just bookmarked this- maybe it will go on sale sometime.

@sammydog01

Overdrive app will let you read it for free. Legally. You have a library card, don’t you? E-books and audiobooks.

Android, ios. Probably can be used also on win/mac/Linux/chrome/other. Haven’t checked.

@f00l I use Overdrive but my library doesn’t have a lot of the ebooks I want to read.

@sammydog01

I think sometimes libraries can get digital copies of books on ILL? Anyway you can always get the physical book that way.
Or you can often, for a small fee, join the library of the nearest really big city and then borrow their e-books and audiobooks?
Or perhaps your library has cooperative checkout arrangement with other nearby libraries to expand the local catalogs? These “sharing the pool” arrangements often include sharing digital books?
Worth a try.

@CaptAmehrican

Ok now I feel like a slacker. I must do this.

@CaptAmehrican The closest I’ve come to that is buying the mixtape. Now it plays in my mind at the oddest times. No, I-am-not-throwing-away-my- SHOT!

@OldCatLady

You mean the mixtape of Hamilton?

Or this?

http://www.audible.com/pd/Arts-Entertainment/Hamilton-Audiobook/B01B8IRSNY/ref=a_search_c4_1_2_srTtl?qid=1484439083&sr=1-2

@f00l I wish. No, I have the mixtape of Hamilton.

@Shrdlu

Didn’t read much SF growing up (exceptions for Wells, Verne, Herbert, Asimov, Bradbury, Heinlein, Clarke, Vonnegut, Ellison - everyone read them, passed them around).
Or much later either (exceptions for Le Guin, PKD, Gibson, Stephenson, Ballard, Vinge, Brunner, Lem, Gaiman if you think of him as SF).

I didn’t read the magazines and never followed the field - just read what my SF reading friends handed to me. I didn’t know about - had never heard of - Tiptree/Sheldon. Now I must read her.

Thinking of this makes me remember going to someone’s place with a stack of paperbacks, and leaving with a different stack. I don’t think so many twentysomethings have piles of shared writers and novels in common anymore do they?
More likely, vid games, manga/anime, binge-watched shows, comics, tech, twitter feeds. “Media” in common rather than books - does that mean less in the way of philosophical philosophical wanderings? Or just different wanderings?

In my family, everyone, say, 45 and older has houses full of books. Their offspring, very few books. I don’t think it’s just because e-books.

@f00l Alice P. Sheldon (aka James Tiptree, Jr.) led a life more interesting and complicated than any ten people you might want to name. Here’s a biography of her (with, in some cases, more information than might have been necessary).

https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312203853/

She, like the immortal Cordwainer Smith (aka Paul Linebarger), lived multiple lives, all at once. That sort of juggling is amazing all on its own, but their output is so rich, and complicated, that I never tire of reading them. Tiptree (often referred to as just Tip, affectionately) wrote mostly short fiction, as did Smith. Smith also wrote multiple scholarly works wearing his state department hat.

My, my, how I do run on…

If you read just one Tiptree work, make it “The Women Men Don’t See” (and remember that it was published in the long ago days, when no one knew she was a woman). If you feel like having a mouthful of ashes, read “Love is the plan, the plan is death.”

@Shrdlu
I hit her up on Wikipedia after I saw your post. Mind-blowing.

I was really saddened by how her life ended. I understand how, in those circumstances, choosing to maintain control and dignity might be worth all else … I think I commend her lawyer for respecting her choices instead of trying to force things in another direction. That’s a tough one.

I rather wish she had more assistance and maneuvering room at the time, but she felt she didn’t, and she no doubt faced her situation with courage and composure. If she was sure of herself and composed at the end, not trapped mentally in a dark tunnel, then I feel a kind of deep sadness and awe. But no outsider will ever know that.

@Shrdlu

Some folks here might like this one:

Funny thing: I first read this book at publication in 1983. And I was thinking about this book for some reason this past week, and was po’ed that I couldn’t remember either the name of the book or that of the author. Then today was tooling around Amazon and looked up some stuff on Nash, and this book popped up on the “also bought” list. The minute I saw the title I remembered all. Bought it on Kindle for re-reading.

Believe it or not, this novel is fun to read, not a chore or a PITA, and has depth to it.

The Mind-Body Problem
with foreword by Jane Smiley
Kindle Edition $9.99
by Rebecca Goldstein (Author),
Jane Smiley (Foreword)

My take, remembering across the decades: This is a charming, moving, rather funny novel: about philosophy, mathematics, physics, institutions like Princeton; and about the life conundrums the derail very smart people just as thoroughly as they hit the less educated.
I have not yet re-read it. Just re-found it today. It’s not a great novel, but it is a very good one, and if I recall, isn’t terribly long. Goldstein handles philosophy, math, physics, and their intersections with ordinary life nicely, with warmth, and accessibly. It’s not a book for the ultra-educated only; she makes it all quite human. She probably writes about as well about fictionalized physics and mathematics as any outsider who observes at close range can.

Rebecca Goldstein, PhD, has been a MacArthur Fellow. Her doctorate is in the philosophy of science, at Princeton (under Thomas Nagel). She taught philosophy at Barnard while this book, her first novel, was written and published. Since then she’s published several novels (usually about the intersection of philosophy, fiction, and life) and several non-fiction works in philosophy.

Of her books, I’ve read only this one. She’s got some later novels I’m now considering.

She has published an interesting-looking non-fiction book on Gödel. She alleges he’s misunderstood (well, yeah) and then seems to take a philosophical argument (re “objective” vs positivism) about her take on Gödel’s intentions a good deal further than it prob ought to go. But that’s what philosophers do, it’s the job. They have to try, even if the toolcase is inadequate; or in this instance, even if they don’t have the tools to explore the item at hand. And her effort (among the work of others) is part of the slog toward why Gödel’s work will be better understood in another hundred years. So it’s all good.
And it doesn’t matter, mathematically, what philosophers or even mathematicians read into Gödel, or, further, even what Gödel thought his own work implied - unless he published a proof or left sufficient rigorous notes. It only matters, mathematically, what has been or can be derived from it or about it by others down the road. His work does not mean, to anyone with a non-rigorous non-math POV, what it would mean in 100 or 200 years. (The way of metaphors).
She doesn’t get that, if reviews are correct. Gödel would understand what she appears to miss. Tho her arguments are directed toward the philosophy dept. So then OK.

[[[ should point out that I have not read her Gödel book, only reviews of it, so everything I just wrote is pure speculative arrogant BS and ought to be trashed or ignored ]]].

Side note: Goldstein is currently married to the Harvard cognitive and evolutionary psycholinguist Stephen Pinker. Possibly some interesting conversations among the two of them and their friends?

@Shrdlu @f00l @moondrake Speaking of SF and fantasy and dead writers: I can’t post to the 2016 RIP thread, but Sheri Tepper died in October, and I hadn’t heard. Beauty will haunt me forever. Off to see what of hers is available electronically. http://www.locusmag.com/News/2016/10/sheri-s-tepper-1929-2016/

@OldCatLady For you, and for others who may happen along, here’s a lovely interview from Locus in 1998. Yeah, I was sad when she passed. Some people ought to live forever.

http://www.locusmag.com/1998/Issues/09/Tepper.html

@pooflady
I think you have to be pretty tough, rigorous, and intellectually substantial to get anywhere near the Court, no matter your political philosophy.

(With some possible exceptions based on pure politics)

@f00l Only since 1992. I’m looking at you, Justice Thomas.

@compunaut
Oh gosh. Do you think that’s who I meant?

I am still pissed off about those hearings after all these years; and the way in which supporting evidence was suppressed. Normally I like Sen Arlen Specter for being a sane Republican; but he blew that one and vilified Anita Hill without cause.

@pooflady You’ve likely come across the wealth of books, t-shirts, caps, stickers, and other motley merchandise trumpeting [guess I’m going to need a new verb, hmmm?] the virtues of Notorious RBG ?

Who would have thought that a lawyer who ended up an octogenarian Supreme Court justice would inspire a national fan club? I’ve just purchased Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Just reading the introductory text on the Amazon page is worth the cost of the book.

@magic_cave
I own an audible copy. Someone told me not to miss it. Still on the to-do list.

@elimanningface

Gad, own both of these and haven’t gotten to them yet.

@f00l that book was strange. I should of figured as much after reading Slaughterhouse 5. I only read it because of the movie Recruits where Al Pacino’s character explains Ice Nine. It stuck with me for years.

@RiotDemon
Vonnegut is fun. Or so I usually found him - not Slaughterhouse 5 tho.
That one v good. Not so very fun, perhaps.

i think - not certain - Amazon has purchased some sort of cooperative e-publishing rights for all of Vonnegut, and a few other authors, notably Arthur C Clarke and possibly Ed McBain and his 87th Precinct police series. Just guessing. But these writers’ entire published works seem to be far more heavily promoted and appear far more often on sale than works by other name writers whose works still sell.

@f00l I didn’t really like either book. After finishing them I just felt disappointed. I’m glad I read them because they’re pretty popular pieces of fiction, but I can’t say that I enjoyed them. At least they were really short, so I didn’t feel like I wasted too much time. I just don’t care for his writing style.

Arthur C. Clarke… I loved the 2001 series. The first two books are a tiny bit disjointed since he was writing 2001 for the movie in mind, consulting with Kubrick here and there. When he wrote 2010 he changed things to accommodate what the movie ended up being. He wrote a section explaining the changes he had to make to the book to make it line up with the movie… So it doesn’t really bother me. I really enjoyed 2066 and 3001.

He wrote a different book with another author, I think it was called Cradle. I had a hard time reading that. I’m not sure which author’s influence made me dislike it.

@wishlish
Didn’t know he did novels on that. Could do a spoiler but won’t.

2700 pages. Omg. It better not be dull. I started one of his books - and got sidetracked halfway thru and never went back to finish. The Diamond Age I think?
Otoh couldn’t put Snow Crash down.

@conandlibrarian

Ok. We really really believe you.

@conandlibrarian

@conandlibrarian

So which of all those books you would never read, not being a reader and all, do you like?

@conandlibrarian I hear you, reading is almost like work sometimes.

@sammydog01
Only if you’re doing it because you have to.

@f00l Truthishly, I tend to read mainly non-fiction. The two books in my work bag in the moment are “Under the Banner of Heaven” and “You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost): A Memior”. My campus is currently reading “Modern Romance”, but I have zero interest in reading it.

BTW, truthishly is my favorite non-word.

@conandlibrarian
I go thru phases. Binges. After the 2007-2009 crash - I paid no attention to investment banking then and did not see it coming - I wanted to understand and would up reading or listening to almost 30 books. Some of them didn’t help. Enuf were very good that I started to get an idea.

Post some good non-fiction stuff. You’re Never Weird On The Internet is on my to-do list. I didn’t know about the Krakauer book. I did read and admire Into Thin Air.

@OldCatLady

Get yourself some huge lightweight comfy over-the-ear phones for wearing around. Act a little odd. Dress a little odd. Would that work?

I think the local traffic enforcement folk here can get testy about enormous headphones worn by the driver of a vehicle in motion tho. I’m not up for trying their patience on that.

@f00l Who’s acting?

@f00l Earphones are for the gym. I was thinking more about waiting rooms and restaurants. My car takes BT from any gadget I pair to it, like my phone or a tablet. Wearing meh.com T shirts and jeans is my normal. (Some of the Ts may have been enhanced with glitter glue. Anything that doesn’t run away is fair game for sparkles. And this is FL; it’s really hard to stand out by dressing or acting oddly.)

@OldCatLady

A radio show I listened to once in a while - was it the early days of Loveline? - used to have a guessing game called “Florida Or Germany?”

They would read some true news story about the weirdest behavior and events you could imagine. Then the special celebrity guest host would have to guess whether the story happened in Florida or in Germany.

'Nuff said.
/giphy Florida

@f00l There was some show on TV that I watched once that told three stories with actors, one was true in the other two were made up, and you had to guess what weird unbelievable story was actually true. It was usually the most outlandish of the three.

@OldCatLady

Have listened to Good Girl (Kubica). Interesting “unreliable narrator” mystery. Good, not as good as some - such as Gone Girl.

Are you seeing these free streaming Prime audiobooks in the app or on the web? Do the books change our each month?

In the car if I’m listening I pair w car stereo, usually. For out I’m doing my LG Tones, often one ear in, one ear out in case I need to talk to someone. The Tones aren’t noise-isolating anyway. If I have a conversation w someone I take the other earpiece out also - don’t wanna be rude.

But if I wanted the universe to leave me the fuck alone, when I got out of the car I’d put on some huge BT phones like these

https://www.amazon.com/Sony-MDRXB950BT-Extra-Bluetooth-Headphones/dp/B00MCHE38O

Just because large headphones send a “don’t bother me” message

Btw those Sonys are very nice but ignore the price - they show up new or refurb well under $100 all the time.

And if $ is an issue the Sony’s are overkill for audiobooks and podcasts and other spoken word media. Those cheapies Meh sold the other day would do fine if they show up again.

https://meh.com/forum/topics/gear-head-bluetooth-headphones

@OldCatLady

If you want something less obvious and huge for wearing around, the LG Tones are wonderful.inevhave lasted for years.

Unfortunately, the world is awash in fakes and the fakes are all worthless. And it’s pretty easy to inadvertently buy fakes on Amz or EBay unless you pay big bucks or unless you do a lot of research. And Amz sometimes will send out fakes anyway, due to logistics and warehouse issues.

Here is a way to buy them inexpensively and get real ones.

https://m.newegg.com/ProductList?canPowerSearch=False&isFirstin=false&keyword=Lg+tone&sortField=PRICE&Manufacturer||LG+Electronics=250||50001623||50001623

The refurbs are fine. Purchase new earbud covers if you wish - my returns always came w new earbud covers or so they said.

The third party Newegg sellers have never given me a problem.

Also once in a while Frys has a good sale on these.

PS if you are out all day, you might run out the LG battery. I get about 5-6 hours continuous play? I keep a second pair handy for swapping.

@OldCatLady Minor off-topic comment: I read Watership Down in high school, at my father’s recommendation, and loved it. It was the first time I realized my dad and I had actually liked the same book, which either signaled I was growing up or he had an oddly youthful streak well hidden in his military-retiree brusqueness.

Richard Adams left this earth for a better burrow on Christmas Eve at the age of 96. He was a far more prolific writer than I’d realized till I checked his Wiki page when I read of his passing.

@magic_cave I’ve loaded it to stream. My dentist just called to say my crown (not clown) impression has to be redone. It’s gonna be one of those weeks. Rabbits will help. I have a one-month unlimited data phone plan going too, so no data stress. Alas, it now appears that Audible is adding new books and series (including Audible exclusives) weekly as well as turning over the on-offer stuff monthly.

@OldCatLady
After your note above I started streaming The Silver Linings Playbook. I knew nothing about this book other than that there was a film. So I was a bit startled by the subject matter - I think, based on the only info I had, the film poster, I expected a rom-com?

It’s not that. Is it interesting, and quite good so far, compelling. You can feel an implacable inevitability coming, but I’m prob premature. I’m only a small way into it, because our Biblical deluge yesterday knocked out some cell towers and cut my streaming.

So I switched to another book I had already dled: Tina Fey’s Bossypants. So far, about 1/3 of the way, good, not great. It’s quite funny, but I had hoped for more. So far the observations are amusing, but “expected”. Given how amazing she is performing, I had thought this book would be “sharper”. Perhaps it will get there. Short book, quick listen.

@f00l I have a book for you. Literally. Paper, pages, everything. Practically has your name on it. Need to get it to you IRL eventually.

@compunaut
Cool thx. Any clue what book?

@f00l Wanna keep it a surprise. It’s a sort of sailing journal…

@f00l Would you have an opinion on these BT earbuds, currently on MorningSave? I’m tempted. https://morningsave.com/deals/freshebuds-pro-magnetized-bluetooth-earbuds

@OldCatLady
Will read up on them.
Longer reply later.

@OldCatLady

I have some doubts about these.

The corresponding Amazon listing seems to be here:
https://www.amazon.com/Wireless-Bluetooth-Earbuds-FRESHeBUDS-Pro/dp/B01IADU7XS/ref=sr_1_1?s=musical-instruments&ie=UTF8&qid=1484785929&sr=8-1&keywords=Freshebuds+magnetized

The most useful reviews are pretty negative. And a buyer states that new ones only come with a 15 day warranty!!!

Let me tell you why I love the LG Tones and similar name brand “neckband” style headphones.

What I need in my headphones, not in any particular order:

Comfortable
Lightweight
Decent sound
Decent battery life and fairly fast recharging
The earbuds must almost never get tangled in my hair or accidentally fall down my back (this is huge!)
If I take the bids outta my ear the must be really easy to locate without looking.
Easy to pair
Easy to use
Hard to break
They never ever fall off
Put into your ears in a normal way, these are not sound isolating. This is a plus to me for safety and human interaction.
(if I want sound isolating, as in a plane or while working, I have my Sony BT full size or my Bose.)
Not stupid expensive.
I’m prob forgetting something.

Controls must all be separate buttons (no long press vs short press BS) and really easy lo locate and use with fingers.
I need:

Off/On
Volume up
Volume down
(The prev functions are on the left side on the Tones)

Play/Pause
Jump forward
Jump back
(I use these constantly on the Tones these are in the right side.)

If the earbuds fall out of your ear w the Tones, or you take them out, you don’t fumble for the controls because those aren’t in the earpieces. The controls are by your neck, always.

The bud wires never get messed into my hair or fall down my back. If I take one or both out, it’s easy to put them back in my ears without looking and with almost no fumbling.

If you take the buds out to be polite while talking to someone, you don’t have to fumble to find them before putting them back in.

All that’s on the bud wire is a tiny lightweight bud. So they dont work loose as easily as something with controls and the batteries on the earpiece that fits worse and weighs more.

If you buy buds with just a wire between them, the earpieces will weigh more and so come loose more easily.
The battery will be smaller.
It will be harder to get them into your ears properly. Perhaps harder to fit.
Harder to find the loose cords w your fingers.
They easily tangle in your hair
They easily fall behind your back. (Hate hate hate hate hate that!!!)

Bigger battery in neckband means longer playtime.

The LG’s and Samsungs are proven decent and reliable and easy to use and the form factor is incredible. Near perfect for what they do.

These will do for music but you will never get an audiophile experience out of any buds except insanely expensive ones, and maybe not then.
Use over the ear cans or decent speakers for audiophile music moments.

The Samsung neckband and LG Tones are amazing for audiobooks and podcasts.

Don’t spend for the expensive LG Tones models. You will never get much better sound out of them unless you figure out how to custom fit the buds deep into your ears.

The fakes and no-names and knockoffs range from horrible to not very good. They will sound worse, have bad battery life, and the controls will break quickly.

I like
LG
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_nr_n_0?fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A2335752011%2Cn%3A2407776011%2Ck%3ALG+Tones%2Cp_89%3ALG|LG+Electronics&sort=price-asc-rank&keywords=LG+Tones&ie=UTF8&qid=1484787530&rnid=2335753011

Or Samsung
the ones on this page that have a stiff neckband that rests on your collarbone.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=sr_st_price-asc-rank?keywords=samsung+earbuds&fst=as%3Aoff&rh=n%3A2335752011%2Cn%3A2407755011%2Cn%3A2407776011%2Ck%3Asamsung+earbuds%2Cp_89%3ASamsung&qid=1484787606&sort=price-asc-rank

This is the basic design no matter the brand:

These won’t get lost behind your back, the buds will be easy to find with your fingers. They are quite comfortable.

This is just my pref. Earbuds are a matter of personal preference. Now that you know my thinking, ignore any part of itthat doesn’t fit you, and get what you think you will like.

Everyone I know who has genuine LGs or Samsungs likes them a lot tho. Uses them constantly.

It can be worth going to slickdeals.net and running a search for LG Tones. Someone or other puts them on sale pretty often.

Recommend against buying on EBay unless they come in sealed retail packaging from a reputable seller, or else you want to spend a lot of time trying to narrow down to the genuine ones. The fakes sellers in EBay try to compromise the searches.

@f00l Okay. Thanks very much for the time spent researching. I have gold LG Tones HBS-770 and case on the way, from Amazon. If I like them, I’ll get a backup. A semi-resolution for this year is to improve the quality of what I watch, listen to and spend time on. Friday will be spent reviewing what all I have available on NFLX, AMZN, Hulu and all Roku stuff, with a renewed goal to cable cutting. Saturday will be Day One of The Winnowing, with LG Tones all charged and ready.

@OldCatLady

unless someone comes out w something astonishing, LG Tones will be my daily drivers for a long time.

@f00l I’m a convert. They arrived, it took 30 seconds to pair them, they’re comfortable AND sleek, and now all I have to do is read the tiny print manual & guide. It would be nice if meh.com would sell some of these. I SAID, it would be NICE if MEH.COM sold these. MorningSave would be even nicer. Thanks again.

@moondrake
Mystery/thriller? Horror?
Mystery/thriller/horror?

@f00l Mostly action/horror. There’s a couple of inter-related series, the Rot and Ruin series is YA post zombie apocalypse. The Joe Ledger series which I’m currently reading is not YA, a black ops unit tasked with dealing with bio-terrorism, it’s set well before Rot and Ruin, and the zombie apocalypse in that series happened because his team failed to stop it. There’s also a vampire series, vampires being bad guys, nothing supernatural, a matter of parallel evolution. He’s got a few free standing books and three or four series.

@OldCatLady

Yeah, Robin Hood is the audible daily deal today. Till midnight Pacific.
I must have read that one 20 times as a kid. I read it to younger bro a few times when I was reading and he was about 2. That one and Treasure Island and The Secret Garden and Caddie Woodlawn may have been my fav young childhood classics, along with the OZ books - before I had easy access to a library.

@f00l

The unabridged recordings Inglis made are all available thru “whispersync for voice” combined purchases with the kindle versions.

Also the 1st two books and audiobooks - The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Rings are part of Kindle Unlimited if one has a susbscription to that.

The kindle links are here, about $10 each if someone wants to purchase them.

Hobbit
https://www.amazon.com/Hobbit-Lord-Rings-J-R-R-Tolkien-ebook/dp/B0079KT81G/ref=sr_1_1_ha?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1484610418&sr=1-1&keywords=Hobbit

FOTR
https://www.amazon.com/Fellowship-Ring-Being-First-Rings-ebook/dp/B007978NPG/ref=pd_sim_351_2?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B007978NPG&pd_rd_r=CKZV1CBG181SMT2NVREY&pd_rd_w=t1ZbC&pd_rd_wg=8SG1t&psc=1&refRID=CKZV1CBG181SMT2NVREY

TTT
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007978PKY/ref=series_rw_dp_sw

ROTK
https://www.amazon.com/Return-King-Being-Third-Rings-ebook/dp/B007978P18/ref=pd_sim_351_1?_encoding=UTF8&pd_rd_i=B007978P18&pd_rd_r=HRW3GK3NDYFX6AYTAD46&pd_rd_w=Bfc3e&pd_rd_wg=iq2tG&psc=1&refRID=HRW3GK3NDYFX6AYTAD4

For the audiobook versions: curiously, audible.com has separate two versions of each book of the trilogy as recorded by Inglis. Book sets seem to match up with the Kindle e-books for a “whispersync for voice” combo. The preferred versions are the ines with the red frame on the covers, re-mastered and released in 2012. These contain more material, including the introductions, prefaces, and much of the appendices.

These are the covers of the better audiobook versions:

@f00l I don’t much care to be read to, so am not a great fan of audiobooks. (My brain keeps wanting the readers to go faster, as I can read many times faster than they talk.) But there are a few exceptions. Many year ago, I wandered into a London bookshop and found an audio cassette collection of Tolkien reading his own work. Cassettes being what they are, they deteriorated with time. Then I found a CD set that was the same material remastered with improved audio.

I find it interesting that Andy Serkis recreated Tolkien’s Gollum voice quite well, even though he had never heard Tolkien reading LotR before working on the film.

@rockblossom

I play most audiobooks at 1.50 speed. Some at 1.25 or at 1.00 - whatever seems to fit how I want to listen to the book. Have been listening to audiobooks for more than 20 years now, and over time I became used to absorbing information that way. The biggest point of audiobooks to me is that I can listen and also do something else. I have learned over the years to deal with interruptions, even frequent ones without being put off wanting to listen.

I also can read much faster than I can listen. I would imagine almost everyone free of reading disorders does. But t I have found myself, when I sit down, gravitating to the endless fascinations of the web instead of a book. Little will-power, perhaps? But I don’t do text ftom the web on audio. So audiobooks are a form of instant deliberate focus.

Audiobooks are not only a way to double-use my time, with the more spiritually profitable portion of my attention going to the book, but to put myself in a place where only books or music, and not the bigger-than-me web trail of clicks and distractions will fill my thoughts.

I don’t do technical information I must actually master by audio. And when I’m feeling focused rather than in the mood of seeking distraction, sitting down with a kindle book or a physical book is a lovely treat of time tucked away from chores and life stresses.

Another benefit of audiobooks is the slowing down. By habit I read too fast and the go back over details. Always in a hurry and don’t even notice. Sometimes with a fiction writer, you don’t want to do that. You want take the time to experience language, or the rhythm, or the emotional world the writer is building. Audiobooks help me do that.

And sometimes, as with Tolkien, the language is simply magnificent. And the books are actually better heard than read, if the narrator is very good, as with Tolkien or Inglis reading Tolkien’s work, for those who can take the time for it.

I also own recordings of Tolkien reading his own work on cassette and CD. Perhaps it’s the same as yours.

Here is Tolkien reading his own work, from audible.com. It is in audible channels, and therefore free to Prime members; and can be purchased for around $6 by anyone.

https://mobile.audible.com/pd/Live-Events/A-Rare-Recording-of-J-R-R-Tolkien-Audiobook/B005HPPJJA/?ref=msw_search_c1_2_9_AN

From audible.com description:

J. R. R. Tolkien was an English writer, poet, philologist, and university professor best known as the author of fantasy works like The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Listen as Tolkien reads The Adventures of Tom Bombadil, The Hoard, Perry-The-Winkle, and The Man in the Moon Came Down Too Soon. Also included is a reading of A Elbereth Gilthoniel in Elvish and “The Road Goes Ever on,” sung by William Elvin with music by Donald Swann.

Playing audiobooks at speed does not screw them up. It’s not like playing a tape too fast and getting weird pitches. The SW cuts the silences between words, and it usually sounds fine. Only at 2.0 speed and above does it start to sound odd to me, but if I’m listening at that speed, either I’m looking for some specific info in a hurry, or I just don’t like the book much but want to finish it anyway for some reason.

@f00l I have the Kindle LOTR one volume edition but it doesn’t link to the audible versions. I don’t really want to buy them again.

@sammydog01

Your local library might be able to get you downloadable audiobook copies. They can certainly get you copies of the audiobooks in cd, thru InterLibrary Loan if need be. And the cd’s can be ripped to MP3.

If you do that - get MP3 copies and play them on Android, you might try this app: I really love the player called Smart Audiobook Player. I think it’s free. You have to point the app to your audiobook directory on the phone when you first open it. Then good to go.

MP3 copies synced to an iPhone can be played using the iTunes Player I guess. In which case be sure, before you sync, to right-click on the books in the desktop iTunes and mark them as audiobooks - I think iTunes will handle them a bit better if you do that. I’ve never used iTunes to play an audiobook on an iOS device so don’t know how well it does.

On an iOS device I have used and liked a player called Bookmobile. But it’s been a few years and I don’t know if that app can read audiobooks from the iTunes library or not. I kept my mp3 books on a server and sftp’d them onto the phone. Then was able to right-click on the downloaded audiobook and open them using Bookmobile. But it’s been years.

@f00l I get audiobooks from the library all the time for my MP3 players but I like that Alexa can play Audible books. I even bought a a Dot the carry around the house for books.

@f00l

If anyone is thinking of listening to unabridged Tolkien, one caveat. The Hobbit is a children’s book, written, in part, in an arch, self-consciously droll and over-friendly voice for kids, with some events designed for pre-schoolers. This varies depending on which part of the book - Tolkien sets the vocal tone according to the material of the moment; but periodically the POV slips back onto “grandad mode” in the book. The narrator has to go along with this - those are the words on the page.

I can read it on the page because I can get past it quickly, but can find it somewhat irritating to listen to, depending on which part. Let’s just say I wish Tolkien had created a version of this book intended for adults, and I could listen to that version only. But he didn’t.

I’ve known people who refuse to listen to the audio Hobbit because of this “grandad talking to kids” experience. So they read the book in print if they feel the need, before they go on to the full LOTR audio recordings, which are nearly free of this droll, “talking to young children at bedtime” tone. In the latter, there’s only a tiny bit of that, in the first chapter of the first book. Then it’s gone and you get the full majesty of Tolkien at his best, unadulterated, after that.

So if you start listening to The Hobbit and find it off-putting, just skip it. Or listen to the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter and skip anything else you want to avoid. And head over to the good stuff.

@sammydog01
When I’m listening to an audiobook and moving around, I just carry the phone the book is on around w me or wear it on a sports band. Then listen on my LG Tones. They have all the controls you need to play/pause the book, or jump fwd/back. And if I get in the car or go outside the book is still going along w me.
I figure audiobooks have saved me mucho from going berserk when I’m stuck someplace i don’t wanna be.

@f00l I like Alexa the Dot because she’s the only one in the house that does what I tell her. That includes the dog.

@f00l At least one Tolkien scholar disagrees with you re:

Let’s just say I wish Tolkien had created a version of this book intended for adults, and I could listen to that version only. But he didn’t.

I’ve started Exploring the Hobbit (I’m reading multiple books at once right now; don’t judge) written by an English professor who teaches a course on Tolkien/Hobbit/LOTR. In the intro he talks about how JRRT revised The Hobbit in the span (17 years!) leading up to when LotR was published so that it fit better into the overall Middle-Earth ‘legendarium’ and matured a bit from its origins as a children’s story (tho epic in scope). I wonder which versions (abridged or not) have been chosen for audiobook performance…

@f00l I was taught speed-reading as a kid and all through my youth I gobbled books like potato chips. I was an omnivore, reading a pretty wide variety of fiction and a small amount of mostly animal related non-fiction. I had a habit that confounded my parents, readers themselves, of keeping a book in every room in the house and reading that book when I was in that room. My mom frequently asked how I kept them straight, but to me the different setting created a different file in my head. Most of the time I was disciplined in school was for extracurricular reading in class or hiding out somewhere reading. I would cut classes and go to the library and curl up in the kneewell of a desk to read so no one would find me. I lost a couple of jobs reading during work hours. Then I started spending a lot of my free time on art. Audiobooks weren’t common then, so I spent far less time reading. I’ve only just started getting back to it, and I am far pickier than I was as a kid. It’s hard for me to find books I enjoy, so I have deliberately slowed down and make sure to read and savor every word. I have created indoor and outdoor reading sanctuaries, and now that I am retired I give myself the gift of at least an hour every day to read. Full circle, reading is again one of my principle pleasures.

@compunaut

I’ve seen educated critiques of The Hobbit also that praise it as is. It’s the “now you know that …” droll aside commentary from the narrator for kids that drives me nuts.

There are at least 2 abridged versions of The Hobbit audiobook available. I think one was recorded by Derek Jacobi? Not sure. I have them in MP3. on an old drive on an old computer somewhere.

The Rob Ingrid version on audible that’s free to Prime members is unabridged, the text version copy JRRT created during the 40’s to match up w LOTR - the version we have all read since LOTR was published.

It’s difficult to find the text of the 1937 Hobbit. I haven’t gone thru it page by page to compare and am not going to. I was under the impression that the only changes were in the “Riddles in the Dark” chapter. Pretty sure I’ve read that in professorial commentary somewhere. The original version had Gollum far less sinister.

I have read 1937 “Riddles in the Dark” chapter - I knew someone who had a library binding 1st edition published in '37. Can’t remember now if it were a US or U.K printing, but the text copy was identical for the 1st eds across the Atlantic. The library binding meant that particular copy was not ultra-valuable, so I was allowed to touch the book. Even so it was prob worth around $1K.

I think if you poke around the net you can find the original 1937 text of that chapter?

Anyway, in the 1937 text, it’s a semi-friendly encounter between Bilbo and Gollum. Or at least not terrible hostile, with no hint of the sinister addictive soul-corrupting and enslaving influence of the ring.

The revised and familiar “Riddles in the Dark” version gives literary analysis and deconstruction types plenty to work with. Really good writing.

@moondrake
I was never taught formal speed reading but I must have developed some method. The teachers all kept stuff for me to read because I was always finished in half the time.

During elementary school I used to spend my allowance in batteries for the flashlight so I could read under the covers. My parents would try to catch me and punish me. Take away books for a week. So I kept a secret stash for emergencies. Finally they quit trying to stop me and let me use the lamp.

Also used to read just anything down to phone books and labels. I didn’t have to cut class to read books because I read during class lectures. The teachers got used to it and let me alone because if they asked me a question about the lecture topic I could always answer it. I can’t say these classes were that challenging.

Some years later, the some of same teachers had my younger brother, who used to do the same thing - tho at first he didn’t know I’d done it. They would notice the common last name and ask him he were related to me. Then throw up their hands and let him do what he wanted.

They knew if they tried to stop us we’d do it anyway, so…they stopped trying.

The schools were decent public schools for the era, among the most reputable in the region, but no more than that. Not great public schools. The most successful 1/4 of the students were prob pretty unchallenged even in “accelerated courses”, so-called. Most students’ energies went into their social lives. Or into sex, drugs, rock and roll, politics, alt thinking, alt lifestyles.

When I later met students who had gone to great public schools or excellent private schools, I felt ripped off. But … all that mattered little after a few years, and in high school we had cars and a fair amount of freedom; so … a great of portion of one’s HS education doesn’t occur in class.

I think there were a lot of frustrated smart literate young people in the schools during that era. Compared to now, we were so starved for info and perspectives. For alt literatures. For deep info. We never got tastes of excellent education to compare to ours, which is easy to do now.

Otoh we learned to love reading. What percentage of smart literate people approaching college age or independence age now learn to love reading instead of learning to love “media”?

@f00l “The teachers got used to it and let me alone because if they asked me a question about the lecture topic I could always answer it.” I moved too much for that, I was the new kid my whole life. Until high school I never went two semesters to the same school, and in 3 1/3 years of HS I attended 4 of them. I had to repeat kindergarten because I went at age 4 in Massacheusetts and then we moved to Michigan and I wasn’t allowed to start first grade as a 5 year old. With all the moving and random entry into various curriculums I was taught some things several times and never got taught others. It seriously compromised my math education, my literature and language skills were largely self-taught. One of the schools I attended was a Montessouri school, and I was already reading at 8th(?) grade level in 3rd grade and the teachers didn’t have anything to offer the advanced readers in that class period so the school hired someone to teach me and two other advanced kids speed reading. That’s the one school I always wished I’d been able to stay in. The whole system was geared toward challenging the kids and teaching at their capacity rather than their age. I often wonder if I had some semblance of stability and a decent education as a kid where I’d be now. But I have led a life unlike anyone I’ve ever known, so there’s something to be said for it. I certainly have a lot of stories to tell.

@moondrake
Was all that moving military or IBM? I know you’ve said, but I forget.

If you had stayed in one school system, you would surely have received a more stable and rational education, and had more friends and better social life and sense of belonging, but prob not a better education. Unless it was a really good school in a superb district, or magnet school, or Montessori, or similar.

My classmates were educated in a terribly conventional, intellectually limited, unimaginative way, except for the cool poetic lit teacher, the socialist history teacher, and the dope-smoking lit teacher who a few years later died in a Cessna plane crash on his way back from Mexico, flying a full planeload of pot. The young in Texas were parched for the riches of true stimulation - had to just create it or locate it for ourselves.

Im betting you extracted the interesting stuff you could from your traveling youth. And you saw and experienced so much. I’m thinking never belonging and leaving friends behind was the worst part? Our individual lives give us so much of our particular strengths. you doubtless used your unusual youth to create fairly unique perspectives to guide your choices later on.

@f00l My dad professionally raced cars and motorcycles, programmed early model computers, mixed inks, was some kind of traveling salesman, ran a screen printing company, ranched, negotiated labor disputes, brokered commercial real estate, drove long haul rigs… he changed lives like people change clothes, with a wife and five kids in his wake across a half dozen states and dozens of cities. At one point I started telling inquisitive teachers we were in Witness Protection because it aggravated me not to have a real explanation. At 17 I moved out and they moved on. My dad was always a cipher.

@moondrake
That would be something to carry round or try to get past: A chameleon parent who never had a stable public identity, who privately you could never know. I’m guessing you never knew quite what to believe? Difficult for someone who didn’t grow up in that situation (as I didn’t) to even imagine.

@f00l That’s a pretty good take on it. Interesting but very unpredictable and ephemeral.

@moondrake

Have you read Le Carre’s A Perfect Spy? There is a film version also, I haven’t seen it.

A lot of critics seem to think it’s Le Carre’s best book. I don’t, but I’m in a minority I suppose, and it is very good.

A Perfect Spy is known to be Le Carre’s most autobiographical book: It’s about a spy who had a childhood like Le Carre’s. John Le Carre’s (David Cornwell IRL)'s father was an always on-the-move charming politician, career and personality chameleon, manipulator, con man, and liar who used his early-teen child as a kind of gullible operative-prop in some of the lifelong fraud fun and games.

You get the feeling Le Carre grew up not knowing quite which Dad was the real Dad, which reality to trust; and, living in that chaotic family situation, learning early to sense vulnerabilities and opportunities created by gullibility or naïveté, to play roles and to smell lies, to hide his true self as a sort of protection from his father’s attempts to spin even his own child, and to never fully trust anyone.

Le Carre’s own active “under cover” spying career in Germany during the '50’s didn’t get very far because he, along with many other U.K. operatives in Europe, was outed to the Soviets by double-agent and defector Kim Philby. So Le Carre wound up with a desk job in London, no longer of any use in the field after he became a publicly identified agent.

Which may have been why Le Carre started writing spy novels. The success of his superb third book, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold and the subsequent Richard Burton film allowed him to quit the service and become a full time writer.

(To me Le Carre’s best books are the trilogy book series which is sometimes called The Karla Trilogy or The Quest for Karla, with a fourth book added in as a coda: The Secret Pilgrim. Incidentally, the unabridged audiobooks of these, narrated by Michael Jayston, are excellent).

@f00l I’ll keep it in mind but I rarely read books without some element of the fantastic. Sci fi, fantasy, horror, etc. I started a mainstream murder mystery before Christmas and just couldn’t hold my interest in it, too mundane. I’ve gotten picky in my old age. For me books are gateways to truly otherwhere.

@moondrake I’m currently listening to “Swan Song” by Robert McCammon. I love his stuff.

@sammydog01 I’ve read that. Read a few of his works. Gone South is my favorite, although I don’t remember it well. You should look at Mitchell Bentley’s work. And one of my all time favorite books, Summer of Night, by the fantastic writer Dan Simmons.

@moondrake Summer of Night sounds good. Dan Simmons sounded familiar, so I looked him up- I had listened to “The Terror” on tape. Most if it anyway, I couldn’t get through it. I thought it was a horror book but was a very, very long historical fiction book about a boat named Terror. Boo.

@sammydog01 he writes in several different genres and he is not equally good in all of them. I tried to get through a couple of his mystery novels and they are just terrible. But he won all the awards you can win pretty much in the science fiction world for Hyperion, and similar awards in the horror world for Carrion Comfort. Both of those are a little bit denser reading, and I definitely liked Hyperion better of the two . Hyperion’s a big book in terms of the ideas. Illium and Olympos are similarly grand in scale. Summer of Night is very human and by far my favorite of his works.

@moondrake I’ll keep an eye out for those ebooks on sale. Thanks!

@moondrake Picked up Illium for $1, liked it a lot. Looking forward to Olympos.
Ever read Jack McDevitt, or Barbara Hambly, or the Recluse series? Some pretty good sci fi/fantasy I’ve read lately.
@f00l LOVE Le Carre. Kinda ruined most other spy novels for me. Somebody gave me Spycatcher by Matthew Dunn. Only got about a third thru it before giving up; felt like I was wasting my time.

Favorite author of ALL TIME is Elmore Leonard. Like Carl Hiaasen a whole lot, but he’s just a EL wannabe.

@compunaut

Elmore Leonard rocks. Hiaasen rocks too.

Someone loaned me the Karla trilogy back in the late 70’s? I couldn’t believe how good it was. I re-read it every few years.

I’m behind in Le Carre - haven’t done the latest 2-3 books yet. The last one I did was either Our Kind of Traitor or A Most Wanted Man, I forget.

Although his most recent books are v good, he’s become something of a crank recently. Sometimes his most recent books have a strident polemical feel, or a hopeless feel.
(I find him rather terribly skewed, regrettably but forgivably, about the US intelligence establishment. He’s part right - we are too rigid and too ideological and too doctrinaire in our understanding of individuals in the spy trade, and that just corrupts our ability to see reality - but he’s only part right - his distortions corrupt his ability to see reality also).
I read and try to forgive his POV errors. He’s worth it.

He’s a great writer. At his best he’s untouchable and Nobel Prize or Man-Booker Prize worthy. He hates literary prizes and won’t allow himself to be nominated.

Other spy writer and books are just kinda like blockbuster action-thriller movies. What’s the next big technology-action set piece?

Le Carre actually writes about that world as is. Other writers - so many variations on MI and James Bond, a little more tech, a little more realistic, not much.

There is a lesser known American writer who is said to take his approach:
Charles McCarry. I haven’t read any of his books. Also Graham Greene does this well and realistically, but his approach was infused with his religious perspectives and with the waning British Empire post-war, and his novels cover an even earlier period than Le Carre’s.

We need a new writer who can do modern realistic techno-intelligence and commercial intelligence with the depth that Le Carre gave to the Cold War. No post-cyber-punk here. The entire, real, sweaty, miserable, frustrating, bureaucratic, illusory, human, endlessly-seeking, never-knowing business. Hall of endless techno-mirrors. Thru The Looking Glass in every possible meaning, and not a book for kids. I don’t know of such a writer yet. Do you?

Le Carre is the master of conversation, esp professional conversation, where people know each other’s background and cultural world, share much knowledge, and so little needs to be said out loud. His conversation writing techniques are taught.

In the Karla trilogy, some of those conversations -
Smiley and Lacon, Guilliam, Tarr, Prideaux, Control, Sachs (esp Sachs - every time), Hayden, Alleline, Westerby, Collins, “The Minister”, Martello, Esterhaze, Enderby, the unforgettable field agents, and, of course, Anne.

Westerby and Ricardo, Worthington, the American agents and the various journalists, esp Craw and Luke. Notably the conversation w Ricardo, as Ricardo makes decisions and his purposes shift. And the astounding journey Westerby takes thru SE Asia during the closing months of the war in 1975.

I can still glean more from some of these conversations in the 20th or 30th reading. When I do the audiobooks, I often replay many of the conversations again and again. What is not said is there in the echos.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smiley_Versus_Karla

And in the end, Smiley asks himself, one last time, what it was all worth.

“You don’t tell no fairy story to Drake Ko.”

In that world, you do tell a fairy story, if you can get away with it. But it might cost you.

These are novels about the modern world and about the soul. No one should think the films or miniseries, fine as they are, could be a substitute.

Le Carre received the ultimate compliment from his former colleagues in secret world. He invented a jargon for his novels, and “the English-speaking trade” - and some non-English services - informally adopted his jargon as their own, and still use it.

@compunaut I read a lot of Hambly years ago. Her Darwath trilogy was great. I haven’t read McDevitt, I’ll have a look. I loved Justified and a couple of movies from Leonard’s work but I don’t think I’d enjoy reading that type of material. I have a much lower “connection” demand from visual media. Books have to 100% engage me or I run out of interest in them

@OldCatLady

Have you used Calibre to create an audiobook library? If so, what approach did you take?

@f00l Heck no, I’m only just now starting to spend time and attention on what’s available. Apparently I’ve been wasting half my conscious time. It’s like yoga in reverse: instead of emptying the mind, I can dual track it. I do make a serious effort to borrow library materials instead of buying them. Adding the Audible offerings into the mix means that I’ll never need to buy more audiobooks.

@OldCatLady
A friend stuck our e-books into calibre. I haven’t used it. From what I understand, it would be possible to create an andiobook library by messing with it. (You can have more than one library, I think - you just load one library at time.)

So Calibre would not actually keep the catalog of audiobooks. What someone would have to do is to create a small file - possibly a text file - per book. And setup the text file name or something to contain in the info needed - author. title, series, narrator, abridged or unabridged, filetype, possibly location, possibly pub date and some other stuff.

Possibly instead of text files use something that can carry metadata and stick the excess data info into the metadata, so long as Calibre can read it. Then import all that into Calibre. Also create small info files for your audible library or other downloadable drm’d audiobooks with similar info in the filesname or metadata. Import all that into Calibre. Then you would have a catalog of your audiobooks. All Calibre would actually manage would be your tiny little info files, but since you won’t be emailing an audiobook to your device, that prob good enuf.

Obviously, Calibre wouldn’t actually manage the audiobooks as it does for e-books. But with the catalog and some memory of how you organized your own audiobook files, you’d have a catalog of what you owned and presumably know how/where to find the books as needed.

Anyway that’s my mad idea re using Calibre for audiobooks but I prob won’t ever actually do it.

The drm can be stripped from audible files but it is or was a total PITA, and I think you have to own the book to do it. And you have to possess SW tools that were not always easy to find. And a fair bit of time and perseverance and drive space.

No to clearing the drm from someone else’s audiobook if you don’t have the audible login to the account, in other words. There may be easier, newer methods to strip drm - haven’t tracked them down, don’t wish to do all that work and then have to store the files and I barely use windows anymore anyway and have no reason to mess with the files or the drm since every device has an audible app now.

I haven’t tried that - stripping the drm - in more than a decade - back when I wanted to play my books on non-audible devices and didn’t want to “burn” them to a real (or more likely virtual) cd then “rip” them back to MP3. Now I just DL from audible or the library to the phone and play. Audible makes it so easy to be lazy.

@f00l I’ve started cataloging my books (read, owned, TBR, etc) using GoodReads; I’ve heard LibraryThing is even more sophisticated. I’m pretty sure metadata is available for ebooks, audiobooks, music & movies as well; I respect your Calibre idea but it seems like a lot more work than these others for organizing a personal library.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@compunaut
I would strongly rather have an online personal catalog rather than local like Calibre. (Again blowing past privacy on the way to convenience. I have a weak will.) The biggest thing is just getting into the habit of keeping it up.

Am always annoyed that I can’t remember all the books I finished in the last 3 months or whatever. I guess Goodreads is built for that.

The nicest thing about Calibre is that you can use it not only to catalog, including keeping track of books you have in multiple formats - but also to send stuff to a device. And it manages the organization of all the little e-book files, assuming you keep them locally. But it’s a little antiquated - designed for single user, not designed for cloud, nor for multiple cloud sources, a little clumsy and slow, no capacity to handle multimedia or audiobooks. Needs a complete re-write. But since the SW is a hobby and act of love by the dev, who has not individual cared a desire to start over, not sure Calibre will get the overhaul. I don’t know that I want to run a local e-book server, so Calibre lacks the payback for me at the moment. Perhaps if I ever go clean up my old machines…

Have you looked at Librarything vs Goodreads to have reasons to prefer one over the other? Do you like the social features of Goodreads? Does Librarything have those?

I got put off Goodreads a bit by the user-writer-genre wars that swept over it a few years ago. And annoyed that a lot of the book commentary was ok but not good - felt like the sort of reviews you would skip reading if you found them on Amazon. Perhaps I never gave Goodreads a real chance.

Have you ever checked out this site?
https://www.mobileread.com/

They were immensely useful when I got my first Kindle, which was a Gen 1 for about $300. They used to be some really nice people on that site. It’s been at least 5-6 years since I logged in there.

@f00l I started using GoodReads after looking at a few positive reviews. I really like that you can use the camera on smart device (phone/tablet) to scan the ISBN-13 & then app can autoload the book. Then it’s just a matter of adding category & tags for organization, sorting & searching.

Later I heard from some folks in the biz (authors, editors, publisher) that LibraryThing was even better, good enough for small public or corporate libraries, research institutions, etc. I understand that now it can handle multimedia, digital content & such too. But I think it’s still just a catalog, without storage capability.
It just occurred to me: What if it could link to all the items in my iTunes library - music, podcasts, etc? THAT would be awesome…

@f00l And speaking of deconstructing audiobooks, DRM, ripping & burning, we have a (Mac-only ) program called Audiobook Builder that easily converts audiobook CDs (from the library or anywhere else, I think) into nicely segmented, fully ‘chaptered’ files for use with iTunes. I don’t spend much time with audiobooks (with the exception of long car trips; even then I prefer music on satellite radio) but the rest of the family loves them. They say that this piece of software is the best thing since sliced bread. None of the hassle of DRM, conversion, etc.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@compunaut

if you rip from cd or wav there’s no drm. The drm removal techniques I used were for audible files. .aa and the newer extension .aax. I also tried to strip drm off a few BN downloadable audiobooks. Even a bigger pain but I don’t own so many. Never got that to work right. Just did it to test. Stopped having a need for it after I got a 160gb iPod and then later a smartphone.

I don’t own any downloadable audiobooks from iTunes.

As for cd’s my friend who runs the joint book catalog and the raid server usually does the ripping and has some programs that chapter and rename the files nicely with the metadata. Run on windows or under WINE. Dunno what SW gets used, cause it’s been years since I bought a book on cd.

An audible credit is about $10 (cheapest way to purchase). And so the most expensive audiobook is about $10 unless digital rights have never come available.

I had to purchase one or two of the Deb Crombie mysteries on cd cause no one had downloadable rights. And it was OOP. tracked one down on bookfinder I think. That was the last cd book I purchased, think, several years back.

Once in a while no one has an audiobook, not audible or even amz or EBay or abebooks and I wind up getting it from amz UK or amz ca. Once, back in the old days, got one from amz de and another from amz jp. Dont remember which books anymore. They were in English. Clueless re languages.

Had to look in the U.K. for some Le Carre stuff after the BBC audiobook publishing arm was sold off and then went bankrupt. Some of those rights are still in legal limbo due to the bankruptcy, but audible finally grabbed the Le Carre and other big name rights.

Do you use the social features in Goodreads? Are they useful?

PS yeah what I would really like is a catalog for everything. Cd, DVD, blurar Avi and mpg and podcasts and e-books and physical books and audiobooks and comics and whatever.
And ways to catalog series. And to keep track of which books I own book physical or e-book and audiobook.

My little dream.

@f00l I don’t use social features of Goodreads. Meh forums is as digitally social as I get.

I think you should give LibraryThing a try for your catalog/library of ‘things’. Real, professional & academic librarians are solid supporters. Reviewers are serious about their work. [Goodreads is partially (40% maybe? Can’t remember) owned by Amazon, and their reviews are similarly amateurish]

@f00l LibraryThing does all that. You can add tags to every item. You design the tags- ‘Nancy Drew’, ‘hardback’, ‘Michigan’, ‘Welsh history’, whatever. Then you can run a query and filter to see which ones in the series you already own. You can buy a lifetime subscription to it, too.

@Bufyn On a similar subject, you might also enjoy Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine. About a young Aspi/spectrum girl dealing with a family tragedy. I’d rate it 5/5; very powerful IMO

@compunaut Thanks, will check it out immediately.

@knrg
That looks a bit irresistible.

@daveinwarsh
Those may be above my reading level.

@moondrake flinch

@moondrake Maybe they just use spellcheck nowadays. If the incorrect word is still a word, good enough…

@f00l Guess what? This book is already in my book hoard. I just transferred it to my Kindle.

@dashcloud

Have listened to both of Lawson’s books. I admire her for being willing and able to be so public about both her unusual preferences in home art, and her mental illnesses and how she’s been torn apart by them at times. And for being funny as hell.

Furiously Happy is something I have bought for friends who were having a bad time.

If you haven’t read her other book, Let’s Pretend This Never Happened, please give it a try.

She’s got a new book due out this coming March. You Are Here: An Owner’s Manual for Dangerous Minds. Am about the advance purchase it.

https://www.amazon.com/Jenny-Lawson/e/B006T8KEYE/ref=dp_byline_cont_pop_book_1

@dashcloud
The new book is a “coloring book for adults”. Which means only ppb, no kindle.

And getting it anyway.

@f00l Lol, I only read real books. My strong format preference is trade paperbacks. I have a lot of ebooks on my tablet and have never opened one. I’m going to have a look at the ones you linked to, I have a kindle reader app on the tablet for just in case. But I just like good old fashioned books even when I travel.

@moondrake

Do you have a local Half Price Books store? If so, you shop much there?

I don’t allow myself inside one very often. If I did, I’d be broke and my credit cards would all be maxed.

@moondrake Your vision must be better than mine. That’s why I love my kindle- adjustable font size.

@f00l No, I order from abebooks. I got ten Maberry books in the mail Thursday and Friday in fact, two hardbacks, two graphic novels, four trade paperbacks, and two thick paperbacks. He’s not stingy, his trade paperbacks run over 400 pages and the paperbacks are about 600.

@sammydog01 I do have to wear reading glasses, except for early in the morning when my eyes are at their best. Disliking the glasses kept me away from books for a long time but I necessarily got used to them doing art and playing board games so I got over it.

@f00l I visit HPB regularly, but only buy from Clearance section. Keeps the choices, and expenses, down.

@compunaut
Ever hit up the main store in Dallas? Worth it. About the size of a Walmart Supercenter.

East side of Central on NW highway a block in. Almost across the freeway from NorthPark Mall if you know where that is.

5803 Northwest Hwy, Dallas, TX 75231

Don’t plan on only hitting up the clearance section.

The have a coffee shop on the premises.

Bring $.

More to the point, bring Time.

@f00l For your future reference (and for others as well), here’s the best resource on what stories are in what collections (among other amazing things).

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/ea.cgi?57

That link is specific to Tiptree, but there’s a search bar on the left where you can find any other author (or publisher, or cover artist, or…). I love ISFDB.

ETA: Here’s a for instance on your first choice (editions may vary, check them all, etc etc):

http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?16869

@Shrdlu
Again thx.

@f00l Now I have this and the LG Tones, and if I hit the gym a couple of hours every day I should always have one charged and ready to go. Yeah, that works. Actually I like both of them, but haven’t listened enough to decide which is better.

@sammydog01
Much thx. Will go check what I don’t own yet.

@f00l This is the worst thing I found today. Because the deal was yesterday

@AiliaBlue
Sorry.
With Kindle deals, really pays to check the deals daily.

The “famous bestseller kindle deals” are likely to be on a Saturday, Sunday, or holiday.

The e-book deal page is here.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/feature.html?docId=1000677541

They also have a lot of unpublicized daily freebies and the like - many are just trying to boost sales and are not worth the time.

@f00l It’s not your fault, I’m going to check the deals from now on - just hadn’t heard of it before, got excited about the list (with lots of books I wanted) and then… wrong day. Thanks for the link!

@magic_cave

You know you don’t have to keep all your books on your kindle, right? Just the ones you wish to read sooner rather than later?

Fortunately I already owned many of the ones on sale today. Otherwise I would have likely spent Too Much Money today at Amazon. Or not spent the $ and been frustrated.

@f00l Thank you for the suggestion. I’ve enjoyed my Kindle for several years (I still have one of the third generation models as well as the 5th gen and the newest Oasis), but I just haven’t been able to give up the feeling of holding a library right in my hands. I think it’s a basic character fault In reality, I have them half-way cataloged by author and series, and I’m mostly just too lazy to fool around with it at this point. BTW, the 5th gen that I have has never been used; let me know if you run into someone who’d like it at a good price. The Spouse says I’m in danger of becoming a Kindle hoarder.

@magic_cave How is the Oasis? I bought a Paperwhite a couple of months- really wanted the Oasis but couldn’t justify the price.

@f00l My account says I have 6265 books. Most of them were free (before I realized it made more sense to pay $1.99 for something that wasn’t garbage). Unfortunately the good ones are buried under the freebies. I have four Kindles and sometimes put a library book on one and turn off the wifi so I can keep it until I finish it. I’m going to library hell for that.

@sammydog01 I don’t know enough about library ebook counts to judge you. It may be their system just times the item out on their end, and the ‘return item’ and ‘10 book limit’ concepts are just a way to keep bad users from locking up half their catalog. I’ve learned that Overdrive won’t let me cheat that way. Even in airplane mode, it tells me the item must be deleted. Short of manually resetting the system date, I don’t know a way around it. I haven’t checked to see whether it’s true for Kindle downloads. Is that what you use?
/giphy library cheat

@OldCatLady I check out the Kindle version and download it through Amazon. So far it seems there isn’t a time out feature on the book-reading only, non tablet Kindles. Audiobooks are the same on non wifi devices, so far at least. My Tweety Birds still have old library books on them.

@magic_cave
@sammydog01
@OldCatLady

I have too many books in my Kindle library. Many many thousands, don’t know exact count. I went after freebies a bit until i realized how useless most of them are. (Slickdeals often lists well-reviewed “temp freebies” btw.)

Prob 80% of my Kindle books I paid something for. If I want a k book to read “NOW THIS EXACT SECOND” I buy it. Otherwise it has to be on a good sale and look like “not junk”. Or have a heavily discounted audiobook simul-purchase.

Started buying k books because they were often cheap and I had to get reduce #'s of physical books for the umpteenth time. Still own too many.

I also like kindles and don’t get rid of them, tho I am particularly fond of the older ones. Because I started playing with text-to-speech on those. So I suppose I am a Kindle hoarder.

Usually read e-books on the phone tho. Cause it’s always around.

Also own 1000’s of audiobooks. Have been buying them for more than 20 years, if that’s any kind of excuse. Not certain. Wait. I could be honest for a sec. …
OK. Here goes. No, having been buying audiobooks for 20 years is not an excuse for owning this many.
… somehow it didn’t make me feel any better to have come clean about that.

Should we start a 12-step group for book hoarders? Wait! I bet I can find a book about that!

@f00l I’ll join. But I justify book buying by meeting my hoarder needs and not taking up shelf space.

@OldCatLady
Re overdrive and audiobooks.

I last listened to an overdrive audiobook about 2 years ago, so poss out of date.

At that time, overdrive files were just regular audio files. I think MP3.

If you didn’t want time to run out or couldn’t renew again, you could just copy the files to another folder. Viola! Non-expiring audiobook files. Just play the files w a regular audiobook player, not Overdrive. It’s the Overdrive sw that expires the files, not the files themselves.

Dunno if same works on e-books. Never tried.

Morality: if i’m just running a little slow, no biggie (to me). But when I copied the files I did create a permanent copy for myself. So … media piracy. If I’m tempted to keep the files after the time it takes to finish listening, I usually go hunting for used cd’s or cassettes in order to go legal.

Some decent audiobooks are damned difficult to find.

@sammydog01

That’s the attitude. If I am already hoarding Kindles, I have to buy books in order to make my kindles feel useful.

Otherwise I would be neglecting the Kindles. Can’t have that.

@sammydog01 I really like the Oasis. It’s incredibly light to hold, and if you separate it from its cover (which also holds an extra battery) it’s almost weightless. It’s also almost square, which makes it less top-heavy than the rectangular models. The touch screen feature is just amazingly better than earlier models. It gets rid of the dreaded 4-way navigation button and the click-click-click problem of entering info for a search.

Another nifty option: in addition to being touch-responsive so a tiny swipe lets me page forward or backward, the Oasis also has buttons (like the older models) for page and back-page AND if you’re left handed, you can flip the thing upside down, the touch features automatically re-orient AND there’s another set of buttons on the left edge. Doesn’t affect me personally, but it’s indicative of the thought that went into designing it.

The Oasis’s built-in back-lighting is adjustable and terrific. I’ve seen comments that it’s easier on the eyes than the Paperwhite, but I can’t offer first-hand info on that.

There are a ton of extra features for highlighting, annotating, checking the built-in dictionary, along with a few I don’t use and don’t remember.

I agree that the cost is high. Amazingly high, considering it’s a reader, not a phone. I really had to work on justifying the price, but I had some savings that hadn’t been earmarked for anything else. I took a deep breath and just bought the damned thing, and I really, really like it.

@magic_cave
Voyage vs Oasis. Thoughts?

I’m trying not to tempt myself. Or I’m trying to tempt myself.

@f00l I’m looking seriously, since my Kindle has to be recharged every night, and sometimes I have to keep it on a battery pack if it’s late and I can’t stop reading.

@OldCatLady
I might start watching for Deals … tho don’t expect any soon.

Come on, Amazon!

@OldCatLady

The same places that can put a new battery in your cell phone can do it w your kindle. Haven’t checked, but prob not hard for an ordinary person to do.

OTOH if you really want a Voyage or Oasis - I hear that for your Kindle model, the batteries can’t be replaced, ever. Might as well go shopping. Really no choice. You’re forced to.

Case colors. Tough decision. Ouch. Gotta think about it.

@f00l I think you’re right, the battery probably can’t be replaced. In fact, I’m pretty sure I’d heard that. Darn.

@f00l Isn’t the Voyage being replaced by the Oasis?

@OldCatLady

Too bad you have to get another one, huh?

The Oasis showed up briefly in the Amazon Warehouse. I might watch over the next few months and see if I can catch it again.

@sammydog01 So it seems, but I’d like to catch a good deal on either one in the Warehouse. CamelCamelCamel might help.

@f00l I looked up battery replacement on the Kindle, and it’s so easy I am morally obligated to do it. I still want an Oasis, too.

@OldCatLady I just bought these for walking:

https://www.amazon.com/CozyPhones-Sleep-Headphones-Travel-Bag/dp/B013P19QWI/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1487599735&sr=8-4&keywords=cozy+phones

They are corded but I just can’t stand having something sticking in my ear. They have a summer version too. Oh, yeah, and they make you look like a dweeb.

@sammydog01 Purple!

@Barney Sorry I bought the leopard print one. May as well go all the way into tacky.

@sammydog01 I’ll be the dork wearing the purple one.

@Barney @sammydog01 If you need another toy: Bluetooth eyemask/headset, in gray, black or pink: https://morningsave.com/deals/gabba-goods-bluetooth-eye-mask-headset

@OldCatLady Are you trying to be a troublemaker?

Edit: No purple, whew!

@sammydog01 I hope you’re happy. You said it, I did it. Not only that, I got my usual $1. credit for taking delivery next week.

@sammydog01 Aww, don’t do this to me. I just can’t do it right now. Keep looking for me?

@Barney

Are you specifically looking for that Kindle?

@Barney Sorry.

@OldCatLady If it makes you feel any better I paid way more for mine.

@sammydog01 No, it doesn’t; I’m sorry. However, I am really looking forward to playing with it and loading it up. It’s a very good deal, and I got to use the Amazon coupon, which was the main thing. Thanks!

@PlacidPenguin I’m looking for one with the back light like this one and that I can also read outside.

@PlacidPenguin
: )

@f00l

I’d get this as well, but…

@Jadewyatt Cheater alert!
/giphy I cheat on tests