Salon post: October 5

[jenett]

Happy October!


Useful notes
Consider tracking this post to get notifications of new comments. Select the bell icon (or the words 'track this'). More help over here, and more about notifications in general here.

Comments are welcome whenever you get a chance - even if that's hours or days later. Feel free to jump into whatever sub-threads intrigue you. More discussion is the point of the salon posts!

Got a question you're trying to sort out, or a thing you'd like to discuss? Lots of thoughtful interesting people with a wide range of interests show up here! Feel free to ask about things you're thinking about or trying to solve, as well as other kinds of chat.

Topic of the week
Books! Do you have more than one going at a time? If so, how does that work for you? (Open to all formats: if it's a book, it counts for this question: print, audio, ebook, novel-length fanfic...)

What I've been up to
I got a CPAP machine this week, so there's been adjustment! (I'm actually doing pretty well with it after three nights, but "There is this thing on my face" is non-trivial to get used to.)

So on one hand, my sleep is probably better because more breathing, and on the other hand not as good because I'm still learning to deal with rolling over and the mask moving a little in the night, and my body is just sort of at "Um, not sure how I feel yet, try again later."


House rules:
This is a public post, feel free to encourage other people to drop by, just note the 'if posting anonymously, include a name people can call you in responses' rule.

* Consider this a conversation in my living room, only with a lot more seating. I reserve the right to redirect, screen, and otherwise moderate stuff, but would vastly prefer not to have to.

* If you don't have a DW account or want to post anonymously, please include a name we can call you in this particular post. (You can say AnonymousOne or your favourite colour or whatever. Just something to help keep conversations clear.)

* If you've got a question or concern, feel free to PM me.

Comments

[jenett]

So, I almost always have multiple books going:

- One or two in print for reading in the bath (or bathroom). These days, basically the only things I buy in print are Pagan books I might want to share with others, and then I have the stash of paperback mysteries and SF/Fantasy that I haven't replaced in ebook for various reasons. I often have one of each going, because it depends on my mood.

- Usually three on my phone
My phone has roughly 600 books on it, and I am usually actively reading around 3 at a time. Usually one is a lighter SF or fantasy, mystery, or romance, one is popular non-fiction, and one is somewhat more thought-requiring (might be Pagan-related, might be denser non-fiction, might be thinky SF or fantasy.)

But you know, I have 600 books on my phone, so sometimes I go through a rapid run of mystery or romance.

- I also sometimes have a productivity or writing-related book on my computer, for reading in breaks of doing other things online (or while chatting).

- I count 'reading this thing for active research' very differently, because I'm usually not reading the book end to end for that, but looking for specific information or reading particular chapters. (And I usually do that in print or on the iPad, so I can have it open and take notes on the computer at the same time.)

I read very fast (It's genetic! It's basically how my parents met!) but these days I'm down to reading about 6-10 books a month, depending on the month and how fast the books go. I read reliably for 20+ minutes before I go to sleep, and in little snippets during the day otherwise. (And I get through about 1-2 of those books in the bath in a month.)

(My lowest since I started tracking this has been 2, a few months ago, because I was reading a very long and rather dense book about the Plantagenets. Which also required backing up every so often and going "Wait, who was that person again?")

[willidan]

I usually have two or three books going at a time, plus fanfic. Right now I'm reading two new hardcover, a graphic novel, a political book, and history book. Obviously, I'm reading more than three books right now. But I started two last night, so I was at three yesterday.

Congrats on the sleep! I have restless leg syndrome and desperately need a weighted blanket. But I'm also afraid that I'll be so uncomfortable, either from being too hot or having something weigh me down, that I still won't sleep.

[swingandswirl]

Yay machine! I hope your sleep gets better soon.

I usually have several books going on, plus fanfic. Although I'm trying to be better about the book:fic ration, just to make getting my TBR down to manageable levels a little easier.

- One or two print books for reading in bed / on the bus

It's slowly hitting me that I can't actually function on ~4 hours of sleep like I did back in grad school, so I've been trying to cut down on screens before bed. I also find reading print easier than ebooks in moving vehicles, and since my bag needs to be large enough to carry my water bottle it's not too much trouble to toss a book in there.

Plus, I find dense books (non-fiction, some fantasy) much easier to read in print than electronic form. Maybe I'm just old?

- Two or three ebooks.

I have an absurd number of books on my Kindle. Amazon tells me it's in the neighbourhood of a thousand, but this includes fics. Having that many books was overwhelming and basically made me stop reading for a bit, so last month I went and made a curated list of roughly 110 books that I wanted to finish in the medium-term, and that's now my TBR. It's helped a HUGE amount, and I actually knocked three off it this past month!

I've also started a separate collection on my computer/iPad of fic for archival purposes - most of these I have no interest in reading again, but I've been in fandom long enough to be a pack rat.

[jenett]

I use Marvin for my e-reading on my phone (it has a great set of options, so I use a dark mode combination that works well for me.)

I have multiple TBR lists: fic, fiction, non-fiction, Pagan, and every new book added gets added to one of those. Then I have a "read next" list that has about 30-50 things on it. When that get low, I go look at what else I have and move things around. (Or if I go on a tear of reading lots of fiction or non-fiction and the balance gets off.)

When I read a thing, it goes into the 'read' pile, or fanfic has its own list.

[swingandswirl]

Ooh, Marvin looks very cool! Sadly thanks to my own idiocy I'm locked in to Kindle, as I have several documents that exist only on Amazon's servers, having been deleted from my computer. And since I use the app and not a physical Kindle, there's no way for me to create backups. /sighs/

Multiple TBR lists sound very practical, I'm gonna have to look into that.

I actually have a separate 'read' collection, as well as a 'favourites' collection for stuff I want to reread. The archive collection is basically me being a paranoid pack rat - yesterday I downloaded some Smallville fic I hadn't read in years, likely won't read again, but just want to have because at one point I loved it and I want a copy in case it's ever taken off the internet. (Why, no, returning to fandom to find a massive archive had been C&D'ed hasn't traumatised me, why do you ask?)

[alexseanchai]

It's slowly hitting me that I can't actually function on ~4 hours of sleep like I did back in grad school, so I've been trying to cut down on screens before bed.

Want to talk about how you're accomplishing this? :)?

[finch]

I have a similar problem with my Amazon library. I started keeping a list in Trello - one for "actively want to read" and a separate one for "no really read this next" and it's helping somewhat at least, but I'm considering trying something more complicated.

[ursula]

I'm often reading a book on my phone, a library book on my tablet (before bed), and a print book on the couch. I got out of the habit of reading print before bed because my old cat used to eat paper for attention.

any vidders in the house? send help

[alexseanchai]

If I don't have multiple books going at once, it's because I have finished (or finished with, or DNFed) everything I picked up recently. This hasn't happened in a while.

...

AUGH. So I downloaded Blender for video editing purposes. It works great (though there's a learning curve) with one tiny glitch: the Encoding panel, that's supposed to be under Render in the Properties editor, and which I need in order to make sure my video output has audio, is. not. THERE.

I got Blender to give me an avi output of the visuals and a flac output of the audio, and now I am trying to get AVS Video Editor—which isn't free, so and I bet the free trial will have expired next time I need to create an audio-enabled video—to combine the two into the actual goddamn video.

—oh you have got to be fucking kidding me. So the input for this was three video clips I recorded on my phone, all within hailing distance of 28 fps. Blender wouldn't let me do decimal places on the frame rate, so I've already got an audio-visual mismatch problem. And now I don't appear, in AVS, to have the option of producing the video at anything but 24 or 30 fps! AUGH!

OH FUCK MY LIFE. It's not that this is a free trial of AVS. It's that it watermarks its fucking videos unless I fork over money—

*screaming*

[davidgillon]

Oddly enough another online friend also started with CPAP this week.

I normally have at least one fiction book on the go at any one time. It can be more if I've gotten stalled or otherwise slowed down on one for some reason. That's mostly ebooks nowadays, but if I'm waiting for something on the computer I'll often pull something off the bookshelf and browse for a few minutes. Some of those end up being read in full.

In parallel I usually have at least one naval or aviation history book on the go, though if I'm trying to understand something that's only tangentially referenced in different places I can have half a dozen open at once. Those tend to be in dead tree format as they tend to be A4 doorstops and may not have ebooks available. On the other hand, if they do have ebooks, and have done a good job of converting the pictures - something that's far from guaranteed - then I'm growing increasingly attached to the ability to zoom in on little details.

I also read about 40 webcomics. About half a dozen are currently on hiatus for various reasons, but the others update at rates between daily and weekly (at least in theory, some are better than others). Pretty much the first thing I do on the computer each day is check which have updated.

[jazzyjj]

I usually just have one book going at a time, but depending on the reading level I've been known to have at least 2 in the cue at once. My talking book player has a very handy bookshelf feature, which lets me switch from book to book just by using the buttons on the machine. I'm not sure how much material can be on the bookshelf at a given time, but I suppose it depends on the length of everything.





I was a bit under the weather earlier in the week. I somehow picked up a bit of a cold and sore throat. I had to cancel on my workout tutor, but he didn't have a problem with that. Due to a rather busy schedule, he couldn't meet with me any other day this week, so we're just doubling up soon. This guy has been here about 2 years and he's great. He took over for another guy who worked with me, who actually took over for another guy. Kinda a long story, but both of them were great too.

[finch]

I was supposed to get my CPAP yesterday but they had to reschedule me on short notice and now I'm looking at early November.

I'm usually in the middle of three or four things on my phone, whether in the kindle app, the google books app, or Libby (for library books). I also often use Libby for reading on my breaks on my work computer. I have a couple of books that live in the bathroom too. ;)

[jenett]

Wow, it is a week for that!

(I am updating in my journal with things, and today was a 'order a bunch of things now I have an idea what might be helpful', so I will be updating on that in the not too distant future.)

Books in the bathroom are a sign of an interesting person, I think. I might be biased. (One of my witchy students said last time she was over "Walking into your bathroom is like walking into a library." (There's only four books in there right now?)

[finch]

In college I lived with a guy who installed a magazine rack in the bathroom. He was definitely interesting but more in the curse sense. Right now I've got probably a couple of books for me, a couple for my kid, a seed catalog and I think the last issue of Oregon Historical Quarterly... XD

[wohali]

I tend to have exactly 2 books going at one time: one fiction, and one non-fiction. I can't manage more than one fiction book at a time, but sometimes I can handle more than one non-fiction book at a time, especially if they are wildly different topics.

The rare occasions I have two fiction books at a time are when one of the books is positively huge, and doesn't travel well (think: DFW's Infinite Jest) so I need to pack something smaller (think: a Pratchett novel) in my bag for a trip.

CPAP was like turning on a light bulb for me when I started it. You don't know you are trying to read with too little light (getting enough actually restful sleep) until suddenly you have enough. Then you can't see how you could ever function without it.

[havocthecat]

I always have more than one going at a time and I pick up whichever one I want depending on what mood I'm in.

I guess that's a really simple answer, but it's true. Alas, most of my books are hard copy and therefore I'm pretty limited in format, but that works best for me.

[batrachian]

I generally only have one book going at a time, as a combination of focus and reading speed. While I don't read nearly as much as I used to in school, that is mostly a function of other time commitments, including a toddler. Being more social is, I think, a net positive overall, even if it does mean fewer times chewing through a 600p novel in an evening.

I'll read fanfic on a screen, but I much much prefer print books. If there were a practical way to get certain people's novel-length fic in book form... *wistful*

[pameladean]

This is a lovely topic and I really enjoy reading people's various ways of reading fiction. My own is pretty dull. I mostly only have one book going. I might have a non-fiction book going as well, but very seldom two works of fiction. A possible exception is when the only form of a new books is electronic. I have to read it on the computer then; I don't find reading on the phone very satisfactory, though I have done it if a lost favorite turns up available in e-form. Anyway, I read paper books in bed before going to sleep, so I might be rereading an old favorite if I'm reading something new on the computer, or, very occasionally, the new thing in paper if I'm rereading an electronic version of something.

P.