Cup of Coffee

September 18, 2024: Talking Book

36 Comments

If you consume your books electronically, which vehicle do you use? I really like my 10+ year old Paperwhite. I think it's a nice compromise between digital and analog (plus the adjustable backlight is very useful in darker environments). I think R_R said he reads books on his cell phone, which is lunacy to me.

36 thoughts on “September 18, 2024: Talking Book”

  1. True that. I don't want to travel with yet another device to drag around though.

    Latest ebook: Adrian Tchaikovsky's new "Alien Clay"

    Anyone else have trouble with audio books? I don't do long commutes, so any other attempts just put me to sleep.

    1. I can't do audiobooks, at least not for fiction. I can listen to podcasts and such no problem because if the mind wanders a bit, no big deal. If it's an audiobook though, I feel compelled to go back and listen to what I missed. I've tried and, especially if driving or something, I can't give them the proper attention they need.

      1. I also cannot do audiobooks. I’ve tried a few times, but for me, the active listening necessary to follow along requires a degree of concentration that I might as well direct toward actually reading.

        The lone exception appears to be driving long interstate distances in a car by myself. In that instance, when I’m not navigating through a city, I can just drive and listen without losing the thread.

              1. We've actually done a fair number of kid-friendly audiobooks on vacations. Hoot, Fuzzy Mud, and The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane are ones that jump immediately to mind.

    2. I can do audiobooks, but I usually keep them low-stakes. Like being okay if I zone out stakes. I've basically replaced all of my podcast time with audiobooks and have enjoyed it.

    3. I find I enjoy audiobooks of books I've previously read. Recently listened to the Red Rising audiobook and enjoyed it from the audio angle. Thinking I might try the rest of the series that way for the re-read

    1. I have offered our two grand dogs treats for a week if they took out any rabbit, squirrel, or other varmint. Kind of hard to do when they're not allowed off the deck, though.

          1. We went on a family “vacation” back to Thief River Falls when I was in high school. We did not take my Husky, who was one of the two family members born in TRF. Instead, she stayed with my parents’ friends on their farm. When we got back, the number of dead chickens was a bit embarrassing, but my dog sure enjoyed herself.

  3. I've done some reading on my phone and it feels too cramped. I have an old Nook reader that worked better but the resolution and overall features were a bit lacking. I hesitate fully jumping into ebooks due to DRM and the inability for them to be truly portable. But, I have cracked the DRM from a few so maybe more practice will make me more willing to embrace it.

    1. Yeah, I recently finished Shogun and I can't imagine just scrolling through that whole book. Another plus for my paper thingie is I like to read while I walk over lunch, and that thing was far more compact and easy to hold than that tome of a novel.

  5. I upgraded from a very old Kindle Keyboard to a third-gen Kindle Oasis during the pandemic. I like the Oasis okay; the warmer backlighting on the screen is a huge relief to my eyes at night, and I like having physical page-turn buttons, but they kept the charging port microUSB at a time when USB-C was clearly the future. I also find that it is not comfortable in the hand for longer reading sessions because the device is too thin for my hands too comfortably grasp.

    1. It's basically me! My old Kindle keyboard was the 2nd gen, I think, so it had no backlight. I had a case with a light that shined on it. Wasn't a consistent or full-coverage light, so I'm generally feeling upgraded.

      I'm gonna pay to remove ads at some point. Not sure why they bother me so much.

      1. I had the same case (or a similar one). The overall package was more bulky, but so much more comfortable to hold. But the light was ineffective, as you say, and also could disturb others in a dark room. The Oasis’ backlight doesn’t have that drawback.

  7. I've had my paperwhite for almost 10 years now, and I love it. The only drawback is the DRM as sean mentioned.

    But I've been able to make epub backups of all my books, free of DRM, so that's nice

  8. I've got an Amazon Fire I won in a raffle a few years ago, it works pretty good when I do actually read, which is sadly rare. I've also never listened to an audio book and can only listen to podcasts if they also have slides.

  11. My wife, kids, and I all have Kindles of various models, though not sure which is which. I love mine, but end up using it very little. It's great to have when I can make the time to actually read something.

    Getting Kindles for the kids and setting them up to access multiple library systems (local city, LA city, LA county, and Hennepin County) was one of the best things we ever did. They both read constantly, and can set up their next book on their own, without needing to wait for us to take them to the library. They read so much more with the Kindles than they would have without it.

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