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Apr. 1st, 2025 03:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alicebentleyI'm often drawn to reading here, but rarely comment or (even more rarely) post. And I'd like to change that.
But I stutter to a stop trying to craft posts about work (surely only interesting to myself) or home dynamics (very stable, pleasant) or projects (haven't been doing gardening for more than a year).
This morning I realized that one activity I could easily spout out about is reading, which went from not very active, hardly more than a book a month or so, to three or four a week. The biggest instigator of that change is audiobooks, which I never really got into until last spring and The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I had read them all as hardcovers as they came out, but found that the audio adaptation read by Kevin R. Free bought a new level of enjoyment.
Changes at work also led to a better environment for listening to books - I might now spend as much as a third of my work day assembling models that I've become very familiar with, and can build swiftly and well without constant referral to Standard Operating Procedures.
Another audiobook series that prompted my listening change from "never" to "commonly" is Dungeon Crawler Carl, which had the perfect mix of entertaining, imaginative and, well, flighty - not something I have to pay close attention to - which lead to my binge-listening at every good opportunity.
It helps my budget that I make good use of the Libby app from the King County Library system - their selection is limited compared to the big audio suppliers, but there's enough to keep me busy and FREE is a very attractive price point. Better than free even, because I know the borrowing activity helps the library and the authors.
Today's audiobook, via Libby, is Babel by R. F. Kuang.
But I stutter to a stop trying to craft posts about work (surely only interesting to myself) or home dynamics (very stable, pleasant) or projects (haven't been doing gardening for more than a year).
This morning I realized that one activity I could easily spout out about is reading, which went from not very active, hardly more than a book a month or so, to three or four a week. The biggest instigator of that change is audiobooks, which I never really got into until last spring and The Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells. I had read them all as hardcovers as they came out, but found that the audio adaptation read by Kevin R. Free bought a new level of enjoyment.
Changes at work also led to a better environment for listening to books - I might now spend as much as a third of my work day assembling models that I've become very familiar with, and can build swiftly and well without constant referral to Standard Operating Procedures.
Another audiobook series that prompted my listening change from "never" to "commonly" is Dungeon Crawler Carl, which had the perfect mix of entertaining, imaginative and, well, flighty - not something I have to pay close attention to - which lead to my binge-listening at every good opportunity.
It helps my budget that I make good use of the Libby app from the King County Library system - their selection is limited compared to the big audio suppliers, but there's enough to keep me busy and FREE is a very attractive price point. Better than free even, because I know the borrowing activity helps the library and the authors.
Today's audiobook, via Libby, is Babel by R. F. Kuang.
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Date: 2025-04-02 09:31 pm (UTC)This is not necessarily something you can just turn on or off, but not worrying about whether what you write about is fascinating to your friends is a good first step to posting more. When I do post, which isn't as often as I would like either, I'm always surprised by what people choose to engage with or be delighted by. Well, except cat behavior: I expect that to get responses. So I just write about what I like, and somebody else generally likes it too.
I know lots of people who want their journals to be more purposeful than that, though, and that's a valid choice.
I cannot get along with audiobooks, but have found ebooks very useful. We are out of room for paper and it's a momentous occasion when I get a paper book nowadays. And reading on my phone is easier on wrists and hands, and also allows more space for a cat.
I'm mostly rereading things these days. I've read new books in a bunch of series I'm engaged with (Seanan McGuire's October Daye and Incryptid series, Louise Penny's Inspector Gamache series, and Katherine Addison's Cemeteries of Amalo series). The last new book I read was a novella by Katherine Addison set in the same universe but not part of the series proper, so maybe that's not really new. This puts the last new book at, huh, I am not sure. Well, I've read Cameron's second novel that she just turned in, but that's not quite the same thing.
P.
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Date: 2025-04-06 06:25 pm (UTC)