Reading
I don’t read enough books. I manage reading a few pages maybe one evening every two weeks. I can turn on something on Youtube or a podcast in the car without thinking. A book I have to actively pick up.
Apple · iPhone Air · 6mm · ƒ/1.6 · 1/33s · ISO 400I used to crush through books. Children of Time took me two days last summer after a friend recommended it. It was so engaging that I could visualize everything. The humans on their generation ship reminded me of Pandorum and Void Bastards. The spiders on the distant planet reminded me of Avatar. Completely fictional, but the world builds on itself and stays coherent over hundreds of pages. I also loved Ender’s Game and Speaker for the Dead.
As a kid, 30 years ago, I spent hours in my uncle’s library. We only visited a few times a year, so I loved retreating there to read about covert operations and psychological warfare in PsyOps and CIA novels.
I like hard fiction. Science fiction or covert operations. Slow, sprawling stories that stay coherent. I loved Rendezvous with Rama because almost nothing happens. I won’t spoil it. I see a pattern with the books I like. My three favorite science fiction movies are Interstellar, Arrival, and Contact.
Currently I’m reading Der letzte Tag der Schöpfung (English: The Last Day of Creation) by Wolfgang Jeschke. Spoiler: During the Cold War, the US discovers time travel and sends soldiers five million years into the past to pump oil before Saudi Arabia ever exists. They can’t bring them back yet. I follow these chrononauts stranded in prehistoric times while archaeologists in the Mediterranean dig up mysterious finds.
I read on a Kindle Oasis, last generation. I love the physical page turn buttons (actually the touch controls put me off), the large screen, and I get weeks of battery life. At one evening every two weeks, that’s not hard to achieve. It’s a bit slow and sluggish at times. I wonder if e-ink will innovate beyond just now doing colors and we eventually get fast repaints like traditional display technologies.
If you have book recommendations, send them my way via the email link below.