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Art Garfunkel's Library

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Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#141

Post by peteforde »

jpmattia wrote: post #99
peteforde wrote: post #51

Audiobooks, borrowed for free from my library and listened to via the excellent Libby app, have been a life-line over the past four years. I went from 3-4 books a year to 3-4 books a week, sometimes more. I listen in the bathroom, while exercising, cooking, cleaning, cycling, gardening. My listening speed is typically 1.75x for dense prose and hard science, all the way up to 2.5x for fiction and biographies. The secr…

> I recommend Jabra Elite 75t. Discontinued as of this month: "FYI Our current top pick, the Jabra Elite Active 75t, has been discontinued and is no longer available." https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/reviews/best-workout-head...

This makes about as much sense as cancelling Arrested Development and Firefly.

While I'm confident that there are other earbuds, I'm tempted to hit eBay right now to pick up a spare set. They are that good.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#142

Post by peteforde »

hamburglar wrote: post #82
peteforde wrote: post #51

Audiobooks, borrowed for free from my library and listened to via the excellent Libby app, have been a life-line over the past four years. I went from 3-4 books a year to 3-4 books a week, sometimes more. I listen in the bathroom, while exercising, cooking, cleaning, cycling, gardening. My listening speed is typically 1.75x for dense prose and hard science, all the way up to 2.5x for fiction and biographies. The secr…

I've never really gotten into audiobooks, but my pace of reading paper books has fallen off considerably lately, since I've fallen into a pattern of simply falling asleep when I pick up a book. My girlfriend loves audiobooks because she can "read" while doing chores or walking or whatever, and reads constantly. So I've been considering trying that out, and I have questions for you. First, does this work very well for…

Audiobooks do frequently come with PDF content, but depending on what you mean by "technical", there's lots of books that I wouldn't even attempt. Something code-heavy makes less-than-zero sense as an audiobook, even if the idea of hiring a voice actor to read git diffs sounds like something John Oliver would do.

As for maps and charts, well, I listen to a lot of books that fall into behavioural economics and there are definitely times where the author is talking about charts and tables where I know that I could and probably should look up whatever PDF, but since I'm currently using a mattock to remove large root bundles from what used to be a hedge, it's not happening and I forgive myself for the transgression.

I want to say that, even as a voracious audiobook reader, I still struggle with what to call it. Not just because "reading" no longer feels quite right, but because of the fucking air-quotes. Remember online dating used to be this awkward, shameful thing that was seen as "not as good" even though the outcomes were the same? That same snooty stigma still surrounds audiobooks, and if you can't tell, it kind of pisses me off for similar reasons. It all comes down to "nobody is making you do it, but don't think for a second that I'm going to let you make me feel like I'm doing something weird by doing it". (I say this knowing 100% that you mean well.)

The truth is that the fears you're expressing in the third paragraph are in fact projections of your own insecurities as a reader and listener. Reading by listening is wonderful; it's mostly the same, but interesting in the ways that it's different. If you find yourself zoning out or losing focus, either drink more caffeine or listen to something that is more interesting to you. These things are your own temporary inadequacies, not an inherent property of listening to books. If you stick with it - and choose stuff well-suited to the form - you, too, will come to love it.

ps. Good earbuds make it super easy to pause, and good player software makes it easy to jump back. Would I love to see Overdrive (the company behind Libby) make it possible to sync an ebook to an audiobook so you could see the word currently being read highlit and click to jump to an arbitrary moment? Sure, that would be one cool trick. Maybe that'll come.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#143

Post by peteforde »

metafunctor wrote: post #68
peteforde wrote: post #51

Audiobooks, borrowed for free from my library and listened to via the excellent Libby app, have been a life-line over the past four years. I went from 3-4 books a year to 3-4 books a week, sometimes more. I listen in the bathroom, while exercising, cooking, cleaning, cycling, gardening. My listening speed is typically 1.75x for dense prose and hard science, all the way up to 2.5x for fiction and biographies. The secr…

Wow, that's a lot of books! Assuming 10% of those books are, in some way, in your opinion, better than the other 90%, what would you say were the best couple of dozen books you've listened to? How much would you say the performer affects your perception of the book?

Great questions. I'm going to compile a list for you, and I don't do anything half-way so I hope you check back in a few days and let me know what you liked later on.

Great performers tend to be great, at the risk of being reductive and tongue-in-cheek. There are certainly mediocre talents out there, but most people working in that (rapidly growing) industry are really great. I do see names popping up so there's probably awards being given out for audiobook performances at this point.

However, the real question you didn't ask is how big of a deal is it for the author to read their own books. Truth be told, if you don't know the author's voice today, chances are the content would be better served by hiring an excellent voice talent.

For the authors whose voices you do know... it's hard to imagine a David Sedaris book being read by anyone except David Sedaris (except Tracy Ullman, which will be relevant when my recommendations come). It's not just biographies that need to be read by their authors to be properly enjoyed; everyone from Neil deGrasse Tyson to John Waters bring so much to their books. Whereas I'd pay good money to never listen to Neal Stephenson read anything again. Great dude, but he should stick to writing.

There are even books that are made better because they are read by their author. See: Werner Herzog's The Twilight World.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#144

Post by jterrys »

olvy0 wrote: post #42

Did he actually read War and Peace, The Great Gatsby, Catch 22, Candide, The Picture of Dorian Gray, a Malcolm X biography and two other books during the single month of Feb 1969?? I find that a tad hard to believe... But whatever. I'm a pretty fast reader myself, so I'll take that as a challenge / inspiration for myself :)

From ze vikipedia pages of Simon und Garfunkel:

>Garfunkel began acting, and played Captain Nately in the Nichols film Catch-22 (1970). Simon was to play the character of Dunbar, but screenwriter Buck Henry felt the film was already crowded with characters and wrote Simon's part out.[83][84] Filming began in January 1969 and lasted about eight months, longer than expected.[85][86] The production endangered the duo's relationship;

Entirely possible since they weren't making music, touring or doing fuckall but wait for their part in the movie. Garfunkel's character doesn't have particularly crazy amounts of screen time either.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#145

Post by Loic »

StormChaser_5 wrote: post #17
tomcam wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one who downvoted this is a serious reader. I would much rather jettison a bad book or movie than waste the one life I have on material that doesn’t make my life better in some way.

I think it may be being down voted as it can he read as saying stop reading entirely rather than just stop reading a particular book, ie an attack on reading as an activity. Doubt the comment was meant that way though and I agree with you, dropping a particular book if it's not rewarding is something I do although I do still struggle with myself when doing so.

Thank you for your comment.

We have 1000's of books in our house. We read a lot and I would have not imagined a second that my comment could be interpreted this way.

So, yes, drop the specific book and enjoy another one is my advice.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#146

Post by javajosh »

subpixel wrote: post #135
javajosh wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too often "narcissism" is used to describe a quality of someone we don't like or admire who seems to like and admire themselves. Skimming this library, Garfunkel is certainly not lacking in intellectual confidence! It implies to me that he wants to understand the world, from many angles at a deep level, and yeah to do that you need confidence that might create unpleasant feelings in an observer. The discomfort is cau…

I don't often see the term narcissism misapplied that way. Regardless in this case I admire Art Garfunkel, the singer. But he clearly has delusions of grandeur. Not my opinion alone, to wit this Washington Post review of one of his memoirs: "The subtitle of Art Garfunkel's new memoir, " Notes From an Underground Man," echoes Dostoyevsky's "Notes From Underground" and Richard Wright's story "The Man Who Lived Undergro…

>I don't often see the term narcissism misapplied that way.

We must not use the same internet.

>Not my opinion alone

As an aside, at what point does "agreeing with someone else's opinion" become a "dog pile"? It's a curious thing, how disgust gets far more firm and powerful with social proof. Before that it's "just your opinion", and we seem to hold such opinions more weakly. But when others hold it too? Well, that opinion just advanced 80% of the way to being a part of your identity.

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