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Art Garfunkel's Library

artgarfunkel.com

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Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#51

Post by peteforde »

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 secret is to score a great pair of earbuds; I recommend Jabra Elite 75t. The further the sound is from your ear, the harder it is to parse speech at high speed.

You don't start at 2.5x, obviously; start at 1.25x and increase every day or two until you start to zone out. You'll be pleasantly shocked at how quickly you'll ramp up. 1x sounds like the performer overdosed on benzos.

In the past year, I've listened to everything Haruki Murakami has written, the entire Wheel of Time series (4.4M words vs 19D5H), and several hundred others.

For free.

And yes, I still read paper books, too. Sometimes.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#52

Post by Lio »

How dark does that library look in the photo? You’d need (cough) bright eyes to read in there![1] :D

On a less Dad joke line, a good number of those books are out of copyright. So it would be fun to link them to free versions if/when they become public domain.

1. Sorry have a tendency to rabbit on occasionally…

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#53

Post by Lio »

dsr_ wrote: post #50
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 :)

It's entirely possible that he had nothing else to do but read that month. If there was no album currently in production and no tour going on -- both of those things seem plausible for that month -- then it was all available time. The Great Gatsby is short. Candide is shorter. The Picture of Dorian Gray is fairly short. Each of them might have been read in a day or less. War and Peace is famously long, but at a norma…

Even if he was on tour, it’s conceivable that he had a lot of time in transit to kill.

I’m great at reading in cars but trains and planes are ok for me.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#54

Post by acjacobson »

supersrdjan wrote: post #47

I used to keep a list like this (more modest though) but I stopped once I realized it's demeaning both to me and the books. The problem was that the list had no other purpose except as a kind of trophy case. I felt proud about my list, as if finishing a book is an achievement, as if reading is a sport, as if reading a lot makes you better than those who read less. I was disgusted by my own vanity, and moreover, consi…

I keep a private list because sometimes people ask me for book recommendations and then I have something to refer to. I have found it's easy to forget on the spot all the things I have read.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#55

Post by janvdberg »

vasco wrote: post #22
janvdberg wrote: post #8

I love this! Everyone should keep a list like this (self-hosted). It also makes me a little bit sad, as there are SO MANY books and this shows that a lifetime of reading will only get you to maybe 2000 books. Choose wisely what you read.

What does it matter if it's self hosted? That requirement would make 99% of readers not do it. Goodreads sucks but for the majority of people will be way better.

I am biased: https://j11g.com/2019/11/16/foster-how-to-build-your-own-boo...

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#56

Post by shishy »

acjacobson wrote: post #54
supersrdjan wrote: post #47

I used to keep a list like this (more modest though) but I stopped once I realized it's demeaning both to me and the books. The problem was that the list had no other purpose except as a kind of trophy case. I felt proud about my list, as if finishing a book is an achievement, as if reading is a sport, as if reading a lot makes you better than those who read less. I was disgusted by my own vanity, and moreover, consi…

I keep a private list because sometimes people ask me for book recommendations and then I have something to refer to. I have found it's easy to forget on the spot all the things I have read.

+1. When I was writing down my list I was surprised at the books (and movies / shows / etc.) I had that I couldn't recall but was super happy to remember when I saw them.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#57

Post by stephencanon »

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 :)

War and Peace aside, most of those are pretty breezy reads, so if you’re laid-up sick for a couple weeks with nothing else to do it would be easy to blow through them all.

Re: Art Garfunkel's Library

#58

Post by subpixel »

I don’t care to find it but a journal entry from Art Garfunkel’s web site crossed my radar many years ago. I recall thinking “wow, this is some next-level narcissism here.”

This list (and the royal we!) produce a similar reaction.

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