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Published on: 2021-07-10
I like stories. I particularly like science fiction and fantasy stories. I like them in may formats. Mass Effect is my favorite game franchise precisely for its rich universe full of stories. I'm a trekkie through and through for similar reasons. And I like books.
The "only" problem is that I'm a slow reader. It might be a slight case of dyslexia, though I never took any tests for it. It's probably hereditary, since both my sister and our dad struggle with reading. I consider myself fully functional and I do like reading and writing (as evidenced my these very words). But I do struggle reading out loud and it takes me long time to finish reading a book.
As a kid I had problems reading TV subtitles. I remember my mom watching Star Trek Voyager with me and reading subtitles to me. I was old enough to understand the show, but not to follow along with subtitles. These days my English is good enough to get along without them. I actually prefer to watch TV with English subtitles now, just as a backup for low volume / muffled dialog.
I still have problems with reading out loud. It's as if my understanding of words is reliant on the context of surrounding words. For example I might missread a word, but I realize my mistake and "auto-correct" my understanding after reading the rest of the sentence. Unfortunately this does not work as well when reading out loud. This can get embarrassing when my 3 year old niece asks me to read to her.
I also have problems with English spelling. Homophones are just a nightmare.
This is all to say that reading a book is a commitment for me. I can't just pick up a book and finish it in a sitting or a weekend (or a week for that matter). And when it comes to hobbies, I find it hard to keep focus on one thing for a couple of weeks. As a result it's hard for me to finish reading a book most of the time.
One exception to this are vacations. When I'm on vacation I enjoy digging into a book. If I don't have to dedicate ~8 hours a day to work I can spend them reading. I usually manage to go through one or two books per holiday.
Another solution to the slow reading "issue" I found are audiobook. I just love them. I've had subscription to Audible for a couple of years now. On average I've managed to listen to 30 books a year. This may not be a super high number, but it was life-changing for me.
Audiobooks enabled me to fall in love with longer book series like Terry Pratchett's Discworld & Iain M. Banks' Culture series. They enabled me to enjoy longer books, like pretty much anything from Neal Stephenson. They also filled up otherwise mundane time with magic of stories.
I listen to audiobooks while I do house chores and I listen to them on my daily commute. Or I used to, while I still worked from office. My commute used to take me 30 to 45 minutes in each direction, so about an hour and a half of book listening each workday. Some days I took public transport, some days I walked. The weather was better or worse, the tram was more or less crowded. But no matter the circumstances, the commute was always my story time.
This changed with pandemic motivated transition to work from home. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely support it. My home setup is fine and I appreciate having more time to spend with my spouse who used to work from home from before. But I do find myself in a funny position of missing my commute.
I still listen to audiobooks while doing the dishes or on occasional solitary walk outside. But it's not the same. I miss the lengthy dedicated time-slot that commute used to provide. I tried listening to books while not doing anything, but that just felt weird and I couldn't prevent my thoughts from wondering.
I only read / listened to 17 books last year. And this year is even worse: I'm on my 6th book of the year. I admit that numbers aren't everything, but I do miss listening more. As I said there are benefits to not spending time on commute. But it is definitely one of the pre-pandemic things I miss the most.