Every few years, there is a reading boom. In my opinion.
Perhaps it’s because I don’t have much time to read when I’m busy with work, but when my projects come to an end, my reading boom, or rather, my desire to read, starts up again.
I decided to make this reading boom a little more sustainable, so I created this blog site. I don’t think I want a lot of people to read it because it’s poorly written! I don’t think I’ll be able to read it, but I thought it would be a good way to keep a record of my reading and give myself some encouragement.
I have read many books on the art of reading, and they all say that by reading with an eye toward output, you will learn more about yourself. During the reading boom a few years ago, I prepared a reading notebook and wrote down various information on my reading and felt like I was doing output. However, a big problem arose.
First of all, the text was dirty. Several parts of the reading log I had filled out a few days earlier were illegible. This was a problem. Furthermore, I can’t remember the kanji characters. Well, I can just look it up in a dictionary as I go along, but the time to fill in the form is getting longer and longer. I want to write in my reading notebook with the same enthusiasm I had when I finished reading the book. Why did I think this? I would be like, “Why did I think that?
My wife says that I am easily heated and easily cooled, and she is looking at this boom with a warm eye, but I hope to be able to record the beginning of a boom that will continue for a while.
Resuming Audible
Reading, it seems, now takes many forms. One is to buy a book at a bookstore and read it while at work, for example. Reading by downloading e-books from the Internet to your device. Or, you can read books with audiobooks, which are audio recordings of books by a narrator. Truly, we have an environment that allows us to read anytime, anywhere. Even so, according to the “Public Opinion Survey on the Japanese Language” conducted by the Japanese Language Division of the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 2008, 47.3% of respondents read no books at all in a month, and 52.6% read at least one book. 5,6 books and 7 or more books were read in a month at the same rate, each by only 3.2%.
As an example, I rarely read, and I was “hanging out” on Netflix, Prime Video, Youtube, etc., except for working on video content production. I was only “watching” what was being shown on one hand, so I really felt like I was just passing through from right to left. It seemed like such a waste of usage that I cancelled all these subs.
Before this video boom, I was listening to various local radio stations around the country on RadioCo. I remember that audio-only media worked well with my work, speeded up my work, and I enjoyed hearing about places I had never been.
Both of these media boomed, and I would have moved on to other media only because it would have sullied my “cold feet”.
Then the choice of “Audible” appeared, with its audio media and a plethora of content that I never got tired of.
Several times, I have signed up and cancelled this service as well, but after continuing to watch video content and listen to RadioCo, I kept coming back to this audible, which I found very refreshing and very beneficial.
From Sound to Paper
Audible offers more than 120,000 unlimited audiobooks, so you can easily try genres that you might not have picked up in a bookstore before. To my own surprise, I had thought that I was not too familiar with horror and suspense, but it seems that many genres these days are in that horror/suspense category.
When I listen to suspense, I often find myself thinking, “Oh, no? Is that scene a stepping stone to this last part?” I would like to check the audiobook and then I would be convinced and say “Oh, I knew it! I think it is difficult to listen to the rest of the book immediately after I am satisfied with it. There are probably a number of ways to do this, but not in the same way as with paper.
So, when I like an audible, I try to read it again in print, but I can’t buy all of them. I can’t afford to buy all of them, so I use used books.
When I buy used books, I try to buy them from Amazon, of course, but I also try to buy them from various websites such as Book-Off. But the store with the highest priority is Value Books, which has an online store in Ueda City, Nagano Prefecture, my birthplace. If I can’t find something at Value Books, I try to go to other sites. This is partly because of my love for my hometown, but also because Value Books is involved in a variety of initiatives centered on used books, and I love their ambitions. Oh, it’s nothing stealthy or anything.
Output from paper to blog
One thing I see “every time” in books on the art of reading is a section that says you should read with output in mind. That is probably true. That is why so many people mention it. However, in my case, I have no writing skills and my comprehension is not very good, so I simply keep a record of what I have read and say to myself, “I read it! Remember? I decided to create a blog site where I could simply keep a record of what I read and say to myself, “I read it!
The question then became, how much am I allowed to write without spoiling anything? If you don’t mention what’s in the book, you can, in the extreme, say something like, “I was impressed! I enjoyed it! I was worried that if I did not mention the contents, it would be something like, “I was impressed! I am also concerned that if I don’t mention the contents of the book, I will not know what the book was like.
Yes, if we put the cover of the book on the website, wouldn’t people still remember it? Thankfully, these days, there are plenty of image data available on the Internet… No, even the cover is copyrighted. It is a crime to take any image from the Internet.
After consulting with Dr. Google, I found a website called “publisher.com,” which compiles information on books. Here, publishers and other publishers become members and can reproduce book shadows (cover images) and bibliographies (book introductions) for the purpose of book sales promotion as the publisher’s information. Of course, there are some rules for use, but basically, we are allowed to use elements introduced on publisher.com. I really appreciate it.
This my boom has just begun!
The “easily heated” me has seen many changes in my reading boom.
I subscribe to Audible and Kindle Unlimited and read what I can’t find on Audible on my kindle. I also buy used books from Value Books that I like on Audible. In this way, our bookshelves are gradually filling up, so we have to buy additional bookshelves. Still, we cannot purchase an unlimited number of books, so the last resort was to use the city library.
I am ashamed to say that I had not made a library user card since I was in the fifth grade, and it was the first time in Nagano City.
(Photo of the library user card)
Libraries today are far beyond my imagination, and I heard that you can search for books on the Internet, reserve books for borrowing, and even apply for a loan extension. In addition, in Nagano, there is a service called “Digitosho Shinshu” that allows users to borrow (read on a terminal) e-books for free. To use this service, you need to obtain a Nagano City Library user card (free of charge) and also need to apply to use Digitosho Shinshu (free of charge), but I was very surprised to learn that a service like Kindle Unlimited is available for free.
I am less educated than most people. I am less educated than most people, so I have probably not read as many books as most people. I hope to read and absorb a lot of books and use them in my real life, and I am praying myself that my boom will last.
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