Rdearman 2016-24 You Can't Have Your Kate and Edith Too.

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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby jeffers » Sat Jul 31, 2021 9:08 pm

I have a lot of romance novels in French on Kindle because Harlequin was offering them for free. I think they were giving single books from series to try to hook readers or something. I've never looked into them but I heard that romance novels are relatively easy to read so perhaps I should. I'll wait to see your response to yours!
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Tue Aug 03, 2021 7:51 pm

OK, problems have cropped up. The first one is, it is difficult for me to read in a Foreign language on a train. This isn't because of any difficulty in the language verses when I'm at home, the problem is because I'm not "immersed" in the book as I would be if I were reading in English the noises, the people, etc become a distraction that I cannot seem to ignore. Perhaps I will get better with time, but it is slowing down my pace in this French book.

Second problem, my neighbour just brought around more books for me in French. ARGGGHHHHH! Of course, I could have refused them, but she is a nice lady, and she actually asked her French meetup club to donate some books for me. So I took the books. One is an advanced French course book, so that will not go against my book count. The other two are fiction, and one is a relatively easy 150 pages, but the other is another 700+ page monster !

So I have decided that the book about books, which is technically a reference book, is out of the list, and I'll add the other two back in. Which now gives me 22 books to read. So the adjusted page count for the 22 books will be 7736 pages (an increase of 538 pages) which amounts to154.72 super challenge books.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby IronMike » Wed Aug 04, 2021 1:27 am

rdearman wrote:

Another top book by Frank Herbert. It is about a secret group of humans who model their lives upon social insects, and the unsettling events that unfold after they are discovered by a deep undercover agency of the U.S. government. I really did like this book, although the ending was a little predictable for me. Probably because I have read a lot of his books, and they have a sort of cynical ending. Anyway, I wouldn't like to give any spoilers, so just have a read in whatever language you want.

Did we already talk about this? Everyone loves Dune, and I do too, but for my money, Herbert's best book(s) are the Pandora Sequence. I re-read them every 10 years or so. Love it.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Wed Aug 04, 2021 3:16 pm

IronMike wrote:Did we already talk about this? Everyone loves Dune, and I do too, but for my money, Herbert's best book(s) are the Pandora Sequence. I re-read them every 10 years or so. Love it.

If you like those, you'll love this.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby IronMike » Wed Aug 04, 2021 11:17 pm

rdearman wrote:
IronMike wrote:Did we already talk about this? Everyone loves Dune, and I do too, but for my money, Herbert's best book(s) are the Pandora Sequence. I re-read them every 10 years or so. Love it.

If you like those, you'll love this.

I put it on my Goodreads!
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby DaveAgain » Sat Aug 07, 2021 8:33 am

rdearman wrote:... but the other is another 700+ page monster !
I was browsing Albert Cohen's books yesterday, Gallimard offer a 1,600 page omnibus edition of one series. :shock:
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby rdearman » Sat Aug 07, 2021 10:30 am

Well, commuting is really taking its toll on my reading. Even though I have more time available to read during my commute, the distractions of an overweight construction worker talking to his mates on his phone, or the sales marketing guy moaning down the phone about his CRM system is annoying the hell out of me. But even when I'm not sat next to phone addicted loudmouths (I don't answer my phone on the train, btw) there are still people talking to each other, or dropping things or the train stopping and people getting on and off.

This never bothered me before in about 20 years of commuting, so I think the problem really is the book I have isn't really very interesting for me, and of course it is in a language I don't have 100% word coverage when reading, so any immersion into the story gets halted every time the train stops. I've only managed about 100 pages of this book, which means my reading speed dropped to about 8 pages per hour!

I also didn't manage to put out my podcast this week, nor the associated video. I did record them, but will have to redo and re-edit. On the bright side, one of my colleagues in French and I practised a bit of speaking with him.

I think I might give up on reading on the train unless it is English, and take the advanced French course book my neighbour gave me and just study that. I also don't have time to do my 5-6 conversations each day, so I will need to find some other way of speaking and practising with my LE friends.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby IronMike » Sat Aug 07, 2021 11:42 am

rdearman wrote:Well, commuting is really taking its toll on my reading. Even though I have more time available to read during my commute, the distractions of an overweight construction worker talking to his mates on his phone, or the sales marketing guy moaning down the phone about his CRM system is annoying the hell out of me. But even when I'm not sat next to phone addicted loudmouths (I don't answer my phone on the train, btw) there are still people talking to each other, or dropping things or the train stopping and people getting on and off.

This is why I wear headphones. Boston also had a rule, pre-COVID, that conversations must be at a minimum, and must be quiet. I've noticed that since COVID, and the trains are only about 10% full at any point in the day, the conductors are not shushing people.

But still, probably the book.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby luke » Sat Aug 07, 2021 12:03 pm

rdearman wrote:I also didn't manage to put out my podcast this week, nor the associated video. I did record them, but will have to redo and re-edit.

The latest podcast on annotating, etc is very interesting.

One highlighting trick I noticed someone else do was use the highlighter as an underliner (as well as a highlighter). Underlined may indicate, "not as key", but looks important.

The podcast I listened to was about annotating regular books you want to learn something from. My comments below are for those "other books" that provide an endless source of whatever is in them.

For a book I continue to mine (try to get everything out of), I prefer .5 micron indelible colored pens (as well as highlighters). The more colors the better. This helps distinguish various notes, definitions, insights from each other. So, notes are not color coded, but color makes adjacent notes easy to see what comprises each. Another benefit of a 4, 8, 10 color "pack" of pens is that I can have 2 or 3 in my pocket and rotate through them a bit. That helps again with the "make it clear which words go together as a note" over time. I.E., today's purple or green insights won't get cluttered with blue, red, black, pink, orange notes from the past or future.

Most of my notes are in books, rather than textbooks so the margins aren't very big. For anyone who hasn't looked into it a bit. Pens are typically 1, .7 and .5 micron. .7 may be considered "medium point". .5 is less common but best for tiny notes.

"Indelible" or "for check writing" type pens generally don't smudge if the book gets damp over time.
Last edited by luke on Sat Aug 07, 2021 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Rdearman 2016-21 [Presto e bene non marciano insieme]

Postby Le Baron » Sat Aug 07, 2021 12:07 pm

rdearman wrote:Well, commuting is really taking its toll on my reading. Even though I have more time available to read during my commute, the distractions of an overweight construction worker talking to his mates on his phone, or the sales marketing guy moaning down the phone about his CRM system is annoying the hell out of me. But even when I'm not sat next to phone addicted loudmouths (I don't answer my phone on the train, btw) there are still people talking to each other, or dropping things or the train stopping and people getting on and off.

...so any immersion into the story gets halted every time the train stops.

Yes that persistent stream of English from people yapping on phones will spoil all the immersion. Likewise with the conductor's (or recorded) messages coming over the announcement system after every stop. You might be better with an audio book for the train, though of course that doesn't do much for ploughing through specific paper books in the pile. Perhaps it might be better to read the material beforehand, then use that travel time only to review it (+ vocab) on the train so you're working with familiar stuff?

I only take the silent carriage (stiltecoupé) when I go by train, otherwise I'd go mental. Even then you get blockheads who turn up in the carriage because they aren't even mindful of their surroundings and proceed to sit there having a conversation at full volume, until someone says something about it. There's a group trying to abolish this because they want to talk on the train; despite having about 20 other carriages to choose from and all the rest of the day to run their mouths at full volume. :evil:
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