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this post was submitted on 22 Sep 2024
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Mildly Interesting
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My partner is in the Lit world and you drastically underestimate how much some people can read. If they are an avid reader and a long-standing member I can see it. Especially If they're using the retail price to calculate that it adds up quick. hardcovers can easily be $40-60.
She also has a kid and has been going with the kid to the library since he was born to check out a bunch of books every week. He's in grade school now... I want to say he's 10?
$6996.99 per year is $134.56 per week. If you get 5 books per week, that's $26.91 per book. Given the picture includes a single book costing $19.95, that feels very reasonable. Maybe it's 6 books a week, maybe some books are more expensive.
That's a very consistent habit though.
They literally go every week and she and her husband and her kid all use it, so it would add up.
I go to the library every week with my kids. We usually have 20-30 books checked out at a time. 5 books per week is nothing for a whole family.
Yeah that's definitely where that amount is coming from if it's been well over a decade. Books are actually really fricken expensive!
Especially children's books in terms of a per-page ratio. You check out 10 children's books, because your kid will get through them all in a few days, that could be $200 worth of books.
With children's books most of the page count will be in illustrations. You'll go through them very quickly.
I can go through 4 or more books a week depending on their length. I read a fuck ton. Using the Libby app to have books sent to my kindle automatically has really changed my life. Being able to just grab my kindle at any moment, read for 15 minutes while I wait for something, as well as an hour or two at the end of the night. It adds up quickly. I will say that I read a lot of "lighter" fare, so I can breeze through without much issue. If I get into something more heavy or some dense non-fiction it will slow down considerably.
I don't know exactly what she reads, but I am guessing it's also lighter fare, leaning on sci-fi/fantasy. Not that she isn't smart, she just is (like me) someone who prefers to read for the enjoyment of the story rather than the challenge.
Oh for sure. I love a heavy read when I have time time to enjoy it, but I can't eat 10lbs of beef for every meal. Sometimes I want a berry smoothie.
I used to love heavy reads, but the older I get the more it just wears me out. I just don't have the patience for such things anymore.
I totally understand :)
Yeah she easily reads into the 200+ range which is about the same pace as you. A lot her non-work related books end up being audiobooks though. I personally need to feel paper in my hands or I have trouble focusing, but I also almost exclusively read high fantasy for fiction and philosophy for non-fiction. I'm lucky to finish half a dozen books a year on a good year!
I work in a kitchen, most of the time by myself, so I throw an audio book on at double speed and I can crank through a 16 hour book in one shift. It helps to lighten the mental load of the work, especially during slower times where I get fidgety. I do understand the need for paper, I just don't have the room for it. If there is a book that is important to me, then I'll grab a physical copy, but if it's some random sci-fi that I'm just testing out, I'm leaning hard into that Libby app to see if I'll actually enjoy it.
I'm always jealous of people who can listen to podcasts or audiobooks. I genuinely can't listen to them and do something else at the same time so I have to sit twiddling my thumbs the entire time and get antsy. If I try listen and maybe do the dishes or something, I'll blink and have no idea what's been said for the past 15 minutes and have to go back anyway. It kind of sucks.
Same here. But with eBooks too. Sometimes my brain drifts for a while and I reread the same paragraph 5 times. So what I do is "double-dip". I listen to and read the ebook at the same time. This way my brain has no chance of escaping. This has also helped me with my English; oh, so that's how you pronounce albeit?
Hello fellow ADHD adult! I've heard the advice about using the double medium before but never given it a shot. Honestly it would probably work great, but I've just never committed to it.
It works great for me. Not for my wife though, who is textbook ADHD. She reads slow, and if she matches the speed for the audiobook to her reading speed, it gets boring :) the wonders of neurodiversity :)
Hahahah yeeeah. I'm technically a slow reader too, but it's more because I have to keep rereading paragraphs when I stop paying attention, so I'd be more like you probably.
My gf is a completely different brand of neurospicy and she just could not grasp that not only do I have to read the words but I have to actively make sure my brain is trying to comprehend them too or I just go on autopilot.
I've found that I have the most success with stuff I know fairly well. I'll listen to Tolkien, Asimov, or King because I've read the books 10 times and if I miss a bit, I still know what is going on.