Yes. I will hit 52 books this year next week :) I am happy that I started reading again. It is helpful to slow down, relax, be entertained, or learn something.
I'm pretty happy to say I've read somewhere between 20-30 books this year*. Right now making my way through The Silmarillion finally. I also read the entire Aubrey-Maturin series, which was incredible, even if they were probably the hardest books I've ever read.
(* Less happy to say it's mostly because I've been cripplingly depressed but hey, reading is reading)
Try The Four Feathers by AEW Mason, if you haven’t. There are also two or three film adaptations, can be fun to see where and how each deviated from the book. And maybe King Solomon’s Mines by H Rider Haggard.
More British old-timey adventuring, though without so many ships.
If you want an antihero-rake and a tale told tongue firmly in cheek, see if the Flashman novels by Fraser are to your liking. Fraser takes a rich school-bully character from a more wholesome series of books and imagines his military & adventuring career in adulthood.
Strange, I remember trying the Silmarillion a few times, many years ago, and finding it very hard reading. Whereas I re-read the Aubrey-Maturins every few years and find them easy, if not always light weight.
I juts counted, 44 books so far this year, with lots of variation. Not
I can not say much about quitting the social media, as I never really started. Just HN, and some youtube (always start on my subscription page, only some late nights do I look at the main page with its algo suggestions). The occasional computer game (from doom to chess). Some hobby coding (retired couple of years ago), music, and yes, lots of reading.
> Strange, I remember trying the Silmarillion a few times, many years ago, and finding it very hard reading. Whereas I re-read the Aubrey-Maturins every few years and find them easy, if not always light weight.
So the difference, to me anyway, is the heavy use of archaic and naval terms in the Aubrey-Maturin series. As I went through them they got easier, and I'd certainly find them more lightweight now, but still.
The Silmarillion is hard in a different way - sort of like George Martin and ASoIaF, it's rather long-winded and name-heavy, so it can be hard to follow, even for avid Tolkien fans.
Still, Tolkien has a style of writing that I just love. No other author I've read manages to capture the feeling that you're really reading a myth or a legend, and not "just" a story.
I do the same thing on my blog... have a taxonomy for people, countries, trails I hike, and national parks. Custom taxonomies are a good way to organise your blog.
> Sometimes I want to share a bit of code, and I'm not sure if the formatting will please everyone. Or naming convention.
Do what pleases you. Write and share first and most importantly for yourself. If other people find it interesting or useful they will read, if not, they will not.
Writing is a muscle you need to train, so start with small topics you want to say stuff about, learn, it will become easier. Then do the big topics you want to say a lot about.
I see this sentiment a lot; I've written tens of thousands of comments on the internet (on different sites) over 25+ years. Am I a better writer? I don't feel like one. Is there anything objectively measurable that could answer that?
I have done the second way. I have split it up in categories, so people can subscribe to different categories rss feeds if they don't want the whole feed. I have ~1000 daily readers now. With all kinds of interests.
They should do it on OS level instead of browser level, apps also do tracking, and collecting data. One question when you first boot up your device. One switch in settings.
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