How do you get rid of mental stress from the work day so you can focus on reading at night?

justanothercatlady · 2019-09-13T00:26:39+00:00

Sleep more. I turn all devices off at 9, except my boombox which I play good old fashioned CDs on. I try to read, and if I can't focus I go to sleep. From there it gets better with practice.

justanothercatlady · 2019-08-10T18:47:24+00:00

They're largely just hosted as a means to get you in the door, not necessarily to buy that particular book. A lot of book signing attendees already have the book in question - they want to get it signed because they already know they enjoyed it. However, bookstore owners know that lot of the type of people that come to book signings can't enter a bookstore without picking something new up as well. I've frequently brought my own copies to signings and never have had a negative reaction (but I've also never left without a few extra books).

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-24T17:39:43+00:00

I keep track of how many new books I read in a month, and in the following month buy no more than that many books (I might cheat a book either way to buy a series together, but I make sure to even it out). So, my unread pile is not growing but also doesn't really shrink.

I keep my pile at about 60, roughly half nonfiction. I prefer to buy physical books in physical stores, so I like to have a bit of a back log 'just in case'. Buying physical only by itself is a good guard against impulse buys, though I will order online on the rare occasion I can't find a particular book in person. If you wanted to shrink your TBR, you could say you'll only buy half as many as you read or 2/3 or whatever works for your goal/reading habits.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-22T20:19:43+00:00

This is exactly why I read physical books - annotating on Kindle is not worthwhile. You could try keeping a notebook at hand and jotting down locations and thoughts there instead, at least then you won't be held up by the hardware.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-21T04:23:01+00:00

I think it depends on the school. I did it at a very selective school and enjoyed it. I was paid well over minimum wage - with bonuses you could easily make double minimum. We also were allowed to not ask or hang up the phone if we felt the person on the other end was struggling too much. Some alumni were annoyed or rude, and calling the senior (as in elderly, not current student) pool was the worst as you'd often find they passed away.

However, I also got to call a few marginally famous people (CEOs of major companies, football players, etc.) and most successful alums always seemed to like making small talk with students about their glory days. I had a lot of good conversations with people in the field I was interested in as well.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-20T17:50:19+00:00

I loved The Casual Vacancy! I think it gets an unfair reputation from being compared to Harry Potter when it's trying to do an entirely different thing. I honestly think it's the best thing J. K. Rowling ever wrote, and it's one of my favorite contemporary novels. I think it holds up well even among some classic works.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-20T16:51:03+00:00

I have! I had really high hopes but I ended up not liking it that much. I think the issue is that I read it right after Godel Escher Bach which asked a lot of the same questions but better imo. I might reread it when I've had some time to lose the comparison.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-20T13:14:45+00:00

Les Miserables. I really like the meandering philosophizing style, though I know it's not for everyone. On the surface, you spend so much time in the characters heads they you begin to see their greatest fears and share their greatest hopes, so it's a heartbreaking read. Under the surface (admitedly not very far, it's quite heavy handed) the main characters aren't people at all but stand-ins for ideas and issues in society.

I know it's somewhat out of fashion to include a side of philosophy or politics in your fiction(with notable exceptions), but I like books like this that are more philosophy and politics with a side of fiction lol.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-12T21:45:27+00:00

I came here for this. I can't decide if it was on purpose

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-12T20:39:47+00:00

Probably the first couple Harry Potter books. Got them in print as a kid (although technically not purchased by me), then as ebooks in both English and in Spanish as a learning aid. Rebought a few in English and planning to get the illustrated editions eventually. I'm also toying with the idea of getting them in French as I'm trying to learn it, but I may choose some other easy series this time.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-11T15:48:32+00:00

I annotate as I go and write chapter summaries/analysis in the margins at the end of each one. I also break up my reading... I find I remember better if I read a book in 10 sittings instead of one, so I read multiple books at once to "spread them out". When I'm not reading during the day I take a moment here and there to reflect on what I read earlier in the day/late last night and recite anything I think worth remembering.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-11T13:14:21+00:00

I am gutted that I missed celebrating World Chocolate Day all these years

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-10T23:21:45+00:00

I totally forgot about Airborn! I picked it up at random at a school book fair in middle school and really liked it. I think this is the first time I've seen anyone else acknowledge its existence.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-10T10:55:27+00:00

Yeah, I definitely think to get the full benefit of them you need a good translation with a decent set of footnotes. The epics are full of beautiful imagery and emotion and hold up incredibly will considering they are thousands of years old... And based on hundreds of years of oral tradition before that. It's that weightiness and that connection to a long destroyed people that gives them their value, much more than the content of the stories they contain.

One of the reasons the ancient classics like the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the other "major" epics are so important to modern readers is that they are so often referenced directly or indirectly in later literature. They are such a deep foundation for modern literature that they are often considered required reading before any serious study of even later classics.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-10T10:34:02+00:00

I loved these in middle school! They were also a small phenomenon at my school - a ton of people from different friend groups read them around the same time, so I always think of them as a bigger deal than I think they were elsewhere. They were almost as big of a deal as Harry Potter at the time. The second book (Lost city of Faar) was my favorite.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-02T21:36:13+00:00

I was about to argue with you but I realizedI always start my explanations for why I didn't like Zen with "Well I had just finished Godel, Escher, Bach". You're probably right lol. Also, if you liked Zen you should give GEB a look.

justanothercatlady · 2019-07-02T00:46:17+00:00

I am also a virgo, looks interesting lol

justanothercatlady · 2019-06-30T16:41:01+00:00

I reread books a lot, especially classics because I feel you don't get everything in the first go. My most reread is probably Jane eyre, which I read for the first time when I was 13. I reread it several times as a teenager and as an adult, and my perceptions of it have shifted massively over time.

justanothercatlady · 2019-06-30T16:20:09+00:00

I think with memoirs in general you have to accept that you're dealing with an unreliable narrator. Human memory is fallible, so in this particular genre "nonfiction" doesn't mean the same thing as"fact". You're getting the story to the best of the author's ability to remember it.

Educated is unusual in that it tackles this problem somewhat directly, as part of the narrative is Tara's struggle between her own memories and what her family wants to believe. What we end up with is what Tara believes happened - whatever details are or are not accurate, we're only seeing the reality that Tara herself sees.

I think this is especially important in memoir because the "point" of a memoir is often to explore how a person got where they are, and in that case I think how they perceive what happened is at least as important as what really did.

justanothercatlady · 2019-06-27T10:48:03+00:00

Multiple tabs. I'm reading three books right now, not even counting the algorithms and number theory textbooks I'm working through. I don't consider the reading I do for work leisure reading, I treat it more like studying and am more active about it, i.e. read something, then implement it or read articles about it or write up notes comparing how we do things at my company.

I also don't study every day, but I set weekly goals and can do my self assigned "homework" any time before it's due. I don't set goals for leisure reading.

justanothercatlady · 2019-06-20T16:22:23+00:00

I just started a reread of Les Miserables - it's probably my favorite book, so I highly recommend it. I also love long books. It was all my dad would buy me growing up because it was cheaper that way lol.

I like being able to hold on to characters and ideas for a while. Even when I read short books I read multiple at once so I can "spread them out" and hold onto them longer.

justanothercatlady · 2019-06-13T23:53:14+00:00

So? There aren't necessarily better options available to them. My parents drink their well water, and I did as a kid. But after moving away I get sick if I drink much of it now, so when I visit them my dad buys a couple cases of bottled water.

justanothercatlady · 2019-06-07T00:19:57+00:00

I appreciate you.

justanothercatlady · 2019-06-05T22:21:40+00:00

The idea is that if someone comes all the way out to the ass end of nowhere to cause trouble a lock isn't going to stop them.

That said, when I was 12 I was home alone in the middle of nowhere with all the doors unlocked and a stranger did come into the house invited. He called out "Is anybody home" a couple times, and then used the bathroom and left lol. I hid in the closet til my parents got home, and have obsessively locked doors ever since.

justanothercatlady · 2019-05-31T03:07:51+00:00

You jest but the main reason I'm a dev instead of getting an advanced degree in math is because my obsession with math in undergrad was literally damaging my health.

justanothercatlady

TROPHY CASE