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Thalfon

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Thalfon ,

I use Downpour. They all kind of have the same pricing service. $12ish for a monthly one credit, buy more at the same price. Downpour lets you either use their app for syncing or just download the MP3 and/or M4B (a format similar to MP3 but with chapter stops for books) to use however you’d like.

Though I’m not sure it supports gifting. Someone else suggested Libro.FM which is very similar but I know does have gifting.

I avoid Audible personally, they’ve historically taken a huge cut from authors. I can get basically the same deal everywhere else. If you’re curious check out Brandon Sanderson’s various posts or media releases about the topic.

Thalfon ,

Annette Marie has a number of series set in her world of The Guild Codex. Urban fantasy where guilds of “mythics” (mages of various sorts) live hidden from the mundane world. The first series The Guild Codex: Spellbound is a good place to start, featuring a normal human woman stumbling into a bartending gig for such a guild. That 8 book series within the world is complete. Book one is “Three Mages and a Margarita.”

Super engaging, and has great audio narration if you’re into that as well.

12 reasons to stop using Goodreads - selected by Goodreads staff (help.goodreads.com)

It could be kind of lame to poke fun at a site that I don’t use (anymore), but I find this funny enough to share: Goodreads has started changing and updating their site last year, but apparently they’ve broken a ton of things in the process, and now they’ve published an announcement with the list of 12 bugs they’re...

Thalfon ,

I took that zip file and imported it at Storygraph. That site isn’t perfect either but at least it’s building up instead of falling down, and seems to have heart. Also its recommendations, while hit and miss, are a lot better than what Goodreads has offered in the last couple years.

The two things I occasionally go back to Goodreads for at this point are the list of releases by authors I’m following, as you mention, and an FSF book club I’m in over there. That said I haven’t bothered tracking my books on GR for a while now. I really can’t see it turning around any time soon, especially now it’s Amazon owned, and Storygraph deals with that aspect of things very well.

I’ve also seen Bookwyrm mentioned around here lately as a Fediverse alternative. I’m not familiar with it or its features, but it’d bear looking at for comparison.

Thalfon ,

Another Kobo user, I have the Clara HD. I like having an eInk device for ease on the eyes, it has a good backlight with a natural light setting for warmer usage at night which is nice.

I suspect most basic ebook readers would be similar. I just wanted something feature-light that was purely for reading.

I did specifically want to avoid Amazon. Basically every other retailer uses the same ebook format: Epub, either DRM free or with Adobe Digital Editions DRM. This means most ereaders can use books from most retailers. The exception is Amazon - they use their own proprietary format with its own DRM to lock you into the Kindle ecosystem. Kindles can now read non-Amazon ebooks but non-Kindles can’t read Amazon ones due to this. I find that particularly scummy and want nothing to do with supporting it, especially when most books I buy through Kobo or other sites are completely DRM free by comparison.

(There are ways to get Amazon books you own onto other devices in a pinch if you do some searching. Questionable legality, even if you own the book, which is crazy to me, but it’s not impossible. Amazon has been updating their DRM against it, but it’s still doable.)

Thalfon ,

Spiritfarer is an absolutely wonderful experience that is somehow both a casual open world chill game and a game that delves deep into the topic of death, being prepared for it, and leaving people behind. Really special game.

Thalfon ,

I largely limit myself to ebooks or audiobooks now, which generally means I’ve no need to purchase a book before the very second I intend to read it, unless I expect to be somewhere without internet for a while and need to predownload stuff.

If there’s a book in interested in but won’t be reading right away, then I put it on a TBR list. Previously on Goodreads, ATM I’m using Storygraph. Then when I’m looking to read something new I skim through the TBR list and pick something off of it to borrow or buy. In that sense it’s less a backlog and more a menu lol.

Thalfon ,

I personally can’t. I find it too distracting, even lyricless stuff. Oddly the opposite is often okay… I can listen to an audiobook while doing something else mindless and not miss out on details. But a physical or ebook generally takes my full attention.

Great audiobook narrations?

After listening to a few clips of The Silmarillion narrated by Andy Serkis, I am interested in seeing if I could actually get used to listening to audiobooks. I usually can’t focus enough on audio alone to keep up with a book but now I’m thinking it might be more of a narration quality thing than anything else....

Thalfon ,

I really liked the narration of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi. Two narrators actually, one who does the first person narration of Amina which accounts for the majority of the story, and one other narrator serving as a story teller filling in narrative details, letters that appeared between chapters, and that sort of thing.

The narrators felt like they were part of the world the book describes, and Amina’s parts in particular are told as though she’s recounting her story at a tavern (complete with occasionally turning away to shout at a particularly obtuse listener). In short, it feels exactly like you’re listening to the pirate captain recounting her own tale.

Thalfon ,

For some chill, positive vibes that had me up rather too late flipping pages, I’d recommend either or both of:

  • Legends & Lattes - Travis Baldree
  • The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches - Sangu Mandanna

They’re basically the novel version of a slice of life comic/manga. L&L is more high fantasy, while Very Secret Society is here on Earth if witches were real. It feels like there’s a sub-genre of these kinds of stories popping up post pandemic and I’m all for it.

For something more action-packed, this one was incredibly engaging:

  • The Blacktongue Thief - Christopher Buehlman
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