1. Bored and Brilliant: How Spacing Out Can Unlock Your Most Productive & Creative Self by Manoush Zomorodi, 208p [Audio]

   • Do you remember the last time you stopped to look into nothingness? And just let your mind wander? Like real mental downtime? Why do we behave as addicts filling every idle moment of our day with newsfeed/social media checking? This book gives excellent food for thought specially about mobile phone use. It's not radical, the author is by no means a ludite. It just encourages moderation.

2. Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World by Cal Newport, 302p

   • A very good read in times of overwhelming social media feeds. The idea is to unplug and do more creative fun things. Some ideas were not new to me but it brings lots of examples of how to address bad habits related to the digital world. It's definitely eye opening and give us a method on how to become digital minimalists. Less is more.

3. Changeless (Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger, 401p

   • Steampunk. tea drinking, werewolves, vampires and airship travel. Yay!

4. The Calculating Stars (Lady Astronaut #1) by Mary Robinette Kowal, 432p

   • Such a great read! Science, space, math, feminism, astronauts, engineers, jetplanes, rockets!

Reading plans for March:

• Finish reading Bitten by Kelley Armstrong
• The Fated Sky (Lady Astronaut #2) by Mary Robinette Kowal
• The Lady Astronaut of Mars (Lady Astronaut #4.5) [Novelette]
• Blameless (Parasol Protectorate #3) by Gail Carriger

#readinglist #books #reading

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

by Charlie Jane Anders

This was a surprisingly weird book. It's a mix of urban fantasy, light science fiction, nonsense and disastrous near futures. There's an AI, witches and mad scientists (sort of...). There is romance. Childhood adventures. Nerdy hipsters. Birds and trees talking. There are philosophical discussions about life, universe and everything. A clash of magic and science.

It's one of those books that can't really fit in one genre box. It's multi-genre (if such a classification exists). I enjoyed reading it mostly because of the unusual dialogues and crazy ideas. It reminded me a little bit of Douglas Adams's style (like The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy).

The AI Peregrine was my favorite character. And in my head I was sure the AI was a female. But then later in the story I realized they actually called her with a masculine noun. Anyway, the genre doesn't matter at all, the AI was cool. I thought the best portions of the story were when Patricia and Laurence were having some existential discussion, like the end of the world.

At around 70% I thought the story dragged a little bit and it became a little depressing. But then the story picks up and extraordinary things happen.

It's an interesting mixed bag of magic and “sciency” near future story.

To be read with an open mind.

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• Book: All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders
• Kindle Edition, 317 pages
• Published January 26th 2016 by Tor Books

#bookreview #reading #books

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I challenged myself to read 52 books this year. And I have a plan... 🧐

...Read more “Hell, Yeah!” books.

The past few years I was experimenting a lot and reading books I would not really pick up at first glance. And looking back I saw that my average rating for all the books I read was 3.9. I think that's low. That means I didn't read enough books that I thought were really exciting. I read lots of “meh” books. You can see a list of all my read books here.

This year I want to read books that have been on my “to be read list” for some time because they are sequels to stories I already love.

Also, I was inspired by the Reading Glasses challenge (great podcast about Book Culture, BTW) and borrowed some of their ideas to my Reader Goals:

• Read a graphic novel (or two...)
• Read more of authors I already know and love
• Read a book by a trans author
• Listen to 1 audiobook per month (non-fiction)
• Listen to 1 fiction audiobook [never tried it before!]

• Read sequels of the Series I already love:

• The Expanse by James S. A. Corey (#4 to #7)

• Murderbot Diaries by Martha Wells (#3)

• Old Man's War by John Scalzi (#2 to #6)

• Parasol Protectorate by Gail Carriger (#2 to #5)

• The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

• Start Reading The Dresden Files Series by Jim Butcher [never read it before! Wanna try!]

• Read books I've already have purchased/pre-ordered:

  • The Armored Saint by Myke Cole
  • Paladin of Souls (World of the Five Gods #2) by Lois McMaster Bujold
  • Changeless (Parasol Protectorate #2) by Gail Carriger
  • Enough by Patrick Rhone (Kindle Unlimited)
  • Drive by Daniel H. Pink
  • Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport [pre-ordered]
  • Team Human by Douglas Rushkoff [pre-ordered]
  • Blood, Sweat, and Pixels: The Triumphant, Turbulent Stories Behind How Video Games Are Made by Jason Schreier

• Read some picks from The Sword and Laser Bookclub and Vaginal Fantasy Bookclub throughout the year, because they are awesome (love their podcast)!

• Also read some picks from Vaginal Fantasy

I am sure I'll keep adding titles to this list but I will try to consider this my priority list for 2019 😎

#reading #books #readinglist #ReaderGoals

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I decided to try Audible for 90 days. I never understood the appeal of listening to a book. For me, reading is a calming experience and depending on the book I will slow down or speed up my reading. I will stop and just look at the world around me when a phrase inspires me. I highlight and take notes (yes, we can do that with an e-reader). Could I do that with an audiobook?

I am used to Podcasts. I normally listen to them when I am walking towards an errand, doing the dishes, running at the gym or, occasionally, driving. When I am listening to a Podcast I sometimes catch myself wondering about my to-do list or remembering a past event. Then I realized I've been distracted and I come back to the listening. But that's okay because it's not a book, I don't need to follow every sentence to understand the message. When I get lost I just move on.

Now, books... I like to pay attention to every sentence. It's a contemplative experience to me. And that's why I always thought that “listening” to a book would ruin the introspection. This article from the New York times got me thinking about the differences between reading and listening to a book:

Is Listening to a Book the Same Thing as Reading It?

Basically the conclusion is, it depends:

Print may be best for lingering over words or ideas, but audiobooks add literacy to moments where there would otherwise be none.

So I am trying it for myself and I will see how it goes!

I chose the book The Attention Merchants: The Epic Scramble to Get Inside Our Heads by Tim Wu as a first try.

The first thing I noticed is that the narrator was too slow. So I am listening at 1.25x speed. It's better.

#reading #audiobooks #books

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Every year I set myself a reading challenge on Goodreads.

Goodreads is a kind of a book cataloging network, with discussion groups, lists, reviews and book recommendations. I like using it because of the bookclubs and the integration with my e-reader (Kindle).

I've been doing the Reading Challenge since 2012 and I broke my record in 2018 reading 52 books in total: an average of about 1 book per week. 🤘🎉

I can say that I read more because I decided to cut back time on other activities, like browsing social media. I realized that I was swapping reading time with mindless scrolling and that made me take a step back and evaluate how social media was affecting my habits.

That led me to uninstall all social media apps from my phone, delete accounts and use my “idle” time to read on my Kindle. During my bus commute, instead of checking Twitter on my phone I would take my Kindle. Instead of sitting down at home after work and check my phone I would open my Kindle. I decided to ignore the urge to be online receiving updates all the time. I wanted to retrain my brain to be able to deep focus. And reading requires focused attention.

The cool thing about the Goodreads Reading Challenge is that by the end of the year we get a report with some stats and the complete list of the books read. It's nice to look back and remember all the books I experienced!

Here goes a list of my favorite books in 2018:

• You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier: this book made me seriously start thinking about the “attention economy”.

• Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier: and this one convinced me that social media is affecting my attention and my quality of life.

• Personal Kanban: Mapping Work | Navigating Life by Jim Benson and Tonianne DeMaria Barry: I discovered the Kanban scheduling method and understood how it could be applied to my personal productivity system. I implemented everything I learned after reading this book.

• Autonomous by Annalee Newitz: A fresh sci-fi that made me realized how much I love disrupting futures and AI's stories.

• Fast Tract Digestion Heartburn by Norman Robillard: This one helped me understand my stomach/gut health and made me change the way I eat. And it worked!

• All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries #1) by Martha Wells: Another great sci-fi that surprised me and made me want to continue reading the series.

For 2019 my challenge will be to read 52 books!

#books #readingchallenge

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

I have always loved stories about robots, AI's, bots or any sentient like machine. This book reminded me again why I love these stories. It is excellent!

One thing that happened to me while reading the first chapters is that I automatically assigned a female gender to Murderbot. I don't why I did it, but Murderbot was so relatable to me, I created empathy for all its fears, anxiety and social awkwardness. But then it is clear that Murderbot doesn't have a gender, because it is a security bot, not a sexbot. I wonder if the book cover led me to think that. Although I showed it to my husband and he told it was a totally gender neutral bot in that cover.

Maybe that is proof of how engaging and well written the character is. It's all about what it means to be alive, what it means to exist and think, no matter what or who you are. It was so interesting to be inside this bot's head and find out that it doesn't know what it wants, kinda like a human mind, all confused and asking why the universe existed:

It’s wrong to think of a construct as half bot, half human. It makes it sound like the halves are discrete, like the bot half should want to obey orders and do its job and the human half should want to protect itself and get the hell out of here. As opposed to the reality, which was that I was one whole confused entity, with no idea what I wanted to do. What I should do. What I needed to do.

I loved that Murderbot enjoyed watching television series:

And in their corner all they had was Murderbot, who just wanted everyone to shut up and leave it alone so it could watch the entertainment feed all day.

And I already started reading the sequel, because this is one of those “Hell, yeah” kind of stories.

Highly recommended!

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Book info:

• All Systems Red (The Murderbot Diaries, #1)
• Kindle Edition, 156 pages
• Published May 2nd 2017 by Tor.com

#books #bookreview

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

Kindle Edition, Reprint Edition, 754 pages Published October 26th 2004 by Dell (first published July 1st 1992)

I read the first book of this series (Outlander) in 2013 and I remember that at the time I have enjoyed many aspects of the story but I’ve thought that the book was longer than it needed to be. I had the intention to continue on reading the series but I eventually forgot about it. And maybe knowing that it was a long series (today there are 7 books published!) made me postpone reading it until I had more time.

This year I was leisurely browsing Netflix and I saw the Outlander TV show available! Well, I decided to watch it! At the same time, I started reading the second book because watching the series Season One made me want to go back to that world. And that made be dive into this epic story story once more! Each book is like a chapter in the larger story, so it’s the kind of series you have to read the books in the order they were published.

Overall of the book series

Before I talk about the second book, I will say that Diana Gabaldon is a superb writer. The books are well-written with generally well-researched historical background.

She has a way of telling a story in the most compelling of ways with complex characters and solid world building.

The Outlander series is a mix of time-travel/historic romance and it starts with the story of Claire Randall, a former combat nurse that lives in 1945 and was transported back in time to Scotland in 1743, in the middle of clan wars and borders conflict between scots and englishmen. Claire encounters a young Scots warrior named James Fraser and they experience an epic romance story together.

The second book : “Dragonfly in Amber”

It is a follow-up of the first book, but it starts with Claire Randall in the “present” going back to Scotland and starting a research about the Battle of Culloden and aftermath of the war. From the first book we have an idea that the main characters were somehow involved with the historic battle of Culloden that took place in 1746. This battle marks the final confrontation of the Jacobite rising of 1745, in which the Jacobites, with the support of France, fought to reestablish Charles Edward Stuart, known as “Bonnie Prince Charlie” in the throne of Scotland. We all know from historical facts that the battle of Culloden ends the rebellious rising and the clan system in the Highlands of Scotland.

So, in this book, we are transported back to 1745, with Claire and Jamie fleeing from Scotland to find refuge in France. Meanwhile, the story brings us flashes of the present, with Claire telling her adventures to her daughter for the first and revealing her secrets.

I was amazed by the quality of the storytelling because of its freshness and pace. I love the writing style of Diana Gabaldon: she can be “flourishy” without being boring. The reading flows effortlessly.

The time travel aspect of this series can at first seems too absurd and I was worried that it could spoil the story. You know, it is complicated to avoid time travel paradoxes. And sometimes when you explain it too much, the story can loose its power. So far in this series I have not seen it being spoiled. I think the author did a good job of playing with historical facts and avoiding paradoxes. So far, so good!

The book is quite a ride, with politics, war, romance, personal struggle and historic facts being beautifully intertwined with fictional characters. I am totally hooked to the series now, and I have already started reading Book 3 “Voyager” (and enjoying it so far!).

I highly recommend the series for historical romance lovers who fancy a bit of time travel vibes!

#books #bookreview #reading

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.

“There are 168 hours in a week. This is your guide to getting the most out of them.” by Laura Vanderkam

• Kindle Edition
• Print Length: 271 pages
• Publisher: Portfolio (May 26, 2010)
• Publication Date: May 27, 2010

My overall thoughts about the book:

I enjoyed the main approach of the book, which is to be aware of how we spend our 168 hours and identify how we can make better use of the time available for all of us. So far so good, but I found that the author addresses only a handful of life styles, specially couples with kids.

I didn’t agree with all the suggestions she gave. There was too much “delegating” to paid services tips and I am more into searching for a frugal or simple lifestyle. As far as I know hiring household services is usually more expensive than doing them ourselves, but the author affirms that this model could work for some people (if they have the money to afford it, of course).

I think it’s hard to try carve out more time out of our days if we don’t reduce the excess activities and stuff we accumulate over time. And I don’t remember the author addressing this side of the coin.

The Pros:

The main messages of the book that stuck in my brain and that I somewhat agree with were:

1. Cut down TV time. And then cut some more. TV is not so relaxing as we might think.
2. Block out time to exercise. Then fine more exercise more.
3. Make a list of tasks you can do in 30 minutes. And another for 10 minutes. Remember these little things that can be done between tasks or while waiting something. For example: read a book in a waiting line, or do some push-ups or stay in plank position while you wait for the microwave. Reading while waiting or in public transport is totally okay, I do this all the time with my Kindle. Doing push-ups while the microwave: not so much because there are usually other things to take care of in the kitchen, in my case. But I think it’s doable.
4. Identify our core competencies: that is a good exercise because we often forget our main goals amidst the various activities and responsibilities we are involved. When we know what are our core competencies we can plan out more time to develop these areas.

The Cons:

The following tips didn’t really resonate with my personal style:

1. Carve out chunks of time during our work day to do the things we say we don’t have enough time to do. That’s the kind of tip that won’t work for everyone because not all of us have a flexible schedule or a work environment that encourages “off duty” activities or arriving a bit late.
2. Hire services: Get someone else to do the things you don’t enjoy by delegating or hiring someone else: laundry, cooking, scheduling appointments. I don’t agree with this one because I truly prefer to live an independent life, and if I can’t find time or satisfaction from taking care of my stuff, I should consider minimizing.
3. The writing style. I thought the chapters were too long and there were too many anecdotes about other peoples lives filled with excessive and unnecessary details to prove a point. Those parts really put me off the book and made me speed read them. I think the text lacked a bit of objectivity, since it’s about productivity and carving out precious time.

So, the book has a couple of good ideas and tips but the overall experience of reading it wasn’t fulfilling and I was a bit disappointed in the end. Maybe it was not directed at my simpler lifestyle. Sometimes doing less is the best option.

#books #bookreview #reading

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By Noisy Deadlines Minimalist in progress, nerdy, introvert, skeptic. I don't leave without my e-reader.