00:11
So that makes a lot of sense to me. I've used it for the same featuring.
And then, okay, to head back to that, yeah, I mostly, I guess, have heard people not want to
mark up a book because it's essentially like, it's as if you're graffitiing your book, right?
So there's like a sacredness to the book that some people will take, which I have a mixed,
like, personally, I have a bit of a mixed position on that. I definitely, as like a younger kid,
had that feeling. I didn't want to mark it up. But I think that was from other people around me.
I don't personally mark anything up. But I do find myself looking to like, identify things in books
more and maybe find ways to like, use like a sticky note if I were to keep something.
So it's more about like, kind of keeping the pristine condition.
It's keeping the condition. It's like a preservation of the item in front of you.
Oh, that's so very different. Because I used to be like, a very bad dog earer.
I had a feeling once you told me your reason was I don't want to see my own annotations and not
Yeah.
I can't stand damaging the book. So
No, no, I do dog ear until I realized that not like some people for the reason that you just said,
like, don't like dog earing. And I learned it a hard way by like,
doing it to the books that I got it from my friend or something like
Oh, you did it to the loaned books.
And then it didn't even occur to me that there was something that she didn't like doing.
Right, right.
Like, I did like, did I get her a new copy? I forgot. But like,
Probably, let's say that you did.
Yeah. I mean, I was so like, I was like, elementary school young. So yeah, you know,
but like, that's when I learned that like, Oh, people don't do that.
So, yeah, yeah, I am very hard on my books.
But
Well, now they're electronic. So I mean, it's fine. You know?
Yeah, yeah, I think that that works. But I like I don't know.
Um, there are there are books that I
like, actually, this one Bible, I, I would consider getting a physical copy as well.
Just because some of the illustration that seems to be in it looks beautiful.
Okay, that's good.
It comes with a lot of footnotes, this book. And the footnotes,
I can see at least like my electronic version.
03:00
Because this book deals with a lot of different languages.
I can see that the sort of prints are not right when they have like Chinese characters on it
or something. Like sometimes they just like have bugged out and it's like a black square.
So I do feel like I want to get a physical book for the for for like my keeping,
or like maybe passing it to friends or something. But
right now I very much enjoy reading electronically. And Oh, one other positive for me reading
electronically, like electronic books is the fact that you can read it more easily when you're
in a bathtub.
Oh, man, are we did we I don't know if we spilled that this particular
We did talk about how I voluntarily submerged my laptop into my bathtub while I was there.
Okay, very happy that I didn't die.
But
Oh, man.
That's it's fantastic. No, I mean, don't get me wrong. I do appreciate like,
honestly, I think I probably expressed how absolutely just just shocked I was by the
approach that you took to doing this with your whole laptop. I admit like, like, look,
there have been times when I have done something like this, but I have had like the laptop,
like away from the bathtub, you know, like not here in Japan, I don't have a big enough bathroom
for this. But like, you put it away on like a separate thing, like away from the water,
you know, and you're like, now just like, keep it with me. This is this is to me,
which is friggin wild. But I will say I'm less. Am I offended by that? I'm almost offended for
some reason. I don't know why. But like, I'm less offended by the idea that you would bring
like the eReader. And I think it's probably twofold. One, it's not nearly as expensive.
And like, it is an easier thing to like keep a handle on perhaps than like a kind of unwieldy
two folded screen laptop type deal. So okay, okay, okay, we don't we don't need to, you know,
I'm not seeking absolution from my sin of putting the laptop on the ledge and trying to watch
British Bake Show or something. Bake Off. Yeah, Bake Off. Yeah, let's get us back to Babel itself
then. Or at least no, the the reading we kind of we kind of spiraled again.
I mean, we kind of already at least on my part talked about my weird reading. Yes, I think we
covered. Yeah. One more weird thing I can add is I am a parallel multi book reader.
06:08
Oh, yeah, you do the cross book. I have several books going on at the same time. And when I had
physical books, he used to be like, scattered all over the house, like one in kitchen, one in my
bedroom, one in my bathroom, like like something like that. And then like, I would just like
depending on you know, where I am, I will pick up different books and like stop when I'm done
with whatever I was doing. Yeah. And and my family member thinks that that is lunatic to be doing
that. I, I do not agree with them. In this case. Okay. I myself do also tend to have like a variety
of not. I guess I haven't answered exactly how I do book things. But it is not uncommon for me to
have a couple of books going at once. I think the way that I used to do it ended up turning out to
be a bit of a problem. Like during grad school, I can talk about that in a sec. But the the the
essence of having a couple books going at once, maybe not finishing this one, but going to this
other one, I literally just did it, like over the last say month or so I've got one book I'm going
through, which is I think the author is Kazuo Ishiguro. And that that was never let me go.
No, I, I think I read that one. It is hold on one second, I can, the book is not next to me. So I
need to, I need to look up and see which one it is in. It's actually When We Were Orphans, which I
don't think is one of the ones that stands out. It's one that I basically picked up from a
shotengai sort of like pop up bookshop that that was here. Oh, nice. I've also read a collection
of short stories from Kazuo Ishiguro, which was called Nocturnes, five stories of music and
nightfall. But anyway, so I was reading that one. And I'm like, Oh, this, this is interesting. It's
a style, you know, story. I'm thinking of it. But I just I got to a certain point. And then I was
like, Well, I'm gonna put it down for a little bit, right? I'm, I've got some other things to do,
like I'll focus on some stuff. But then I was handed or I was given the chance to
pick up convenience store women, woman. Ah, I love that. Yeah. And that I good one. Yeah. And
it was it was also short. I mean, I read that in like, you know, half a day or something, right?
I just kind of like sat down with it. It might be a good one to challenge yourself to read in Japanese,
because the language in it is not that difficult. Like it's not so far from daily conversations.
Okay. Yeah, I think I could sort of see based on the way the translation felt. I think I could I
09:06
could see where you're coming from with that. Maybe maybe I'll challenge myself.
I mean, I think it might be a good one to give a shot. Because you know what happens in a story
already. So yeah, that's true. So it would make it a lot easier since I do already know.
But yeah, so keeping that in mind, because I'm going to try to go pick up Babel anyway,
and it sounds like I might do the hard copy at this point, since you've mentioned the
the like illustrations, and maybe some of the languages right have been all wonky.
Yeah. But yeah, yeah. Or maybe I just got it. Like that electronic copies. I don't know. But
I mean, maybe. But regardless, I think the anyway, I'll do something like that. And maybe I'll pick
up this Japanese one. We can always talk on these ones more as well. Yeah. But anyway,
validation that I have, you know, I was reading this other one didn't finish it picked up.
You do the parallel reading. Yeah, I think it's completely fine. And I don't know.
I guess to think about it this way, right? There's, there's probably some relatedness with
maybe the approach to reading through things. Like, if one gets too hung up on having to complete
the finishing of a book, then you might not get to these other ones. Or you might, in fact,
turn into yourself of, I, I can't go to this other one until I finish this one. And now it
feels like a chore to finish the book that you're doing. That's, that's in itself just as dangerous,
or at least really discomforting to your existence, as it is to say, you know, pick up a bunch of
books. And then my grad school piece, which was like, I kind of was like, I'll just read all these
things. And then that started to float into, I'll read all these like textbook things that seem to
be relevant to my subject thing. And then the answer is, I don't read any of them, because I,
yeah, it's like too many choices and too many things happening. But there's a middle ground,
which I think is really nice. So, yeah. Yeah, I, I, we need to wrap this episode up because
I need to go. That's true. Yeah. Um, there are a number of other things I do want to, I think,
talk. Yeah. With you about general reading habits. Sure. Or like, what you prefer to read,
because I also listened to this podcast recently. It's a Japanese podcast called, very famous one,
and they had an episode. So both of the hosts of this episode, like reads avidly.
And, but like, so then they spent an entire episode about like, how to like, like how to read
12:06
more effectively, kind of. And they specifically limited their scope to like nonfiction books.
Okay. Yeah. But we just not, which is only about 50% of what I read. So it's not always applicable.
But I did agree with a lot of things that they were saying. And one of it was like,
don't try to finish it. Like, don't make that a goal. Like, yeah, get what you want out of it.
But you don't have to make completion of reading cover to cover as a goal. And I didn't even
realize that's like a goal for somebody because I never do that. Isn't it crazy how we don't
really notice what some other people might be up to. And we're like, but I don't do it this way.
And yeah, no, I, yeah, especially if I'm reading like a textbook type, kind of like a book that's
teaching me what to like how to do things or about concepts. I never feel obliged to read the whole
thing. If anything, I do feel obliged to read the entire thing for fictions. But that's another
story. Interesting. You do. Okay. Yeah. Well, all right. So for today, I think what we just went
through was a good selection of I think the reading habits that you've experienced. And
this sort of a connection of ebooks and like, you know, the ease of accessibility and this ability
to just pick them up and start reading good way to maybe replace things like, you know, not that
they're judged, but the idea of switching to something intentional out of like social media,
now you can read books. And it's totally fine to parallel read. We'll talk more about these.
I can share more of, you know, mine there as well in the future. And everybody keep your laptops out
of your bathtubs, but maybe an e-reader is fine. Most importantly. And thanks for the nice summary.
And we'll probably talk your ears out about reading at some other opportunity. Listen to us
talk about you using your eyes on words. Okay.
That's it for the show today. Thanks for listening and find us on x at
Ego de Science. That is E I G O D E S C I E N C. See you next time.
