Last year Lily started to listen to audio books via an app called Libby that our local library uses.
I finally catch up on audio books this year.
Reading nonfiction or fiction books has been my new year's resolution for several years. I read a few good printed books over the past few years, before bed time or while on vacation. But it is a struggle to find time to read. Everyday's commute time is a block of time that could be used for reading and audio book is a perfect format for this scenario.
Once I started, I could not stop and so far I have finished listening to 15 audio books!
The books I listen to are mostly nonfiction, which falls into category of biography, outdoor adventures, popular science, and societies. The biography books include - the Wright Brothers (♡♡♡) , House of Morgan, Leonardo Da Vinci, Alexander Hamilton (♡) . The outdoor adventure books include, North (♡♡), A Walk in the Woods. Popular science books are: A brief history of time (♡), the Wonder of Birds, Heart 411, the Brain Fog Fix, the Magic of Thinking Big (♡), The Art of War (♡), Eruptions. Round up my list are French lessons (♡) and Modern Romance.
Among these books, I like the Wright Brothers the most.
The book was written and read by David McCullough, the language was plain, the voice was monotone. However the faithful chronicle of the Wright brothers' journey to invent the first powered airplane, with popular science level details, made their story vivid, appealing and from time to time thrilling! One morning I sat by breakfast table for 90 minutes to finish listening one chapter of the book! Mr. McCullough's deliberated and earnest voice fitted Wright Brothers' life well.
One very important reason I liked the book was that it described Wright brothers' superb problem solving skills. As an engineer, I marveled at their insights at fly mechanics. I appreciated Orville and Wilbur Wright's curiosity of nature, critical thinking capability, craftsmanship and perseverance.
After finishing listening the book and Leonardo Da Vinci earlier, I can not resist to paraphrase Leo Tolstoy's quote on marriage for my thinking about engineers - "All good engineers are similar, each mediocre engineer is mediocre in his/her own way".
The other book I liked very much is North by Scott and Jenny Jurek. It is about their ultra long distance, 2189 miles to be exact, trail running on Appalachian Trail. Scott was the runner, and Jenny, his wife, provided logistic support and she only ran sectors of the trail. They recounted their story alternatively, providing different perspectives and viewpoints.
Listening to their story is like to accompany them on their journey up north from Georgia to Maine - I could feel their joy, pain and despair, could see the beautiful landscapes and sometimes languished areas along the trail. This 2189 mile trail running in 46 days was a joy sometimes, it was more of a torment after one week into the trip, it was outright misery and torture in the end! So truthful, so real!
On their journey, especially in the second half, they kept asking themselves "why do I do this". They provided various reasons, but in the end they resorted to a slogan "This is who we were; this is what we do". I don't like this slogan; for me outdoor adventure is to enjoy nature, to exercise my body, to have mental relaxation, to have a change of environment.
There are thousands of audio books on Libby, but many popular ones have long waiting time. I typically pick nonfiction books with status "available now". This makes me not reading the most popular books, but there are so many "available" books, there are always some good books among them that I enjoy.
Right now I need to adjust my pace of listening/reading - slow down a bit, so that I can reflect and digest what I read, can engage in other forms of intellectual activities - go to concerts, attending seminars, reading journals and magazines....
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