My Reading Apps

Yes, that's Candy Crush, don't judge me!

 Hello to all,

Today I want to talk to you about reading apps. Well, about the reading related apps that I use and how they have changed my reading life.

Audible has definitely changed my relationship with audio books. At first I thought it just wasn't for me, that I wouldn't be able to concentrate, etc. And then I tried it...almost 2 years later, this little buddy here has increased the amount of books I read, since I can have with me all the time (on my phone). It has also changed the way I share my reading with A, since now we go for 2 credits and can listen to them separately and then discuss at home :D.

Stitcher is not exactly a reading app, but it is true it that I have access to the amazing Riot Media podcasts (Book Riot, Dear Book Nerd, Our Reading Lives and Panels) and the Sword and Laser one.

The Goodreads app has turned out to be one that I use a lot, to scan my new books, to keep track of my reading and others. Some people have complained about the scanning feature, but I guess I've been lucky, because I haven't had a problem so far.

The Kobo app was a surprise for me. I have the Kobo reader, and at first I kept saying I wouldn't read on my phone, blah, blah. But then, one day I was stuck on a waiting room, no book to read (the horror!) and remembered that the books I had purchased with Kobo were there, on my phone too. And presto! I started reading on my phone.

And finally, the OverDrive App. As I'm still on a student budget, getting more than 2 credits can be too much some months, but I do need more audio than that, particularly with big experiments. With access to my library audio books through it, problem solved. Only thing I wish is I could change the speed of the book (like you can do on Audible) because sometimes it feels like it is going soooo slow.

So those are my reading apps, which ones do you have? How have they changed your reading life? Tell me about it.

How and Why has my reading changed in the last year.

This is my first attempt to back to "non-review" posts.  For a while I was doing the Sunday Salon posts but sooner than I thought it became more of an obligation than something fun and I stopped. Although I will probably be sharing this post in the Sunday Salon Facebook page, I don't think I will be back posting every Sunday.

My Kobo

In little bit more than a year my reading habits have changed considerably. The first reason was me buying an e-reader. How did this change my reading habits you may ask? Well for starters I stopped NEEDING to have a big bag to carry a book or NEEDING more space in the metro to read, since sometimes I would not be able to open my book it being so crowded. With my Kobo I can now read (comfortably) even when I'm standing in the tiniest corned available. I could do so with some paperbacks, but is was way less easier, and the fact that I can pass the page with just one touch beats having to use both hands and more often that I would care to admit losing my balance because I am no longer holding to something which sometimes lead to letting my book drop and loosing the page altogether...not great. 

Having my Kobo also changed the way I read scientific articles, and I have to say I'm hoping here PubMed will go out of the Beta version of their epub version of articles and make this version available for most of the articles. Yes I realize I can always upload the articles in PDF in my reader, but the reading experience is completely different starting with the fact that I can change the font size to something a bit more accommodating to my (often) tired eyes. 

Finally, this opened a whole new library to me: OverDrive. Very early when I moved to Canada I got my library card and boy have I used it. Last year, as I mentioned on a prior post, most of my reading material came from the library and this included OverDrive. This has made a lot of books available faster to me, even if I am not in the city the moment they became available...and that is just awesome.

Audio books? Me?

And then I made a mistake. I reserved Cinder on OverDrive because I was going on a long trip overseas, was limited on luggage space and so I wanted to fill my Kobo with fun, light reading books. I got the e-mail telling me that the book as available...and lo and behold: it was an audio book. This, I told myself, is not what I wanted! I'm not an audio book person. My boyfriend casually said: well, is not like you can shift your attention a lot being on the plane, so you could give it a try and actually KNOW if you are or not. 

So I did, I don't remember what movie they had that day...but I remembered loving the book. I was lucky that I had a good narrator the first time and that it wasn't a heavy book that needed more expertise on "reading audio books"; but the bottom line was that I was hooked. I was already into podcasts and 2 of them kept offering deals with Audible. I figure I could give that a try and 11 books in less than 6 months I love it!. I started listening to them while doing mechanical things in the lab (wracking tips, putting away boxes, washing cells)  and know I have moved to listening while doing experiments I feel comfortable with since I've done them several times...except when I have to calculate something, I just can't do both things at the same time. 

 

Recently, my boyfriend and I started to listen to books together in the car...this takes a bit more of patience than I expected because often we would arrive to a point full of action, but we would have arrived our destination. Right now we are listening to a non-fiction so it is not that bad.

Badges!!!

Lastly something this 2 (the Kobo and Audible) have in common is that they give you badges as you read!!!. Yes, I know, I am 28, I shouldn't get so exited about this...but I do. It makes me happy when I get a new badge and it pushes me to read at different hours, different subjects, to share my reading.

Has your reading changed this last year? How? I would love to hear about it :)