A long time ago, I got into a foolish discussion (on my part) with someone at a party. The conversation had drifted from entertainment to media consumption when I said I preferred watching videos to "old-school" pursuits like reading books, which they liked.
Later I came to regret my brash comments. There were reasons, I suppose, why I made them but these days I'd certainly be more diplomatic about our respective likes and dislikes. We're all different and variety is the spice of life.
The real irony, however, is that I have become disenchanted with much of the streaming fare these days. Netflix seems on an obvious path to churn out just enough mediocre stuff to keep the masses 'streaming' cash from their credit cards every month. And have you noticed most of the Netflix movies? They tend to arrive just when they're no longer hot, not even lukewarm.
So I've become a reader of the classics again. Or I suppose I should say so-called "classics" because this too is subjective. I remember back in the 1990s telling a young woman named Beatrice who lived in my apartment building that I was reading Dante's Inferno, to which she duly replied, "Is it any good?"
I liked that. She was so fresh and unimpressed with all the cultural hoopla built up around that so-called "classic."
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| My favorite - FB Reader |
Things have changed over the years. In 2025 I just can't enjoy paper books anymore for novel reading. My closeup vision is too blurry and even reading glasses don't make it much better. But with epub readers, it's a whole new ballgame.
If you've tried an e-reader you'll know that most afford adjustable backgrounds, fonts, font-size, margins and so on. And almost as important, you can Google unfamiliar words and phrases. This is especially helpful with the classics because many terms are no longer current or in a foreign language we might not understand.
After trying several online e-readers I wasn't totally satisfied, so I reverted to a downloadable app. After downloading several apps the winner for me is FB Reader. It's cross-platform, allows you to add your background image, and does almost everything you can think of. I haven't tried the text-to-speech function with FB Reader but prefer capturing the story in my imagination. And some heavily accented voice could destroy the magic.
Here's the link and - bonus! - the background image I like. It's got a lot of texture, making things easier on my eyes, brain, and soul.
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