All About Books discussion

9 Stephen Crane, The Red Badge of Courage Read
10 Max Beerbohm,  Zuleika Dobson  Read
11 Jane Austen, Manfield Park Reading now

15. The Polished Hoe

more audiobooks...
45. The Orchid Affair - Lauren Willig
46. Grave Mercy - Robin Lafevers
47. Code Name Verity - Elizabeth Wein
48. Sylvester - Georgette Heyer {reread}
49. The Prisoner of Zenda - Anthony Hope
50. The Maltese Falcon - Dashiell Hammett {reread}
51. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery {reread}
52. Thérèse Raquin - Emile Zola
53. The Case of the Cryptic Crinoline - Nancy Springer
54. Our Future Good - T.J. Kirby
55. Around the World in Eighty Days - Jules Verne
56. The Hidden Gallery - Maryrose Woods

Some more audiobooksfor me as well:
11 Jane Austen, Manfield Park Read Audiobook
12 Frances Hodgson Burnett,  Emily Fox Seton Read Audiobook
13 Ford Maddox Ford,  The Fifth Queen Reading now Audiobook

Read The Goldfinch in large print.

16. Saturday
17. Hey Nostradamus!
18. The Time In Between
19. The John Lennon Letters
20. The Shadow Tracer

Oh man, I missed this.

As a person with a blind certificate, I am going to leave a note to all ye Large-Print readers out there, that I believe I already sort of mentioned to at least one of you, but listen up anyway.

a) iPads. Hoo boy, iPads. iBooks comes with some excellent low-vision tools - magnification that is better than the Kindle's (sorry, Kindle), background lighting, and the ability to flip colours - read white on black. It comes highly recommended by the specialists in my clinic.

b) iPones can be turned into a really good magnifier and CCTV with the addition of a simple frame stand that can position the phone over the text you're reading. The iPhone camera's resolution is high enough that if you zoom in you should be able to read most texts. Also also! This app: http://www.applevis.com/apps/ios/medi...

c) Low-vision libraries. I don't know for sure how it works in the US, but every country with social services presumably has a central library for the blind, and it does transcriptions, magnifications, and large print editions of ANY book, by request. You will need ot dig out the address of your library for the Blind and Visually Impaired, but once you do, you can submit requests to transcribe books, magnify books, and publish them in accessible formats. This tends to take a few months, but it happens eventually. Especially pertinent for, you know, textbooks and things, but may solve the problems of Akhmatova in the library with a magnifier - which really sounds too much like a game of Clue.

d) on that topic: http://www.applevis.com/apps/ios/book...

I now return you to your regularly scheduled program from the brief time-travel back to January.

Everytime I made an entry here I was thinkung about you Genia! And still you're such an extensive reader!

Thanks Genia and welcome! (Perhaps we should start a core groups of visually impaired members with "Jeanie" in their name, since I'm fairly sure there's another one of us too...)

Great post for the VIP newbies, whatever stage they are at. My certification was awarded (I had not thought of brandishing it as an award, but maybe I should...) in the days before e-readers, so wow was I amazed when I was first given one! No more restriction to whatever-is-in-large-print or struggling with grade one Braille :(

I will always love paper books though. A rare treat for me is a brand new Large Print book *sigh*. Oh, and to add to your post, you can get sheet music enlarged too. There is a special "copyright exemption" clause if it is for that reason. But requests take for ever (at least in the UK they do) so don't hold your breath if you are undertaking a course of study.

Anna Akhmatova, on the other hand, is actually on Kindle. She was one of our seasonal poets, so I was immensely pleased to discover that. And one of her translators joined in our discussions, which was nice.

Though I have had recourse to the magnifying glass for the Art book I have just read.

I'm so glad this is being supported. My father has restricted sight and he always struggled to get large print books.

Kindles are rubbish for the partially sighted. I actually asked them about it and they fessed up that the older kindles weren't really set up like that.

Unfortunately Large Print books are a lot more expensive to produce, and thus buy and braille even more so.

Well I love my "old" kindle! Yes, I have a new ereader, but there are occasions when I much prefer the old one (such as outside.) It's more restricted - which means I don't have to get rid of all the fancy stuff! It doesn't present me with a "random selection" of titles, but sticks to giving me the simple page I have set up. And it doesn't keep altering the way it does things because there is an "improved" version (which loses all my downloads every time, leaving me just with the titles so I have to do it all again!) to download.

No I want simple functions, and I want to be in control of my machine - not for the machine to keep presenting other options!

But I do like the coloured book covers on the new one :)

Jean wrote: "I want simple functions, and I want to be in control of my machine - not for the machine to keep presenting other options!..."

Amen! I also struggle with this in this day of automatic "updates".

:/

They certainly can be annoying.

LauraT wrote: "Everytime I made an entry here I was thinkung about you Genia! And still you're such an extensive reader!"

My situation's a little different though, to be fair. For one, my condition isn't degenerative, so nobody cares if I strain my eyes and force them to read normal print (which I do). Plus I was born with it, so I'm used to it a lot more and in altogether different ways. It's much easier to compensate when you plain don't know any better.

Eh... I like technology. I have no problem with newer tech and the fact that it is trying to be smarter than me.

But in terms of low-vision functionality, iPads beat Kindles hands down. I like paper books too, and I have a good-sized library (not quite as impressive as Laura's, yet, but growing). But I fully confess that in terms of ease and comfort of reading, I've switched to electronic readers almost exclusively.

I often buy the paper book, discover that I would have to put too much effort into reading it because the text is tiny and cluttered, and then just go and download the ebook version. I don't regret spending money on the paper book because I can monitor progress, lend it to friends, smell it, have it on my bedside table... do most anything with it, just not read it. After I finish, I usually delete the ebook, and keep the paper.

Plus there are always the occasional paper books that are printed -really well-, and I love those. A friend of mine (also from the blind clique, obviously) was once leafing through a Sagan book and said "This is so beautiful it makes me want to cry. I'd read this book just for the print."

Interesting recent discussion. It shows that not all eye conditions affect your eyes in the same way. So, it's horses for courses in terms of what's the best medium to use for reading.

I use kindle keyboard, kindle fire, kindle app, other ebook apps, largeprint, audio (in various forms), iPad, decent lighting, torches, very rarely but maybe for poetry a usual size print book.

I try to concentrate on the books I can read by these means, and try not to mourn the books that I can't read.

I freakin' hate audiobooks. If I ever get to the point where I can't read print, it's Braille all the way for me, baby. I don't know how you audiobook people do it - I just want to murder the narrators after three seconds.

Funny caveat, I loved being read to as a child, and still do, in a family-informal-whatever setting. Except by my husband who thinks reading out loud is blitz warfare.

It's great to have all these different resources, but I do dread losing my "old" kindle. It's so much lighter too than the fancy new ones with all the bells and whistles.

I don't really think anyone can "prescribe" for another's eye problems. Some people find a contrasting yellow paper helps them to see black print, for example, but I personally have a real problem with bright yellow as it dazzles me. That's also the problem with illuminated screens, where I have to dim them right down.

Yes, Gill I think your concluding sentence is the right attitude. And also, Genia, to have some books just for their beauty and significance alone :)

I'm actually strongly photophobic. I once played around with polarised contact lenses, but never got fitted for a good pair to see how well they do for glare - people report though that they help. I know people who are dazzled indoors (malls, department stores, etc') and that can happen to me too, and they say the lenses do great, but they changed my eye colour to brow which was just spooky.

Anyway, I thought that I wouldn't do well with iPads for that reason, because they are backlit, but to my surprise that seems not to be the case if I keep the brightness on a reasonable setting (halfway down or so) and the "paper" white. Not a prescription of course, just my own experience.

And I like my old Kindle better than the new one that we bought for one of the birthdays, so I keep using it (when I use a Kindle) and my gadget-loving spouse took the new one for himself.

Genia - Look into "Irlen Syndrome". It's perhaps not a suitable forum to discuss in depth here, but you may find their tests and subsequent prescribed lenses helpful. Because of all the different shades, combinations and depths of saturation, there are hundreds of options. I am not recommending them, just drawing your attention to the theory and research. I had Irlen lenses (made and sent from America) for years, although not now.

Yes, repetitive supermarket displays, patterned carpets and tiles, railings, blocks of flats, staircases, cobblestones - people think we are mad...

Oh, gosh, sorry, I know what I've got - I'm an albino. Type II OCA, to be specific. Photophobia is part and parcel of lack of pigment in the retina, as is macular/foveal hypoplasia. We've all got reduced visual acuity - usually quite significant

The clinic I am with offers a lot of options in a vein similar to what you've brought up. Polarised and tinted lenses, tinted contacts, etc'. I wear chameleon lenses on my glasses now, they become sunglasses when I step outside, or else.

But no, photophobia and reaction to flickering lights and weird patters are absolutely a thing. We're definitely not mad. We're just slightly eccentric.

Learning how to use audiobooks took time. I am more visually oriented than auditory. I see this when I learn a new language. I usually joke that if I can learn how to use audiobooks, anyone can! I see the words in my head rather than hear them. I simply find it too difficult even to read large print books. Sometimes the Kindle is too little; sometimes I can manage. I just tried to reread a large print copy of The Phantom Tollbooth....and it was just too difficult. I thought maybe I could.

Given our specific eye illnesses, different reading alternatives are best. It is extremely interesting to hear about all the different alternatives.

:) Eccentrics rule! :D

I agree, eye problems vary. My father had damage to one eye, his pupil wasn't round, it was tadpole shaped and the the inside was apparently a mess. His other eye tried to compensate...which didn't work that well. He wore one contact lense and special glasses. He always struggled to read normal print size books. We won't use audio and he is technophobic so a kindle is out of the question.

By the way I'd love to interview any low vision reader or author to highlight the challenges and solutions. I ran a couple of blog posts about it last year. I think it is important to inform people about the issues, and any solutions found.

Jean, re large print books. Despite that large print is meant to be 16 points, the two large print books I have are in fact only 12 points. Which is a bit of a shame, because I could really do with 14. One is published by Chivers.The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss but isbn 9781445858333. Incidentally I'd recommend it.

The other is Embers isbn 037543235 published by Random House.

Is there a way of searching a book on Goodreads by isbn number?

Just to say I've just heard back from Amazon and have got the refund on my supposedly largeprint book (re my comments on fiction thread). So that's something anyway.

This is very curious! My guidance from the partially sighted society is quite old, but some of the books I buy are brand new. 9781445 is a large print prefix. (978 just means a book apparently. It's the next 4 numbers that tell you.)

All the Chivers books I have are 16 point Plantin, and most say in the front of the book. Does yours say 12 point? That sounds awful. I think I once had a 14 point from Isis, but it was so densely spaced that I could not manage. Plantin is a nice wide font.

Jean wrote: "This is very curious! My guidance from the partially sighted society is quite old, but some of the books I buy are brand new. 9781445 is a large print prefix. (978 just means a book apparently. It'..."
It just says Large Print inside the front.
It doesn't say 12 point, but I've measured it, just to check. 4.5mm it was published in 2010.

Chivers has gone bankrupt :( I knew I shouldn't have got up this morning.

So no more quarterly mags of Large Print books at special deals. It was the only publisher I knew who dealt directly with individual customers. All the others are geared up to libraries and you have to plead over the phone...

It had been taken over by AudioGo. Other names they published under were Thorndike, Paragon, and Galaxy (children's). There's still a company in North America for the children's part but I can't find any details. I think Random House took them over in the end, so perhaps this is why the proper designations are not being used. Perhaps I'll get onto the RNIB about it, but they are keener on newer technology nowadays.

We still have Ulverscrioft (18pt), Charnwood which is part of Ulverscroft (16pt) Isis (varies) and W. F. Howes all of which publish proper Large Print. There's also one called something like "Read How You Like" which produces all the different points stated clearly on the front. I don't personally like the feel/handle of their books though. And quite often you need to buy a book in 3 or 4 volumes.

And occasionally second-hand imports from USA and Canada.

14 George Gissing, New Grub Street Read Audiobook
15 George Eliot, The Lifted Veil Read Audiobook
16 George Eliot, Felix Holt Reading now Audiobook

16 George Eliot, Felix Holt Read Audiobook
17 Anthony Trollope The Two Heroines of Plumplington Read Audiobook
18 Wilkie Collins,  Two Destinies Reading now Audiobook

I have listened to 21 audiobooks since my last update, so I am not going to list them all!

Wow, Leslie! It takes me ages to get through one! :D

Jean wrote: "Wow, Leslie! It takes me ages to get through one! :D"

Well, many of them are YA or children's books so they go pretty fast.

Maybe you could just mention one now or then if it's a particularly good reading?

18 Wilkie Collins,  Two Destinies Read
19 Anthony Trollope,  Kept in the Dark Read
20 Margaret Oliphant, The Open Door Read
21 George Eliot,  Scenes of Clerical Life Reading now

Yes, but everybody can use an audiobook!

Every book I have read this year, except I think one that was on Kindle, have been audiobooks. I think it seems silly to rewrite them all here so if one is interested in what I read on audiobooks you can look here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

The list is in a a thread here in the group where we can collect all the books we read each year.

In my reviews I always mention a bit about the narrator of the audiobook, but I rate the books not by the narration but by the written book's content. In my list I state how many stars I gave the book and provide a link to my review. Each reader is different, so another reader may react differently! I do try and explain WHY I have reacted as I have.

Kara wrote: "Low Vision.. isn't that for people who wear glasses?"

No; technically that's for people who have low vision even after they wear glasses.

But I won't stop anybody from participating.

Jean wrote: "Maybe you could just mention one now or then if it's a particularly good reading?"

Jean -- I didn't mean that I would stop listing altogether (I love lists too much for that!). But 21 was a bit long even for me.

In November I listened to the following audiobooks:
78. The Odd Women by George Gissing (Librivox)
79. several shorts: Masked Ball at Broxley Manor; The Legend of Sleepy Hollow; Click-Clack the Rattlebag; The Playground (all freebies from Audible)
80. Nothing with Strings: NPR's Beloved Holiday Stories by Bailey White (Tantor)
81. Rotters by Daniel Kraus (SYNC)

First audio book ever!!!! I'm a bit late to the party but have just started on the audio version of Dracula and enjoying it so far. It's a re-read so I already know I love the story and I think it works really well as an audio book as it's told through a range of first person accounts via diary entries, letters etc. and the version I have has a whole cast so there's a different narrator for each character! Am excited for Van Helsing's appearance because he is voiced by Tim Curry :)

Enjoy Laurel! I love audiobooks myself. They save me from going crazy on my work commute! :)

Laurel wrote: "First audio book ever!!!! I'm a bit late to the party but have just started on the audio version of Dracula and enjoying it so far. It's a re-read so I already know I love the story an..."

That is an excellent way to start Laurel! Tim Curry is a great van Helsing but I thought all the narrators did a good job in that audiobook.

I finished 2014 with several audiobook short stories: The Playground by Ray Bradbury; The Snow Queen by Hans Christian Andersen; an anthology of holiday stories called More Favorite Stories of Christmas Past; and Christmas Eve, 1914. I also re-listened to Vanity Fair...

I think that I will restart my numbering for the new year, so
1) The Three Musketeers, narrated by John Lee (source: Audible)
2) The Vicar of Wakefield, narrated by Tadhg (source: Librivox)

Finished my first audiobook:
Mrs Wood, East Lynne
sterted my second
Mary Elisabeth Braddon, Fenton's Quest

Leslie wrote: "Laurel wrote: "First audio book ever!!!! I'm a bit late to the party but have just started on the audio version of Dracula and enjoying it so far. It's a re-read so I already know I lo..."

Yes I'm really enjoying it :)

Technically, t'ain't low vision if it's correctable to normal. but don't look at me, I don't work here. :)

Kara wrote: "I got a question. I'm blind without my glasses so it's pretty much considered low vision. Does it count when I try to read a book without my glasses on?"

I will just paste the first post here as there are probably many who are unsure what this challenge is about.

"February is AMD/Low Vision Awareness Month in the U.S., which inspired this theme. The 'Low Vision Awareness' Theme challenge is to listen to an audiobook or read a book available in large-print (you do not have to actually read the large print edition but the book must be available in this format to count).

Hopefully participating in this challenge will increase awareness of what options are available to those with macular degeneration or other vision problems. If you inquire about large print editions or audiobooks at your local library, it might help build demand for these items as well. "