(note: the listing of a book here doesn’t necessarily mean that I started the book in this period, merely that I finished it in this period)

• A History of the Middle East by Peter Mansfield (448 pages): Excellent treatment of a gigantic topic.
  
• Birding at Point Pelee by Henrietta O’Neil (224 pages): Fairly good
• Two tactics of social-democracy in the democratic revolution by Vladimir Lenin (238 pages): If I hear the word “Bourgeoisie” one more time…
• By Whose Authority? Elders in Baptist Life by Mark Dever (50 pages): Concise–but great!
• The Puritan Hope: Revival and the Interpretation of Prophesy by Iain Murray (326 pages): Don’t agree with everything–but must admit it is well-researched, compelling in what it attempts to establish, and inspiring.

This places the running total for books completed in 2011 at 5.

I’m now finished 21% of the books which make up my Q1 (Jan-Mar) goal–and Q1 is only 13% done.

I wrote this up a while ago.. Now that I’ve been called out on the fact that I include audio books in my “reading” statics, I’m posting it with a few edits. 10 theses as to why I consider consuming audio books to be legitimately reading:

Firstly, when I read 5 paper books and say “I’ve read 5 books”, the critical fact, in my opinion, is not that my eyes have passed over the various ink blotches printed on the paper.   That is a secondary matter of delivery.  The critical fact is that I’ve consumed the contents of 5 books.  Any rightful assessment just has to prioritize the cognitive act. Strictly speaking, there can be reading without printed letters, but there can be no reading without cognition. In my opinion, my eyes could pass over the letters of the book without actually reading it. And likewise, in my opinion, there is a way (ie. audio books or ebooks) in which I could “read” the books is a broader sense without passing my eyes over it on paper.

Secondly, while reading an audio book is not precisely equivalent to reading a print book, the differences are generally in the category of delivery not of cognition. Anti-audiobook advocates often confuse the substance of reading and the accidents of reading. Thankfully none of them have yet maintained that one must have hot chocolate, a sofa, and a fireplace in order to be rightfully considered to be reading.

Thirdly, I would suggest that a modern, 21st century definition of reading in the context of books would be “cognitively consuming a book” (an audiobook satisfies that definition) The anti-audiobook people quite frankly, get into some hot water when they start trying to make their definitions of reading exclusive of audio books. Often, they inadvertently exclude things like braile books that blind people read, etc.

Fourthly, in reality, even the purists who say that only reading a paper page in a book is really “reading” would have to concede that they tolerate huge variation in style of delivery: ie. They consider reading a translation of an author’s book as reading that author.  To apply this to a concrete situation, imagine this:   A anti-audiobook purist sees me listening to an audio book of Nietzsche in his original German and he  says “You’re not reading Nietszche!” because its an audio book. And meanwhile he turns around and reads a translation of Nietzsche into English and thinks he is reading Nietszche. This seems odd.  Who is getting closer to perceiving the words that  Nietzsche actually wrote.  I believe both are reading Nietzsche, although it must be admitted that both are sort of stretching the category of what it means to ‘read Nietszche’.    I’m consistent in accepting both of these as broadly constituting “reading Nietzsche” of sorts, the anti-audiobook purist only accepts his preferred twists in method of delivery.  This inconsistency shows that anti-audiobook purists at least on some level seem to weigh the method of delivery in running eyes over ink blotches on a page over the cognition of the  authors actual words. To which they may retort, it is not the words that are important but the thoughts–which can be translated.  To which I wholeheartedly agree and then suggest that they apply the same leniency to them manner in which the books are delivered. It’s not the form the book comes in, but rather whether the ideas are conveyed cognitively that really counts.

Fifthly, the word “reading” is much broader than we might assume–and many of the uses do not deal with a text written on paper (eg. to interpret music, “What is your reading of the situation?”, “Those photos read with great impact”, “I can read sign language”, to study,  to read a braile book, computers read data, etc.) .

Sixthly, while I agree that it is not entirely precise to term ‘listening to an audio book’  as ‘reading’, I maintain that it is reasonable enough and  since we do not have a nice, popular term to refer to all sorts of consumption of books–I will continue to classify listening to audio books as “reading”.  If “consuming” were in popular use, I’d probably use that.

Seventhly, supposing you had consumed an audio book of St. Augustine’s Confessions. And then someone a year later someone asks if you’ve read the Confessions. Is it really the case, as the logic of the anti-audiobook purist’s logic would suggest, that if you were confined to a yes/no answer, that you’d have to say “no” even though you really in principle have cognitively process the entirety of the contents of that work.   Can one seriously maintain that when someone asks “Have you read the Confessions?” the underlining principle of matter is whether their eyes have scanned the characters on a page (which in any case was not even the page that the esteemed St. Augustine wrote on) rather than cognitively processed the contents of the Confessions?

Eighthly, then the rubber meets the road, when I listen to an audio book, in theory I have perceived the words being presented in the book, I have conceived them in my mind, and I can interpret them, and I can apply them.

Ninthly, is counting audio books withing reading totals cheating? Perhaps in some people’s minds. But I tend to think not. In any case, I suggest anyone who thinks listening to audio books is “cheating” attempt to listen to the 70 hour twists of dialog of Tolstoy’s War and Peace.  Furthermore, anyone who thinks listening to audiobooks is cheating in terms of a “time investment” should consider that the average audiobook speaks at about 150-160 words per minute. Even an auctioneer only goes about 250 words a minute. The average printed book reading goes 250 or so words a minute.   So, the only way one can seriously maintain that audiobooks require less time commitment would be if the person doing the recording spoke faster than an auctioneer. I must say that would be unpleasant.  But someone might say, it’s not the lesser time required that makes it cheating, but the convenience of it. To which I reply, audio books are more convenient to some people, and less convenient to others. It’s a lifestyle thing, and varies widely on a persons schedule, where they are at, what speed an audio book is played at, what genre the book is, etc.  So you can’t use that as your basis of classifying it is “cheating”.     If one wanted to “cheat”, there ought to be far more effective ways to do it than resorting to audio books (like maybe skimming or skipping pages).

Tenthly, I have no desire to question the decision of some people to limit “reading” in their own opinion to activities involving running their eyes over little ink blotches on pages. I enjoy that as much as they do. But, for myself and my reports, I will stick with the more modern definition of reading as “cognitively consuming books”.  As imprecise some may think it is, I have no good term besides “read” to mark an audiobook with. As long as audiobooks are “books”, I will call consuming them “reading”.

• The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien: Excellent. Will re-read!
  
• Sacred Parenting by Gary Thomas: Good, wise advice. Completely different than a “how to” book. Downside: Too much rambling, which bloats about 180 pages of content into 240.
  
• Fluke by Christopher Moore: A little on the wacky side, but well-written.
• Live and Let Die by Ian Fleming: Fun at times, predictable and cliched Bond at other times
• The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck: A gooey, sentimental novel and very self-help-guru-ish–but the story is better than I expected. Maybe he should give up his day job.
  
• Proposed Roads to Freedom – Socialism, Anarchism & Syndicalism by Bertrand Russell: Some interesting analysis mixed with fanciful imaginings. He proposes guild socialism, I say its better than state socialism–but it still smells very foul.
• Vices are Not Crimes by Lysander Spooner: Good tidbits here! Very crucial insights into why vices shouldn’t be treated as crimes (the difference is important).