I’ve been seeing these crazy debates online about how people don’t always consider audiobooks to be real reading.

It makes me a bit sad because I think it’s amazing that stories can become more accessible through audiobooks.

It’s great that Pagebound has a feature to log audiobooks! It makes me want to try one for the first time, I just don’t know where to start.

Would you consider more comic style books or Webtoon stories to be real reading too? I’m really curious!

Casually strolling when I stumble upon Jason Pargin's page (aka David Wong, author of John Dies at the End and othe books) where he's explaining that several books have been changed to update the pop culture elements.

Edit to add this post covering the Kindle "Modernization" already on the forum and full of very good points

He uses Pretty Little Liars as an example, when the line went from "Come watch Fear Factor at home tonight" to "Come watch this tiktok at home tonight" here is the link of his video He's much more articulate than me about why reading old references in books is still part of the journey, but I'm also flabbergasted at the thought process of even changing references.

Is the publisher thinking that a book that did quite well will suddenly be dropped cold because it mentions something outdated ? Years ago there were "emoji version" of Shakespeare plays (this did kill something in me at the time) and it feels like the same idea : readers can only understand and appreciate what is immediately known. No time for looking up a reference, no time for learning to just roll with a vague reference that isn't even that important in the context. And as Jason says, it even makes no sense. Changing a reference from decades ago for a more modern one might not work because the world is different and modern readers will raise a brow at the absurdity of the situation described.

Are we really dumbing down books ? Is the plan to make it impossible to have something last and span over decades and become itself a reference ?

I kind of struggle to write reviews immediately after finishing a book because I have to sort out my thoughts first but at the same time I tend to struggle with finding the time to do them at a later point. How do you guys tend to do it? Is there a middle way? Do you write down your thoughts elsewhere so you don't forget when its time for the review? Do you do it immediately after finishing? Sincerely, a girl looking at a backlog of 15+ reviews to write and feeling paralysed by it.