K-Pop Demon Hunters/First apartment tool kit/Charting wholeness

Recomendo - issue #474

Fun animated musical

For lightweight family-rated summer entertainment, try K-Pop Demon Hunters. It is an animated musical fairytale in the manner of Shrek or Frozen, but with Korean-American characteristics. In this fantasy, the battle is over fans, who are the scarce resource. Catchy K-pop songs score the fast action, which also delivers an emotional payoff. The film streams on Netflix, and is getting a lot of attention. It’s the meme source for this summer. — KK

Perfect first apartment tool kit

I got this Workpro Home Tool Kit as a gift for a relative moving into his first apartment. We used it to assemble flat-pack furniture, mount a TV, and install blackout curtains. The 12V cordless drill/driver, bits, wrench, pliers, level, utility knife, hammer, and tape measure handled everything we encountered. I’d add a socket set to round it out, but the kit contains all the essential tools a first-time apartment dweller needs. Everything stores in the included tool bag. — MF

Charting Wholeness

This chart, “A Guide from Pain to Presence”, explores how human expression changes when it is a reaction to past loss, future fear, or present discomfort. It also offers alternative expressions that stem from wholeness and embodiment. For example, personal boundaries may become forms of control or avoidance when motivated by past loss or fear of uncertainty, but when rooted in wholeness, boundaries express a healthy authority based on inner clarity. The language can be a bit jargon-heavy, but I find the framework helpful for shifting from old, anxious patterns to more intentional and grounded action. — CD

A creative follow

My favorite current New Yorker cartoonist is Roz Chast. I love her whimsy, childlike drawing, inventiveness, and silly sweet humor. But she creates more than cartoons. On her Instagram page, she posts weird painted eggs she makes, her marvelous embroidered dreams, her arrangements of Japanese matchboxes, her block prints, her photographs of New York shops at night, and more. It’s the most refreshing definition of being creative. I get inspired every visit. — KK

Smart scale for easy health tracking

My old bathroom scale was giving inconsistent measurements, so it was time to get a new one. I wanted something inexpensive, highly rated, with an easy-to-read LED display, and that could sync with my Apple Health app. The Fitindex Smart Scale checked all the boxes. The scale measures up to 400 lbs in 0.2 lb increments and runs on included AAA batteries. — MF

50 Ways to Unplug

The Analog Life: 50 Ways to Unplug and Feel Human Again offers a great list of practical ways to go old-school and become less screen-centric. I love the advice to use devices that do one thing well, such as an e-reader, record player, or kitchen timer. My crystal radio—tuned to one station and one station only—is one of my favorite and most nostalgia-inducing possessions. All these tips help to reclaim a more intentional, analog way of living—like allowing days to go unaccounted for and enjoying experiences without feeling the need to document them. — CD

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08/10/25

Gar’s Tips & Tools – Issue #202

Access to tools, techniques, and shop tales from the diverse worlds of DIY

Top-o’-the-Top Modeling Tips

I’m so happy to see my modeling articles in the latest issue of Make:, the “Props, Models, and Miniatures” issue. I did a piece on “trashbashing” (making hobby models out of kitchen trash) and a collection of modeling, painting, and weathering tips. Bill of Bill Making Stuff has a wonderful sidebar in there, too, with his own trashbashing and modeling tips. These articles present many of my top-level takeaways on modeling for tabletop gaming. Here are a few tippy top tips:

One Brush to Rule Them All — New modelers get sucked into the idea that you need half-a-dozen different miniature-painting brushes, from sizes 0, 00, 000, down to ridiculously small ones like 20-0 and 30-0. These brushes have so few hairs that, by the time you introduce the paint to the model, it has already started to get sticky and dry. It’s best to learn how to use a single brush to do the majority of your miniature painting work. A Windsor & Newton Series 7 Size 1 brush is a perfect go-to brush. Use the very tip of it for fine detail work, apply more pressure for medium coverage, and even more pressure for full coverage. It’s made for water colors, so it can hold a lot of paint. It just takes practice to master. Keep it scrupulously clean and pointed, and it will serve you for years.

The beauty aisle is your friend — There are all sorts of tools and materials for modeling to be found in the drug story beauty aisle (or beauty supply stores): nail polish agitators (paint mixing), nail polish racks (hobby paint holders), fluffy make-up brushes (dry brushing), nail polish remover (acetone), cotton pads and plastic cotton swabs, and much more.

Chop up and recombine — In my trashbash piece, I talk about developing an eye for seeing models in your trash (and how I turned a single crudites platter into a derelict sci-fi outpost town). In Bill Mullaney’s sidebar, he talks about further developing your ability to see specific shapes or textures within those pieces of trash. You don’t have to use the piece as-is. You can cut-up and recombine. Super glue and baking soda go a long way to “welding” all of these recombined pieces together.

Quick lens and canopy effects — Painting a lens or glass canopy white and then glazing it with a colored glaze or art ink of a suitable color (blue, yellow, red, green, etc.) effortlessly creates a pretty convincing glowing lens effect.

Micro-pens for eye pupils (and other tiny details) — You can use fine tip India ink pens to add pupils and other super-fine details to models.

Use art pencils and art chalks — Edge highlighting a model can be hard and takes a steady hand. One way of cheating this is using art pencils. You can draw on edges and raised areas to introduce highlights. Just be careful not to scrape off the underlying paint with the pencils. Cheap art chalks can be ground up and used for dirt, dust, mud, rust, and other weathering effects. Just wear a mask when grinding and applying. That dust is not your friend.

DIY Precision CA Glue Applicators

In more hobby news, this video offers a number of really great tips and tricks for using CA glue in model-making (and beyond). The real aha tip for me is the idea of making your own precision super glue applicators by stretching the barrels of plastic cotton swabs (there’s that beauty aisle again). Plastic stretching is a modeling skill unto itself. I can’t wait to try this out.

Impressive Guide to Woodworking Screws

Joseph of Five Duck Studio presents one of the best primers I’ve ever seen on wood screws. It’s practical, funny, clear, and no-nonsense. He breaks down why not all screws are created equally, how the tip, thread, shank, and head each play vital roles in the screws engineering, and why things like cam-out, wood splitting, and screw “jacking” happen. You’ll learn why drywall screws are woodworking’s guilty pleasure, when to pre-drill, and how to avoid crushed fibers or failed joints. Bonus: He introduces the “screw with the mullet.”

The big takeaway: When in doubt, pre-drill. When you don’t, you’re gambling with your time and materials.

Engineering… IN MY MIND!

Well, I guess this issue has taken on something of a modeling theme. I’ve been working on a trashbashed spaceship for the tabletop miniatures game, Stargrave. There are dozens of non-trivial construction issues to resolve. It’s covered in weird angles, and there are structural challenges and constraints imposed by the scrap materials I’m working with. I’ve been finding that most of the design work isn’t happening at the bench. It’s happening in my head, while in the shower, going to sleep, taking out the trash, etc.

This mental workshop, where aha moments happen before the glue ever hits the scrap plastic, is a place of true joy and discovery. It’s quiet, recursive, sometimes obsessive, and deeply satisfying when a plan comes together. By the time I sit down to build, my hands are just catching up with what my brain has already figured out.

Concealing Layer Lines in 3D Prints

Via Donald Bell’s Maker Update comes this clever video about how to design various textures into your 3D prints to hide the tell-tale layer lines of FDM 3D printing.

Shop Talk

Tips & Tools readers join in the conversation.

Michael Butler writes:

Sadly, this doesn’t work on typical amber prescription bottles, but works a treat for OTC meds like Tylenol and other granular things with the “safety sealed for your protection” sheets stuck on top. Use a utility/X-Acto knife to remove half or less of that sheet, and voila, you limit how many pills get dumped out at a go. I find this handy in general and suspect it’d be especially helpful for people with certain mobility limitations or difficulties such as tremor. I know it helped me when I was recovering from a stroke.

My old Make: colleague, Michael Colombo:

I saw the piece about Japanese hardware stores in your newsletter, and it reminded me of this piece just released in the New York Times about French hardware stores. I thought it may be of interest to you.

***

Hal Gottfried sent a link to this piece by Mike Smith, on his journeys through ham radio. I like Mike’s emphasis on the idea that ham radio is less about chatting and more about learning, tinkering, and building resilient systems that work when the internet doesn’t.

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Consider a Paid Subscription

Gar’s Tips & Tools is free. But if you really like what I’m throwing down and want to support it, please consider a paid subscription. Same great taste, more cheddar to help keep me in Walrus Oil. Plus, I’ll occasionally pick paid subscribers at random and send them little treats, tools, or tip-related treasures.

Your support keeps this whole Rube Goldberg contraption lovingly cobbled together and running…smoothly (enough). Thank you!

Special thanks to Hero of the Realm members: Jim Coraci, Donobster, Peter Sugarman, and Will Phillips for your generous support.

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Gar’s Tips, Tools, and Shop Tales is published by Cool Tools Lab. To receive the newsletter a week early, sign up here.

08/8/25

RyanAir Bag Spies/Kuhl Sun Hoody/Bike Route Planner

Nomadico issue #165

Incentives for Hitting You With Extra Bag Charges

In case you didn’t have enough reasons to hate Ryanair, the Irish budget carrier added a big one this month. It turns out they’ve been handing out bonuses to their employees for flagging your bag that doesn’t slide right into the sizers. The employees who are definitely not “at your service” aren’t getting much for ratting you out at the gate—€1.50 per oversized bag. That seems like a stingy commission on gate fees that start at €75. Another report said that EasyJet is doing the same but paying the employees even less.

Sun Hoody for Skin Protection

I never enjoy slathering my whole body with sunscreen and the goop comes with a lot of baggage, like water contamination, questionable chemicals, nanoparticles, and high prices in foreign vacation destinations. It fills a need, especially at the pool or beach, but often swim shirts and sun hoodies can accomplish the same thing. I’m especially liking the one I packed for California and Florida this summer: the Kuhl Engineered Hoody. It’s lightweight, cool, and odor-resistant. Plus it’s flattering on my non-gym-rat body so if you’re more pumped up, it’ll look fantastic. Get it direct at that link or at REI.

Veloplanner for European Bike Routes

If you’re planning a road cycling trip in Europe, you might want to check in on Veloplanner to see what the routes and distances are like. Although more limited in scope than hiking sites/apps like AllTrails and Wikiloc, there’s a helpful depth of information on established rides, from a one-day circle around Lake Balaton in Hungary to the 1,101km Ciclovia del Sole where “cyclists will climb 9,275 meters and descend 10,103 meters.”

Paying Tolls in a Rental Car

In this age of virtual toll scanners you drive right past or under, it’s easy to miss a toll you’re supposed to pay when you’re in a rental car in the USA. Mark F. from sister newsletter Recomendo highlighted a hack via The Toll Roads website that works for southern California, but unfortunately there’s no universal solution for other geographies. The best I’ve seen is this Uni device that works in 19 states and will cover you up the entire East Coast except for South Carolina, which doesn’t have many toll roads to work around.

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A weekly newsletter with four quick bites, edited by Tim Leffel, author of A Better Life for Half the Price and The World’s Cheapest Destinations. See past editions here, where your like-minded friends can subscribe and join you.

08/7/25

What’s in my NOW? — Cat Milton

issue #219

I have many grey hairs, each symbolizing a career: photographer, writer, hypnotist, AI consultant, media strategist. Despite being an introverted recluse, I’m driven to share the “good stuff.” Living quietly in the north of Ibiza, I find happiness in solitude, surrounded by nature, wind, sun, and silence. — Cat Milton

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PHYSICAL

• Amazon Kindle Paperwhite: I was stuck in a helluva queue the other day—one of Ibiza’s biggest hardware stores, peak summer. Our tiny island of 142,000 residents suddenly swollen by 3 to 5 million tourists, with infrastructure snapping under the strain. Queues like this? A full-body test of patience. I grinned, reached into my bag, pulled out my Kindle Paperwhite—and got lost in Every Time I Find the Meaning of Life, They Change It.
• Anker Soundcore Space A40 Earbuds: Cicadas start singing above 28 °C—these days, they’re at it before sunrise. By the time I step out to work the land, the heat’s brutal. Sweat streaks white on skin and clothes. Even ears sweat. I like to catch up on podcasts while I work, but most earbuds haven’t survived my summers—until the Anker Soundcore Space A40s. Brilliant sound, unbeatable battery, and sweatproof enough for Ibiza. Bonus: noise-canceling so good, I forget the cicadas exist.
• Apple iPad Mini: Each morning, I check messages from friends around the world—fellow animal carers, often living alone and off-grid. These check-ins matter. If something went wrong, the animals would suffer. So we message morning and night, sharing news, stories, and quiet reassurances. I press play on my iPhone, pick up my iPad Mini and Pencil, and scrawl notes as I listen—fast, paperless, and grounding. It’s the first of many ways I use my iPad Mini each day—for journaling, photo edits, and staying connected. But it starts with knowing my friends are safe. And letting them know they’ve been heard.

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DIGITAL

• Routinery: We wear a lot of hats—family, work, home, life admin, pets, plans, people. It’s a lot. For me, it’s also six-plus projects a day. A schedule built for burnout—if not for Routinery. Designed for ADHD brains (mine isn’t), it’s hands-down one of my favourite apps. My day starts in it—make bed, feed pets, make coffee, write—and ends in it. Every time block, every task. No wobbling plates, no dropped balls. Just flow.
• Readwise: I read eBooks and paperbacks, annotating like a magpie hunting gold. When I find a nugget—a line that lands, a thought worth keeping—I don’t toss it aside. I store it in Readwise. eBook highlights sync instantly; paperback quotes I type in by hand. Revisiting what once stopped me in my tracks is one of the best parts of my day.

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INVISIBLE

“Do the next right thing the right way.”

My life is built upon two guiding principles. The first—impossible to achieve but wonderful to aspire to—is “To help; not to harm”. But in moments of overwhelm, of doubt, of confusion, “Do the next right thing the right way” steers me true.

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08/6/25

Coloring DC / Digital Painting Techniques

Issue No. 78

DC REPRINTS THE CLASSIC BATMAN/HARLEY QUINN STORY MAD LOVE AS A COLORING BOOK

Coloring DC: Batman: Mad Love Featuring Harley Quinn
by Paul Dini (author) and Bruce Timm (illustrator)
DC Comics
2016, 7.5 x 11.5 x 0.4 inches (softcover)

Buy on Amazon

Over the past few decades the dynamic duo of legacy comic book companies, Marvel and DC, have introduced hundreds of new characters. Most have failed to catch on (sorry, Adam-X, the X-Treme!), and while recently many new characters have garnered acclaim and small cadres of devoted fans, the new Ms. Marvel and Prez have yet to become the next Wolverine.

2016 has seen two major breakthroughs that may pave the way: Marvel’s Deadpool and DC’s Harley Quinn. Both were created in the 1990s and have suddenly become the superhero equivalent of rock stars, with T-shirts and tchotchkes available at every Target and Hot Topic in America. One of them even has their own make-up line (I’ll let you guess who). My dad in his 70s now knows these characters, which I find equally amusing and eye rolling.

Which brings us to coloring books. Okay, maybe not directly, but the ascension of Harley Quinn as a character and the recent popularity of coloring books for adults has created a perfect storm, and now we have Coloring DC – Batman: Mad Love Featuring Harley Quinn, a coloring book written and drawn by her creators Paul Dini and Bruce Timm. This oversized tome contains a few extra stories of DC heroines and villians on the undercard, but the prime material is a reprinting of the terrific Harley story Mad Love.

While she was originally created for Batman: The Animated Series, no story has defined her as much as Mad Love. Her origin as both a gymnast and psychiatrist is laid out, her love for the Joker in all its complicated (and icky) glory is explained, and most importantly it showcases her as a real character. She’s not a sidekick, she’s not the Joker’s girlfriend, she’s someone who’s been searching for something and now that she thinks she’s found it she’ll do anything (and kill anyone) to get it. Oh, and there are fights and piranhas and Batman being smart and everything else you could possible want in a Batman story. There’s a reason it won the Eisner Award (the comics’ equivalent of an Oscar) and is still being reprinted more than 20 years later. The story is fast-paced, funny, exciting, and disturbingly sweet. It’s the perfect Harley Quinn story and it’s fun to read.

One thing about Harley is that she can comfortably fit in a story for kids or adults, even if she sometimes sports lingerie (“It’s just her pajamas,” I told my nephew). Kids can enjoy Harley and the Joker’s antics and Batman’s heroics, while adults can read the story and understand the sadness and sickness that lies beneath it and makes the Batman world such an oddball creation. Plus with this version you get to color it!

I haven’t colored anything since I was maybe 10 so this was a new experience for me (my son is a year old and hasn’t quite developed enough Crayola patience), and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. Even quickly scribbling in colors made me appreciate Timm’s smooth lines and minimalist artwork. He can define body language and convey attitude with the merest of curves. No line is wasted and no line would improve it. It’s amazing work and getting to savor the panels through coloring gave me even greater appreciation for the art of comics and the talent of Bruce Timm.

Even if you’ve read this story I highly recommend experiencing it a different way. There’s no racing from speech balloon to speech balloon, no jumping through panels to get to something that caught your eye as you turned the page. You can slowly pour through the book and experience what I think is easily one of the best Batman stories (plus you’ll soon realize how incredible the work of a comic book colorist can be and how much skill it takes). There’s no escaping Harley Quinn this year, so succumb to her charms, grab a box of crayons, and test your coloring mettle against a great story. You’ll have as much fun as Harley and Mr. J blowing something up for no good reason, I guarantee it. – Rob Trevino

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DIGITAL PAINTING TECHNIQUES – ART TUTORIALS BY MANY DIFFERENT ARTISTS

Digital Painting Techniques: Masters Collection Vol. 1
by 3dtotal
Focal Press
2016, 288 pages, 8.8 x 11.2 x 1 inches (softcover)

Buy on Amazon

At first glance, Digital Painting Techniques appears to be a step-by-step tutorial book. It is … in a way. This isn’t a follow-along/how-to-draw book where you copy what you see. Rather, it introduces you to both the techniques and styles of many artists and the steps that they take to accomplish goals. It’s really more liberating this way – you’re free to work on any subject matter while still following along with the tutorials.

Digital Painting Techniques focuses on essential basics like creating custom brushes, speed painting, creating environments, nailing key human characteristics, integrating photography, and more. Some of the artists have even provided free resources (brushes, images, and artwork) that can be downloaded from the Focal Press website for free.

Filled with more than just great tutorials, the book is filled with inspirational artwork that will get your creative juices flowing. The only downside is that you will want to try to replicate the artwork, and then you will feel discouraged when it fails to meet the same quality as the original. For this reason, I highly recommend applying the methods and techniques to your own original creations. This book is for beginner and intermediate digital painters, and great works of art are not going to come pouring out of the computer right away. But, with some practice, you can be on your way to creating your own unique paintings and illustrations. – Robert Nava

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Books That Belong On Paper first appeared on the web as Wink Books and was edited by Carla Sinclair. Sign up here to get the issues a week early in your inbox.

08/5/25

Audio Books

Tools for Possibilities: issue no. 149

In praise of listening

Audio Books

Whenever I overhear a complaint of someone’s long time-wasting commute I want to whisper into their ear, “It doesn’t have to be that way. You can read books while you drive! You won’t want to stop.” By “read,” I mean listening. Audio books aren’t new, but they aren’t as common as they should be. What a shame because the selection of books available for auditing continues to expand, their relative price continues to drop, and the devices they can be heard on continue to increase. Over the past twenty years I’ve read, oh I suppose, hundreds of books this way. And I am not alone; audio book fans are legion. Here’s what I know about how to maximize this great medium.

1. Being read to is a pleasure. Hearing a book instead of “watching” it can be a powerful experience.
2. Start with a good story. If you have never listened to an audio before, pick what you know is a good tale to begin with. You can always get to that self-help or executive summary later. Try the Pulitzer-winning novel Lonesome Dove for amemorable treat.
3. If at all possible choose an unabridged version. The unabridged is how the authorwanted you to get his/her story. One of the delights about audio books is that they are far more leisurely (reading aloud takes longer), so you can exploit this pace by getting the full undiluted version. I consider these a second choice abridgedversions a second choice.
4. However if a book is only available in an abridged version, it can still be enjoyable.Very rarely, it can be better. Cyberpunk author William Gibson actually prefers the abridged audio version of his book Neuromancer. Occasionally I’ve deliberately chosen an abbreviated version because I just didn’t want to sitthrough the long edition. Still, a book worth reading is usually worth the original text.
5. Avoid dramatizations. These were in vogue for a while but luckily they’ve mostly disappeared. More than one person acts out the dialog, but the histrionic tone usually turns a book into theater. There is something incredibly satisfying about having one voice (with accents and drama, yes) continue through the work.
6. Narrators matter. I have learned to never listen to an author read his own work, no matter who. (Other avid audio book listeners may disagree.) A professional narrator can make all the difference between a book that sings and one that dies. Good narrators can pronounce technical and foreign names exactly, and oftendo accents properly. Their voices don’t waver or dull. But the wrong narrator can pollute a book. I will return a book if I find the narrator’s voice makes me wince. Conversely, if I notice a great narrator I will now seek out the other booksthey have done. Narrating is a very laborious process and good narrators are in top demand, so they won’t invest their time in a mediocre book. Half the spell of a book is cast by the narration.
7. With that in mind, sometimes a narrated version of a book is actually better than reading it. A great example of that is the Harry Potter series. I have no hesitation in saying that Jim Dale’s narration of Harry Potter is better than reading it. (If you want my best candidate for a book to start out, pick any Harry Potter book and listen to it; Get Dale’s narration who is British but did the American edition). Dale performs something like 120 different voices for the series and each character voice is absolutely perfect. He makes an already remarkable series of books fantastic. Two other books that were better listening were Shantaram and Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Again, the narrators got the accents of their characters more exact and colorful than my reading ear could have. Russian novels are often improved by audio because they can get all those Russian names and places perfect.
8. Over the years I’ve found that the best books for auditing are either fiction or history. I still audit a lot of nonfiction, but fiction and history work best for me. Both have deep narrative structure. I choose more and more history now because I realize that I don’t have the patience to read history, as in using my eyes while staring at the page. The captured-audience nature of listening (can’t skip easily) demands that I follow the course all the way through. And I’m usually glad I did. So most of the history I read now, I actually audit. Happily, there are a lot ofgreat historical audio books.
9. Having a parallel printed copy of a book can help alleviate one of an audio book’s primary weaknesses: there’s no way to bookmark a passage. Stewart Brand, another audio book fanatic, will usually keep a hard copy of the text in book form handy so that he can mark sections he wants to refer to later. I don’t do that but Isure wish I could bookmark stuff. The Kindle is becoming integrated with Audible books so you may be able to do this in the future.
10. You have a choice of channels. If you still have a CD player, there are plenty of CD audio books around. There are cassette versions for the free taking too. Most folks listen to audio books on a phone or digital player which can be connected to your car’s audio system with a standard phone jack or wireless connection.
11. Auditing while driving is not dangerous. I don’t know how it works but you can be completely engrossed in a story, while the other you somehow drives at your top skill. It’s not the same as talking on a cell phone. Works best if you know exactly where you are going, like on a commute. Doesn’t work if you have to navigate; you’ll miss a turn for sure.
12. Borrow or buy? Public libraries often have a selection of audio books on CD or cassette or for download. I use our interlibrary loan system to get almost any audio book I want if I am willing to wait for it. You can get free audio booksfrom LibriVox (review below). Or you can purchase them from Audible (see details below).

Where to start? Let’s see; this summer my wife and I (on separate commutes) listened to War & Peace, all of it. Great book, great narration. Took three months, but worth every second. Adventures like The Perfect Storm and Into Thin Air are just right. Robert Hughes’ history of Australia, The Fatal Shore, listened well. Occasionally I throw in some lightweight mystery or technothriller. Right now I’m auditing the Odyssey and the Iliad. You get the picture. Traffic jams are just story-time extenders. If I’ve got a good book, and someone to read, I’ll go slow and learn something. — KK

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Satisfying audio books

Audible

Audio books are fantastic. Download them to your phone, or borrow them from your local library. I’ve audited several hundred books so far, all while driving. I listen to all kinds, light and heavy, fiction and non-fiction, short and long. More and more this is where I get my serious reading done. If at all possible I listen to the unabridged version. If fact my most memorable audible experiences are listening to long deep audio books. The longer the better.

Audible is the central depot for audio books. They don’t carry every audio book, but they carry the most (100,000), and they have the best interface for selecting, pre-viewing, ordering. Since this is an Amazon company they also offer a service that will sync your Kindle version of a book and your Audible version (you need to purchase both versions), so you can switch from reading (in a home) to listening (in a car) without losing your place! I like Audible because they also allow you to “return” a book for a refund if the narrator — or the book! — doesn’t agree with you.

You can buy individual books, but the best deal is monthly or yearly subs at about $15 or $10 per book. Here are a few suggestions of long books that seem to appeal to most people if you want to get started. For the long books I prefer professional narrators over the author’s voice. — KK

Fiction

• Shantaram (Amazing unbelievable immersive vivid journey into the slums of India.)
• Lonesome Dove (Wished it never ended. Pure story, unforgettable characters.)
• War and Peace (I tried many times to read it, but couldn’t get going. Listening was the answer.)
• Harry Potter series (Better than either the movies or reading the books. Narrator Jim Dale does 135 voices.)
• Assimov’s Foundation series (Classic science fiction saga that still works.)
• Atlas Shrugged (The only way you can get through all of John Gault’s monologue.)
• Life of Pi (A boy and tiger in lifeboat. Unconventional, unorthodox, unexpected delight.)
• Pillars of the Earth (Historical fiction about building cathedrals over generations.)

Nonfiction

• The Discoverers (How knowledge triumphed over ignorance and invented everything.)
• 1491 (This will change your mind about American natives and history of the continent.)
• 1493 (Same author, will change your mind about African slavery’s role in the Americas.)
• Short History of Everything (Much more enlightening and enjoyable than I thought it could be.)
• God, Country and Coca Cola (About drugs, FDA, and the invention of advertising. And Coke.)
• Peter the Great (A biography of Russia through one man.)
• Into Thin Air (A surprising, page-turning, mind-bending adventure up Mt. Everest.)
• The Looming Towers (Essential deep origins of Osama Ben Laden vs. the US.)

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Free, user-generated audio books

LibriVox

Last year I took a cross-country road trip with my 10-year-old daughter, and we were greatly entertained by the free public domain audio books available from LibriVox, an online forum which connects readers (as in those who voice the text) to books, then makes the resulting audio files freely available to all. The library is strictly public domain material, but is very extensive. Most of the books we listened to were read by just one person (“going solo”), but readers can volunteer for individual chapters of books in progress. We listened to The Prince and the Pauper, The Mysterious Island, The Wind in the Willows, Five Children and It, and several selected poems and short stories. (Kudos to Timothy Smith for The Mysterious Island — a tour de force!). Online coordinators organize the readings, which are generally excellent. Some readers provide wonderful voices for each character; some simply read the text. The books are available for download from the website, or can be downloaded via iTunes, which we did and then listened to from the iPod in the car (note: using iTunes, the files are stored as separate podcasts with a separate podcast per chapter; when you download the .mp3 file from the LibriVox website, it is listed not in audiobooks nor podcasts, but as a LibriVox ‘song’). This really is a wonderful public service. It’s not as easy to be a good reader as you may think! If you want to contribute, the website includes a FAQ on how to record and prepare the audio file for submission, including links to free recording software and instructions on adding ID3 tags for the iPod. My daughter is enchanted with the concept, and has since volunteered to read chapters of Raggedy Ann Stories. — Paul Goessling

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08/4/25

What’s in my NOW? — Cat Milton