Zevaro

📚 2026 reading goals

My main goal this year is to read more in other languages and less in my native English

Reading is the best way to improve at a language; so, I need to stop being lazy with it.

Minimum goals are to read at least:
20 🇮🇹 books, 20 🇵🇹/🇧🇷, and 3 🇨🇳
#booksky #langsky #storygraph

The golden age of language learning books was 1940-65. The quality was so high. Almost every series from Berlitz, Cortina, Teach Yourself, etc, were excellent.

I don't know what went wrong. Most books today are total trash—even when made by the same companies.

#LanguageLearning #booksky

I always start with the 1930/40s era 'Teach Yourself' language books in conjunction with the Anki flashcards app.

Once I am done with that, I'm around a B1-ish reading level.

Then I grind through an Ebook of Harry Potter book 1 with digital tools to assist me.

After I am a firm B2 reading level.

Letter 213
This perfectly sums up who Tolkien was.

What is with people trying to conflate language?

The verb 'to read' literally does not mean 'to listen'.
You don't read an audiobook — you listen to an audiobook.

You can say 'I finished that book' — you can't say 'I read it.' Words have meaning.

It's really not that difficult, people.

"I am in fact a Hobbit in all but size. I like gardens, trees, and unmechanized farmlands; I smoke a pipe, and like good plain food (unrefrigerated), but detest French cooking..."

― J.R.R. Tolkien
Letter 213

The 1st Ebook I ever read was on my iPhone4
At the time I didn't believe in Ebooks. I thought it could never be the same. One day I decided to try it. I felt friction but at some point magic happened. I fell into the story, the phone borders vanished, before I knew it, the book was finished
#booksky

I just came across this tiny E-reader that attaches to your smartphone.

I guess the idea is it's really portable & wherever you go w/ your phone, you also have an e-reader.

It's a cool idea. I feel like it's too small, but I did used to read ebooks on my iphone4.

#booksky Thoughts? Worth a buy?

“If you read just one book this year, congrats — you’ve read 100% more books than the average person.”

#booksky

In the epic 16th c. poem 'The Lusiads' by Camões, there is a great & horrifying passage about sailors becoming ill w/ a terrible disease (scurvy) on long voyages into uncharted waters.

Below are two versions:
Penguin classic (prose)
Bilingual Portuguese & English (poetry)

#booksky

The epic 16th c. poem, 'The Lusiads' by Luís de Camões is my favourite read of 2025

From the Portuguese POV, it tells the tale of their achievements & discoveries, sailing into unknown oceans

Camões begins by invoking the muses, & plays with greco-Roman mythological allegory thoughout

#booksky

You have to add your other languages in your StoryGraph settings page.

Then when you add a Spanish edition of a book it should show on your stats page.

I find it interesting to see preferences of dialogue markers in other nations:
🇺🇸 "Hello," he said
🇮🇹 «Ciao», disse
🇵🇹 — Olá — disse
🇬🇧 'Hello,' he said
🇨🇳 他说：“你好.” (He said: "hello.")
I feel we shouldn't let our own language rules limit our creativity — all rules are made up after all
#writingcommunity

Amazon's Kindle peaked w/ the 4th gen (2011).

It's thinner & lighter than modern kindles. It has physical page turn buttons, you can jump between chapters with the left & right d-pad, and you can hold it without turning pages.

Most importantly — it has no ads!

Every gen after is worse.
#booksky

Sure. Some readers have legitimate preferences. I just find the most strongly opposed and flippant about e-readers are non-readers.

They're the ones that like, 'ew, no! I would only read a real book' (this is despite them not reading single book since they left school)

Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that most of the people who boldly say, “I don’t like e-readers, I prefer paper — there’s just something about it,” don’t actually read at all? They don’t even read paper books, yet they’re very opinionated about Kindles and Kobos.

#booksky