Driving Time Reclaimed

I always wondered what I would spend my time doing if a) I didn't have to sleep and b) I could reclaim all of the hours I have spent in a car. Well, as far as the former goes, Modafinil looks promising; almost tailor-made for late-night coding. As for the latter, I am making heavy use of audio books and the results, at least to me, are unbelievable. Just take a look at my 2008 reading list.

As of today, April 24th (in case you are traveling back in time from the future), I am just finishing up reading LINQ in Action and Code: The Hidden Language of Computer Hardware and Software. Both of these, of course, are tree-based. With a book like Code, I will take my time with it and read it normally. So far, it is my favorite book this year, so I want to cherish it. Now, with something that is technology-specific like LINQ in Action or Professional WPF Programming, I will speed read it. Technical books contain fluff. I know it, you know it. I like to peruse the table of contents taking note of the chapters that I care nothing about (e.g. Integrating WPF into WinForms). Then I will move through the book reading just as much as I need to in order to comprehend. When I recognize fluff, like a 2 page listing of namespaces used in LINQ, I will skip it. When I see something I already know, I skip it. I will take the time to type in code, however, because I think this is integral to the learning process.

In the audio book department, I am just finishing up the last few chapters of Brave New World, which is read by Michael York...you know Logan, from Logan's Run. I really like how he pronounces khaki as karky. Anyway, it will have taken 4 days to listen to the book by the time I am done. Large books take around 10 days. Oh, I should also point out that I am able to retain much more information when I listen to an audio book. I am certain this is because I can't absorb the material any faster than it is being read. When I read visually, I tend to summarize move through books very quickly...for better or for worse.

Prior to Brave New World, I read (listened to) Pride and Prejudice, and decided to stick with the "classics" for the rest of the year, and possibly beyond. I have essentially decided to pull a Sean Connery, and give myself an education that would make any English major proud. In addition to listening to books in the car, I also listen to them when I workout, so I think that my reading list will be quite large by the time December rolls around.