Idlesmith.COM | I’ve heard many people tell me,’you read too much! Go to work!’ Which leads me to this question: does reading books mean you’re idling?
I got it. I got it. We need to make time to read books. You have your free time, you sit on the couch, tuck yourself under a thick blanket and start reading book, with a mug of hot chocolate on the table. I got it. Reading books can be considered an idle activity. You sit there for hours doing nothing. But let’s face it: we’re there in the couch, but we’re somewhere else! We’re in another world, another life.
So, if reading books means idling, let’s idle correctly! On here, I’ll discuss about the books I’ve read, but also Netflix movies, and cozy places to go for book lovers.
"Reading is like dreaming with open eyes. I find myself in another world like I'm a time traveler. Reading is like vacation without a vacation."
About Me
I love to read since I was a kid. But growing up to be a wild teenager, reading was just not in my daily life anymore. In 1999, my parents, my sister and I finally decided to move to The Netherlands, after being raised in Indonesia. Kidding! I didn’t decide. My parents did. I started a new study, and although I did read books, I didn’t read every day. In 2017 I bought a device without ever realizing what it would do to me. It was a Kobo. I bought it not because I wanted to enhance my reading life. Hell no. I bought it because it was cheap. When I opened the package, set up my Kobo, then I realized that all what it did was for reading….and I was like,”hell! Is that all??!?” Nevertheless, I purchased Prince Purple Reign. It’s a biography about Prince the singer. So it also meant that it’s my first ebook read on my Kobo device [it was Kobo Aura 2nd Edition, which I still have til now and it still works!]. And then two years went by without me reading something on my Kobo and it is stored in my drawer. Even when I was on vacation, I didn’t think to bring it with me. It wasn’t until 2019 when I remembered that I had a Kobo. And I also discovered how to subscribe to Kobo Plus. From here, my every day reading journey began. And it did enhanced my reading life. Of course I still buy physical books every now and then, but most of the time, my reading was done on Kobo. In 2020 I bought Kobo Libra H2O as I thought it would be an upgrade: bigger e-reader, waterproof. But as soon as I began to use it, I realized that I had to make sure that my Kobo would fit in my bag. And the bag I wanted to use was not always big. Very often I wanted to use my small bag, but my Kobo wouldn’t fit. In 2022, when Kobo Clara 2E just came out, I knew that I wanted to go back to 6″ e-reader, but also wanted it to be waterproof. Hence I bought it on the release day. And this is still the device I use daily until today. Of course I still use my Libra H2O, but not on the go.
I think that’s enough about reading life. Besides reading, I also love to draw. Every now and then I like to draw on the spot [urban sketching]. But I also draw digitally. I love to write, too. But being trilingual that I am, I often struggle to decide in which language I want to write. Maybe I’ll just use all of the three languages that I know. I plan to write short stories on this site.
physical vs digital
I don’t hate physical books. In fact, I love it. But in term of smelling the pages, touching the nice covers with my hands. Books distract me. I keep looking at how thick I have read or how thick I must still read. The thickness of it overwhelms me. Hence, I prefer an e-reader. Not only I can bring ten thick books in one device, but I like to read in the dark, at night when everything is silent and everyone is sleeping.
Whatever works. As long as you do read it, not just filling your bookshelf with books, right? 😉