I don’t read anymore.

Every now and then I would binge-read – Steven Brust‘s Jhereg series, David Eddings’ Belgariad, J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings. But I stopped reading new stuff when I moved to California 12 years ago.

I can’t blame television, as I’ve slowed down on that, too. For years the only things I watch were Mythbusters and soccer. In 2018 I realized it had been over a year since I even turned my TV on except to watch movies on DVD or Blu-ray, so I canceled my cable.

Some of that I “blame” the internet for. While I don’t read or watch TV, I do watch podcasts. I enjoy several science-y video channels (Vsauce, Veritasium, Smarter Every Day, Because Science), science/goofy (SloMo Guys), video games Battletech (TheB33f, NGNG) and video games World of Tanks (Quickybaby, Mighty Jingles). There is also the “Mr Money Mustache” finanical blog, which helped convince me to retire early. As my body started telling me to stop playing soccer I picked up team base online video games – which took my reading time.

But the theme of this cruise is writing, so I decided to fill my kindle and bring a bunch of the dust-covered books with me. I knocked out three of the physical books in a week:

• Your Money and Your Life, by Robert Aliber
• A Random Walk Down Wall Street, by Burton Malkiel

I’ve had these on my bookshelf for years, but it was good to go thru them and understand some of the economic theory. Of the two I suggest “Random Walk”. I really like the chapters that help explain (or at least describe) past economic break downs.

• The Time Traveler’s Guide to Medieval England, by Ian Mortimer

While in college I practiced medieval re-enactment, and for some reason the book popped up in my Amazon suggestion list. A great reminder of life before forks, buttons and pockets were invented.

I have dozens more to go, and Silversea just gave us a book by the guest of the second leg of the world cruise, A Long Way Home by Saroo Brierley. I need to be back to it.