iPhone Audiobook App Comparison

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Alas, my flip phone’s inner screen is broken. I decided to cut my losses and buy a refurbished iPhone 13 Mini. This means I needed to figure out which iOS audiobook app I want to use. I scoured the internet to come up with a list of potential audiobook apps and then made a spreadsheet to compare features. All these apps were tested on my iPhone 13 Mini which is currently running iOS 18.1.1. Carplay was tested on a 2018 Subaru Impreza. Below are my thoughts on the apps.

Audience

iPhone users who

  • Want to read a long post about iOS audiobook apps
  • Want to use something other than Apple’s native iBooks app
  • Own non-DRM audiobooks from places like Libro.fm (i.e. not Audible) 1
  • Want the audiobooks locally on their phone, not in the cloud, for situations when internet access is spotty
  • Don’t want to run their own media server2.

Audiobook Apps

I downloaded 10 audiobook apps but had to exclude two because they were no longer functional. I’ve listed the remaining eight audiobooks below in order of preference. However, we all have slightly different audiobook needs so my favorite may not be yours. In my view, the two best audiobook apps are BookPlayer and MP3 Books. Both can be downloaded for free to compare functionality. If you like the functionality of MP3 Books best, I recommend paying the small one-time fee to upgrade to the Pro version. If you plan to use BookPlayer, you can contribute to the optional tip jar.

Important: To my knowledge, none of these apps work with DRM content. This includes audiobooks bought through Audible and Apple.

BookPlayer

Screenshot of BookPlayers Library interface.

Book list

Screenshot of BookPlayer playing an audiobook.

Playing an audiobook

Price

  • Free for most features
  • Optional Tip Jar to show appreciation
  • A subscription is required for some beta features including Cloud sync

Pros

  • Regularly updated
  • Good UI
  • Very configurable
  • Multiple ways to import books
  • Easy to batch-add M4B and zipped MP3 audiobooks
  • Ability to search audiobook collection
  • Great organization options for large collections
  • Can retrieve the embedded audiobook cover or replace with a custom cover
  • Optional Auto Sleep Timer
  • Excellent Carplay features
  • Voiceover support (not tested)

Cons

  • No Wi-Fi upload
  • Sleep timer doesn’t pause when the book is paused and movement doesn’t restart the sleep timer
  • Not easy to batch add audiobooks made up of multiple MP3 files

BookPlayer is an excellent audiobook app. The organization options are one of its biggest strengths. While multiple apps, including this one, have the ability to search for audiobooks, this is the only app that offers the option of nested folders. It allows me to group my books by authors and then by series. So, if I want to easily browse all my Bujold books, I go to my Bujold folder, and then choose either the Vorkosigan Saga or the World of the Five Gods folder. In addition, within the folders I can drag the books to the order I want them to appear. This is particularly useful when you have BookPlayer’s AutoPlay toggle turned on which automatically goes to the next book in the list. If I finish all the books in the Vorksigan saga, it’ll start playing the first book I have in my World of the Five God’s folder. In addition, BookPlayer has a select feature that lets me organize multiple audiobooks at once rather than one-by-one.

For me, one of the most exciting features BookPlayer has is its optional Auto Sleep Timer feature. This restarts the sleep timer whenever playback is started again until you explicitly turn the sleep timer off. This means that if I don’t fall asleep before the first sleep timer expires, I can simply tap my earbud to start the audiobook again, without needing to open my eyes, and it will remember I want the sleep timer to engage again. It looks like this is a new feature as of 2024 and I am very excited the developer added it. The sleep timer does work a little differently than in the Android Smart Audiobook Player. In BookPlayer, it doesn’t pause when the book is paused and it seems to be a global setting. That is, the timer continues to count down even if I switch to another book. This works fine for me but may be a problem for others. One other really nice feature of the sleep timer is it fades before stopping completely. It’s a shorter fade than I had for Smart Audiobook Player. However, it’s smooth enough that I don’t wake up from the sound suddenly stopping.

BookPlayer’s CarPlay experience is also excellent. Most of the apps I tested had some basic CarPlay functionality if I started the audiobook playing from my phone. However, very few of the apps let me open them from the car’s screen. On long drives I might want to easily switch from my podcast player, or Libby app, to my personal audiobook collection without stopping the car and BookPlayer makes this very easy. In addition, there are an amazing number of options while playing audiobooks. Besides the basic pause and skip buttons (both short skips and chapter skips), you can also choose tracks from a menu, add bookmarks with one touch (there is no annotation option in CarPlay mode), boost volume, and change playback speed.

Picture of BookPlayers CarPlay screen.

CarPlay

For me, the biggest downside to BookPlayer is how it handles multiple MP3 files for the same book. To be fair, this is something that most audiobook apps seem to struggle with. If you try importing multiple individual MP3 files for multiple books at the same time, you either have the choice to leave them all ungrouped or to group them as one audiobook. Either option could require significant cleanup after the import. Copying a folder, zipped or unzipped, does work but unlike Smart Audiobook Player you can’t choose which folder it ends up in ahead of time3. When batch importing, it’s best to either stick to M4B or organize MP3 files into individual audiobook folders before importing.

MP3 Audiobook Player

(also called MP3 Books)

Screenshot of MP3 Players book list

Book list

Screenshot of playing an audiobook in MP3 Player.

Playing an audiobook

Price

  • Free with ads for books under 12 hours
  • $1.99 to remove ads
  • $3.99 for audiobooks over 12 hours
  • $5.99 one-time for everything above and more (Pro)

Pros

  • Regularly updated
  • Decent UI
  • Many advanced features
  • Many supported file-formats
  • Multiple ways to import books
  • Easy to batch-add M4B and zipped MP3 audiobooks
  • Ability to search audiobook collection
  • Can retrieve the embedded audiobook cover or replace with a custom cover
  • Graphical overview of listening statistics
  • Optional always on sleep timer

Cons

  • No organization options4
  • Couldn’t play from CarPlay screen
  • Cannot manually reorder individual MP3 files within a book
  • Minor things don’t always work as expected
  • Free limitations are annoying, but cheap to remove

Both MP3 Audiobook Player5 and ListenBook, its sibling app, are the most configurable of any of the apps I tested. They’re created by the same developer and have similar functionality so unless I say otherwise, all features I mention are relevant for both. The developer mentions they listen to audiobooks all the time and it shows in both of these apps. Almost every setting can be customized. For example, the auto-rewind customization has different settings for very short pause, short pause, and long pause.

As you can tell, sleep timers are near and dear to my heart and this sleep timer can be extensively customized. In addition to the typical duration options, like BookPlayer the sleep timer has an optional setting to be “Always Enabled”. It also has a setting for automatic volume control which can reduce the volume as the sleep timer runs out. Unfortunately, this reduced volume is persistent so if you start the audiobook again, it starts at the reduced volume. One really nice set of sleep features this app has is several “restart timer on” options. For example, you can have it restart the sleep timer when the phone moves and even set the shake sensitivity. The timer also pauses when you pause the audiobook. Like BookPlayer, the sleep timer is persistent regardless of which book you’re listening to.

This app has a number of advanced features that BookPlayer doesn’t. It has a nice graphical statistics page that displays how long you’ve been listening in the app and includes a separate page with detailed info on your listening history. MP3 Player also has advanced sound quality settings. When choosing the universal audio engine you also get an equalizer option. This app also works with the widest range of audiobook file types: MP3 (tested), MP4, AWB, OPUS, OGG, FLAC, AWB, AAC, WMA, M4B (tested), and M4A.

Screenshot of MP3 Players statistics page.

Statistics page

Screenshot of MP3 BookPlayers Active Audio Engine, Boost volume, Playback speed, and Equalizer.

Sound options

For me, the biggest downside of MP3 Audiobook Player is that it doesn’t have robust organization options. In addition, the Always Enabled sleep timer didn’t consistently work for me. The other bug I noticed is when I tried to select the app on my Carplay screen, it would open but the audiobook wouldn’t play. When I started the book directly from the phone, it worked fine and in addition to basic functionality, did allow bookmarking. In the reviews, several people noted that sometimes the app would revert to the “free” version and it was sometimes difficult to restore to the paid version. This was not a problem I had while testing.

ListenBook and ListenBook Pro

Screenshot of one view of ListenBook Pros book list.

Book list: three books per row

Screenshot of the Listen Book Pros detailed book view .

Book list: detailed view

Price

Pros

  • Same features as MP3 Player
  • Additional UI customization options
  • Has a music mode
  • More sound customization options

Cons

  • Same as MP3 Books
  • Expensive compared to most book apps

Listenbook and ListenBook Pro is from the same developer as MP3 Books and the main difference between the two is the user interface and additional customization options. This app has two subscription options: monthly and annually via ListenBook. You can also pay a higher one-time fee by going to ListenBook Pro instead. As far as I can tell, they’re the same app, just different payment options. I bought ListenBook Pro back in 2022 for $4.99 and had no problem installing it on my new iPhone. ListenBook is more expensive than the other options on the list but if you want a long-term option with a nice interface, this may still be a good choice.

Screenshot of audiobook playing on Listen Book Pros.

Playing an audiobook

Screenshot of audiobook playing on Listen Book Pros with expanded options.

Playing an audiobook with expanded control options

Screenshot of audiobook playing on Listen Book Pros with the music setting.

Music mode

As I mentioned above, the look of the user interface is a fair amount different than MP3 Books. ListenBook allows you to view books three different ways: 2 covers per row, 3 covers per row, or a more detailed list. When playing the audiobook you also have more view options. There’s the condensed play view, the expanded play view, and the music mode. The expanded play view allows you to change a number of settings without having to leave the play area. This includes book marks, sleep timer, book/music mode changer, airplay, and sound options. The sound options are where ListenBook has more customization than MP3 Books. It also has the ability to change pitch, enable noise cancellation, convert to mono or change your channel mix, or enable Bauer stereophonic-to-binaural.

Overall, this is a really nice audiobook app and if I didn’t like the organization of BookPlayer more, I would probably use this one.

Bound

Screenshot of Bounds book list.

Book list

Screenshot of Bound while playing an audiobook.

Playing an audiobook

Price

  • $4.99 one-time

Pros

  • Simple but well-designed
  • Regularly updated
  • Handles individual MP3 files well

Cons

  • No search
  • Cannot boost volume
  • Can’t transfer directly from computer via USB
  • Only available in English

This is a relatively simple audiobook that still includes essential audiobook features such as changing playback speed, bookmarks, and a basic sleep timer. It even has a couple of moderately advanced features such as being able to reorder individual MP3 files. In fact, unlike the other apps above, it easily handles importing multiple MP3 files at a time and correctly groups by the audiobooks they belong to based on the file metadata.

However, the app does not have as many advanced features as the other apps above. The lack of a search may be a deal breaker for people with large audiobook collections. In addition, the Web Uploader did not work when I tried it6.

Little Ape Audio Books

Screenshot of Little Ape Audio Books book list.

Book list

Screenshot of playing an audiobook in Little Ape Audio Book player.

Playing an audiobook

Price

  • Free

Pros

  • Simple but nice interface
  • Can organize by collections
  • Handles individual MP3 files well
  • Regularly updated

Cons

  • Fewer features than many apps
  • No search
  • Can’t transfer directly from computer via USB
  • Only available in English

This is a good app if you want something really simple that’s free. Like Bound, it reads the file metadata and correctly groups individual MP3 books together. You can also rearrange tracks if it gets the order wrong. One unique feature is you can add audiobooks to collections and color code the collections. When you look at the audiobook list you can see the collection color to the right of the book. Or you can click the top drop down menu to limit by collection. This app is currently very simple but it’s being actively updated and I wouldn’t be surprised if it gets new features in the future.

CloudBeats: Audio Book Player

Screenshot of Cloudbeats book list.

Booklist

Screenshot of Cloudbeats playing an audiobook.

Playing an audiobook

Price

  • Free for streaming and basic features
  • $9.99 one-time for more features
  • $8.99/year subscription to sync across devices

Pros

  • Designed to directly connect with cloud storage
  • Search
  • Can handle playlists

Cons

  • Fewer features than many apps
  • Carplay seek buttons didn’t work correctly
  • Can’t import files already on the iPhone

This app is only worth considering if you want to directly connect to Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Mediafire, OneDrive, OneDrive for Business, ownCloud, pCloud, webDAV, or My Cloud Home (I only tested Google Drive). In some ways it feels more like a music player than an audiobook player. For example, it supports m3U playlist, you can set tracks to repeat, and remembering playback position is an optional setting.

Audiobook Player SmartBook

Screenshot of Smartbook book list.

Book list

Screenshot of playing an audiobook in Smartbook.

Playing an audiobook

Price

  • 2 Books Free
  • $9.99 for unlimited books

Pros

  • Can boost volume 3x

Cons

  • Fewer features than many apps
  • Was last updated in 2020
  • Some features were buggy
  • Does not display embedded cover from file
  • Free version includes ads

This app hasn’t been updated since 2020. There are better options available.

Audo

Screenshot of Audo book list.

Book list

Screenshot of playing an audiobook in Audo.

Playing an audiobook

Price

  • Basic features free
  • $1.99 one-time

Pros

  • When playing audiobook can see bookmarks and chapter tracks on the same screen

Cons

  • Fewer features than many apps
  • Was last updated in 2020
  • Some features were buggy

This app hasn’t been updated since 2020. There are better options available.

Audiobook Apps That Didn’t Work

I already had Book Mower and Bookmobile from prior years. However, I didn’t include them because the free versions are limited, they were last updated more than four years ago, and trying to upgrade to the full-featured option now returns an error for both apps.

Footnotes

  1. Yes, the library is also a wonderful way to listen to audiobooks. However, we are a book obsessed family. In addition to checking out hundreds of books a year, we also buy a lot of books because we like to own our favorites. ↩
  2. If you are interested in your own media server, take a look at the Prologue/Plex combo. I haven’t tried this myself yet but a lot of people love it. Ars Techica also just ran an article about Audiobookshelf.
     ↩
  3. If you try copying straight into the “Processed” folder, the audiobook seems to be hidden. ↩
  4. When editing an audiobook there is a “group” option but I couldn’t figure out what it does. ↩
  5. The iPhone icon just says MP3 Books. ↩
  6. In its defense, it sound like iOS may be making this more complicated than it use to be. MP3 Books had multiple negative reviews saying the Wi-Fi import option did not work. Though, it worked fine for me when I tried it. ↩

Reading in 2024

In January 2024 I took a reading vacation. It was amazing and I want to do it again. 2025 is already fully booked, among other things I’m going to Worldcon in Seattle, but maybe I’ll be able to squeeze another one into 2026. Because of the reading vacation, I finished 18 books (5,491 pages) in January. I read the fewest books in May (4 books/1,356 pages). Even though I started January off strong, I read 14 fewer books in 2024 compared to 2023 but only 283 fewer pages1.

Half of my books were science fiction and/or fantasy but mystery was my second highest genre. I had trouble finding science fiction I wanted to read this past year. I like reading escapist science fiction and, understandably, a lot of the science fiction right now is pretty depressing. The opposite of the depressing fiction is cozy SFF but it often falls flat for me. After some thought, I believe my very favorite plot is cranky (or angry) person goes on a rampage2 and ends up making the world a slightly better place.

Here are my StoryGraph stats for 2024. Speaking of StoryGraph, this year I started logging when I started a book in addition to when I finished the book. In addition, just last month StoryGraph added a “paused” feature that I like because if a book isn’t immediately working for me I can set it aside and try again a bit later. This year, I have a goal of rating the books I read. I expect most of my ratings will be pretty high, because I rarely pick up a book unless I think I’m going to enjoy it, but I think it may be interesting to see the distribution.

As far as reading goals for 2025, I don’t think I have any major new ones. 2025 does not seem like a good year to do any stretch goals. However, like normal I am going to try to read the Hugo Award Nominees. In addition, I’ve joined a local book club. They’re picking books that I normally wouldn’t read myself so it’ll provide some interesting diversity to my list. February they’ll be discussing Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen, March There There, and April will be Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table. Of those three, Ruch Reichl is the only author I’ve read before. I enjoyed Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise but just recently gave up on The Paris Novel.

Favorite 2024 Reads

  • I re-read A Deadly Education in January and The Golden Enclaves in October. Remember how I said I like cranky people who make the world a little bit better? That’s describes this series’ protagonist in a nutshell.
  • Book of Night – Holly Black is a very good writer and I thought the premise interesting.
  • Iris Kelly doesn’t Date – A delightful sapphic romance.
  • The Housekeepers – A fun historical heist.
  • Loki’s Ring – Space Opera!
  • Designing History: The Extraordinary Art & Style of the Obama White House – This was a bit different than the normal interior design books I read but it was really interesting. There were all sorts of tidbits I learned such as that the oval office has three sofas in rotation because nervous visiting guests tend to leave sweat marks on the sofas and they have to be cleaned often. Also, this book definitely invoked a bit of nostalgia because I miss having a president who has a yearly recommended reading list.
  • Paladin’s Faith – The fourth in a the Saint of Steel fantasy series. I was particularly fascinated by how depictions of demons in this universe changed.
  • Pride and Prejudice – I got the 2021 edition illustrated by Marjolein Bastin and it’s beautiful. I read a little bit every night right before bed.
  • Soul Taken (February) and Winter Lost (September) – Patricia Briggs writes very engrossing stories. However, I think half the fun of these books is it being set in the Tri-Cities, close to Walla Walla. In fact, in this universe Walla Walla is a fey reservation.
  • Encore in Death (February) and Payback in Death (June) – These days I get a little cranky with the woman marries rich man trope (honestly, I’m a little cranky with rich men in general). Also, Roarke’s help in Eve’s cases is often illegal which bothers me. However, the relationships in this series are wonder to watch.
  • The Deep Sky – Another space opera. I particularly liked the scenes in the ship itself but the flashbacks were interesting.
  • Starling House – I love houses. I can spend hours browsing Zillow house listings so having mystery that revolved so much around the house was a great combination for me3.
  • The Tainted Cup – This had a definite Sherlock Holmes feel to me. It was a good mystery in a very unique world.
  • The Late Mrs. Willoughby (read in March) and The Perils of Lady Catherine de Bourgh (read in August). – Jane Austen inspired mysteries. Both of these I listened to the audiobook versions.
  • The Husbands – This book has a delightfully bizarre premise. The ending didn’t quite work for me but I really enjoyed everything else about the book.
  • Unraveller – This is a YA book but it manages to avoid some of the relationship drama a lot of YA can have. This was a really good story with a lot of depth.
  • The Bezzle – A short book with a lot to think about.
  • Some Desperate Glory – This book took me two tries to read. The first time I put it down after one chapter because I just couldn’t deal with the opening scenario. However, it was a Hugo nominee so I managed to push through and really enjoyed it by the end.
  • Diving the Deep – This series is a bit hit or miss for me. I enjoyed the first and couldn’t get through the third book. This is the second book and it is my favorite of the three I’ve read.
  • The Perfectly Imperfect Home: How to Decorate & Live Well – I didn’t read as many interior design books this year as last which I suspect means I’m feeling a bit more emotionally stable. However, I read and enjoyed this one. It’s published in 2011, which is a bit old for an interior design book, but using drawings instead of photos made it feel fresher.
  • The Wings Upon Her Back – Somewhat similar to Some Desperate Glory, this is the story of a woman who discovers she’s helping the wrong people.
  • How to Become the Dark Lord and Die Trying – There’s been a spate of books recently about evil people who aren’t really evil, they’re just flawed people. This one worked better for me than several of the others I read4.
  • The Unwedding – A multi-layered mystery set in Big Sur. I was reading this in early November when it was still way too hot so the rain in the book was very theraputic.
  • The Luck Runs Out – This mystery series is about the same age as me and is sometimes a bit dated. However, I like Peter Shandy’s personality. I listened to the first book in the series but sadly it appears it’s the only one available as an audiobook so this one I read as an eBook.
  • We Solve Murders – A nice murder mystery.
  • The Dead Cat Tail Assassins – Well written and an interesting fantasy universe.
  • Gather Me: A Memoir in Praise of the Books That Saved Me – Always great to hear someone talking about books.
  1. I really wish I had word counts instead of page numbers, but that metadata isn’t as easy to get. ↩
  2. Sometimes the rampage is metaphorical, sometimes it’s not. ↩
  3. That said, I don’t like evil houses. There seem to be a lot of evil houses in stories and not nearly as many benign or kind ones. ↩
  4. Yes, I probably would have liked Long Live Evil more if I had realized ahead of time it was the start of a series and I had been prepared for the cliff hanger. ↩

Vegetarian Holidays Meals

When Jaeger and I got married we decided to alternate which parents we’d spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with. One year we’d visit Jaeger’s parents for Thanksgiving and mine for Christmas and then the next year we’d have Thanksgving with my parents and Christmas with Jaeger’s. Because of this, I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been responsible for preparing a holiday meal. Christmas this year was one such exception. Initially, Jaeger only got Christmas, not Christmas Eve, as a paid holiday. However, he got both New Years Eve and New Years Day as a paid holidays. To maximize his vacation time, we decided to get together with my parents the week after Christmas1.

My Family’s Holiday Meals

Growing up Adventist vegetarian2, we didn’t have a consistent main entree. I recall various options such as Baked Fri-Chik (one of my favorites) and Cottage Cheese Loaf. A couple of years my mom made a Roasted Vegetable Platter which I particularly liked3. I also remember at least once mom made some sort of soy loaf in the shape of a turkey. I don’t remember anything about how it tasted other than it was impressive looking and a lot of work.

While the entree wasn’t consistent, there were some sides that regularly showed up. We always had a relish tray that usually had carrots, red peppers, black olives, and pickles (dill and sweet). While mom generally preferred dill pickles, the one sweet pickles she would eat were the ones her mom made4. We also always had Potato Refrigerator Rolls. The other common sides were Candied Sweet Potatoes5, Five-cup Salad, and Cranberry Salad. We usually had mashed potatoes and gravy but I recall the gravy wasn’t considered particularly important. For desert we’d sometimes have apple pie but as we got older we often just had Christmas Candy instead.

Jaeger’s Family’s Holiday Meals

Jaeger also grew up vegetarian but I feel the meals tended to be a bit more standardized than my mom’s. One common entree was Christmas Pecan Loaf with cranberry sauce6. They also always had mashed potatoes with gravy as well as Apricot-Orange Gel7. Another common side was sweet potatoes with coconut and orange juice8. Pumpkin Pie was a common Thanksgiving dessert and Persimmon Pudding was for Christmas.

In addition to Christmas/Thanksgiving, there are two other traditional meals at this time of year. On Christmas Eve Jaeger’s family has Cheese Fondue and on New Year’s Eve they have Chocolate Fondue. This is a tradition that I have enthusiastically embraced.

Christmas This Year

This year we had Thanksgiving with Jaeger’s parents and he was able to eat most of their traditional holiday dishes. When deciding on dishes for Christmas this year, I tried to mix in a bit of my family’s traditional food with some experiments thrown in for fun. Per Jaeger’s family’s style, on Christmas day we only had two meals: brunch around 10am and dinner around 4pm.

Christmas Eve Supper

  • Sicilian Lentil Soup with Pasta – We actually had this as very late lunch/supper appetizer. We had eaten a late breakfast so I made up a pot of lentil soup as a meal between the late breakfast and fondue to try to add a little healthy food to the day.
  • Cheese Fondue

Christmas Brunch

  • Masala Chai
  • Freshly squeezed orange and pomegranate juice
  • Earl Grey Cardamom Buns – Most people I make my family’s Sweet Rolls/Sticky Buns for love them. However, it turns out that my own children do not. These Cardamom Buns are a nice compromise that the whole family enjoys. Though, next time I think I’ll use my mom’s dough and this recipe’s filling and syrup.
  • Persimmon Pomegranate Fruit Salad – This is a beautiful seasonal fruit salad. Persimmons are in season here in Santa Cruz and I think pomegranates just ended. The lemon in the recipe came from our lemon tree and the apple came from our CSA. The mint was also local, I picked it from our pot. However, I didn’t particularly like the mint in the salad and will probably leave it out next time.
  • Cheese Souffle – I do not like the taste of egg. However, the rest of my family is less egg adverse so I made it for them. Jaeger definitely liked it and Julian didn’t hate it.
  • Potato Rosti – I used too much butter (didn’t measure properly) and it didn’t turn out as pretty as the picture in the recipe. However, this still tasted good. I did serve this with ketchup because I like ketchup with potatoes

Christmas Dinner

  • Veggie Lentil Wellington – This was an experiment and it turned out very well. Because we’re not vegan, I did substitute the flaxseed and water for an egg. I also left out the chestnuts, because I knew Julian wouldn’t like them, and pureed the vegetables to make them disappear more. To save time, I used Trader Joe’s Steamed Lentils (in the produce section). My one gripe with this recipe is it doesn’t specify how much salt to use. I used 1/2 tsp which seemed about right. Also, this recipe must be served with gravy of some sort or it will be too dry.
  • Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes – I didn’t pay enough attention to this recipe and didn’t end up with enough time to roast the garlic. However, the flavor was still good. That said, 2 lbs of potatoes made less mashed potato than I was expecting. There was enough for the four of us but we had to stick to a moderate serving size.
  • Gravy – Since I don’t like mushrooms, and neither do the kids, I left them out and sauteed onions instead. For Jaeger’s sake, I sauteed up some mushrooms on the side so he could add them back in.
  • Quick Glazed Carrots from How to Cook Everything – they were fine
  • Potato Refrigerator Rolls – Next time I need to remember to make the rolls larger. I think I was taking “walnut-sized” too literally, the balls definitely should be larger.
  • Broccoli – So there would be a vegetable I knew Julian would eat
  • Pigs in a Blanket – When I asked what people wanted for Christmas, Julian was the only person who spoke up and he said he wanted vegetarian hot dogs. I did not want to have hot dogs for Christmas dinner so I compromised on vegetarian Pigs in a Blanket. Julian enjoyed them.
  • Five-cup Salad – Since no one was expressing preferences, I decided I could bring back a nostalgia item from my family’s meals. I’m quite sure Julian has never had this and he was delightedly incredulous that this was considered a salad rather than a dessert. Jaeger was scandalized, associating this with a fair number of dubious 80s food inventions. However, I looked it up and it appears the first variations (Ambrosia salad) may have been created in the late 1800s. My mom always made this with Cool Whip but I used regular whipped cream and it turned out fine. The marshmallows were a trickier issue. I looked in five grocery stores for the vegan mini-marshmallows and several of the stories normally stocked them but were out. Eventually, I cut the larger marshhmallows into 6 pieces each and dusted them with powdered sugar to keep them from sticking together.
  • Raw Beet Salad – This was probably the least popular dish on the table. The main reason I added it was because we had CSA beets that needed to be used up. However, my family might have liked them better if I had roasted them instead of making them into a salad. The salad tasted fine, just not to my family’s taste.
  • Sparkling Apple-Grape – I feel like Martinelli’s is the official fancy Adventist drink. However, they’re also based less than 30 minutes away from us so it feels especially appropriate
  • Peppermint Chocolate Ice Cream Pie – Calvin in particular is sad to no longer get snow in winter so I felt a cold dessert would be appropriate. Unfortunately, I could not find peppermint ice cream anywhere so ended up making the peppermint ice cream9 from scratch.

Footnotes

  1. Ironically, the company CEO ended up giving him the entire week of Christmas off with pay but we didn’t know that was going to happen until December, after our plans had already been made. ↩
  2. I feel Adventist vegetarian is mostly cultural with with a dash of health reasons thrown in on the side. As a result, growing up we ate Jello and regular marshmallows and didn’t think anything of it. However, as I got older, it was hard enough to explain to other people what vegetarian was without also explaining the weird exceptions that had been grandfathered in so I now also avoid those foods. ↩
  3. It uses fresh herbs which was a revelation. ↩
  4. This might be the sweet pickle recipe though I’ve never made them. ↩
  5. Weirdly, it doesn’t look like I have a copy of this recipe from my mom so my best guess is she used the recipe in her Better Homes and Gardens New Cook Book. ↩
  6. I believe the recipe comes from the back of the cranberry bag. ↩
  7. These days most of the family cooks no longer use gelatin so we’ve come up with a modified vegan version. ↩
  8. This is another sweet potato recipe I seem to be missing. ↩
  9. This is a Philadelphia style ice cream which I feel lets the peppermint shine better than a custard-based ice cream. ↩

Update: Flip Phone

Update

Unfortunately, the inner screen on my phone is intermittently failing. I took it in for service and they found a very tiny imperfection on the hinge1 that they say voided the warranty. The person I talked to said it would cost about $350 before tax to fix. However, I don’t trust that it won’t break again in three months. At this point, I think I’m going to switch back to an iPhone and just deal with having a separate device for my nighttime listening. It’s too bad because I really liked the phone while it still worked reliably.

Original Review

It’s been two years since I bought my Unihertz Atom L phone. It was certainly an interesting experience but the lack of security updates meant I really needed to get off of it. My concerns around possible tarrifs pushed me into looking for something new sooner rather than later.

iPhone Options

I strongly considered going back to an iPhone SE or a refurbished 13 mini as they still seem to be the best small phones available. Like before, what stopped me was I could not find an audiobook app that has a sticky sleep button2. I really tried to find an iOS app that would work. I tested fourteen of them and none of them had a persistent sleep feature.

Unfortunately, this meant an iPhone wasn’t a good choice for me unless I wanted to go back to having a dedicated phone for sleeping. This is fine when I’m home but not ideal when I’m trying to travel light.

Android Options

*sigh* Well, mainstream Android companies clearly don’t believe in small phones. I spent so much time trying to find anything reasonable that was truly small. Android Authority has an article about The best small Android phones you can still buy in 2024 and they include the Pixel 9 which is 6 inches high (152 mm). My tragically small pockets do not make that a reasonable size.

With reluctance, I started considering flip phones. I really didn’t like the idea of having to open up a flip phone every time I had to use it. However, once I started looking at the modern flip phones I realized they have a screen that can be used when folded. Currently, the best flip phone options I could find are the Motorola Razr Plus and the Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6. Exactly which one is better depends on which review you read and what exactly you want it to do. The Motorola phone is significantly cheaper and everyone agrees the front cover display is better. The Samsung has an overall better build and also offers 7 years of security updates.

While I felt I had a good feel for the actual specs, I wanted to touch them to see if I’d really be ok with a flip phone. The Sunday after Thanksgiving we flew back to California and after supper that night I ran to my local Best Buy to try out the phones. It was a little hard to compare them because the two phones were grouped apart from each other and the Motorola had a much clunkier security tether on it. This is particularly problematic when you’re trying to get a feel for if you like the size and weight. However, while the Motorola had a bigger screen, it wasn’t super noticeable when they weren’t side-by-side. The bigger difference is that Motorola automatically allows all apps to appear on the cover whereas with Samsung you have to install a special (Samsung created) app. However, I was able to play YouTube on both front covers to get a feel for how an app might work on a small screen.

Eventually, I decided to go with the Samsung. It felt marginally better in my hands and the security updates were a pretty big lure. I went home and did some last minute waffling before placing my order for the 256 GB version3. This is officially the most expensive phone I’ve ever bought ($850 pre-tax). I really hope it lasts for many years.

Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6: First Impressions

It’s a good phone. It has none of the weird quirks that the Unihertz phone had. My Do Not Disturb allowed my emergency contacts through flawlessly. The pre-installed apps also mostly seemed to Just Work. In addition, the battery is fine without me having to go do a lot of power optimization.

That said, I have more privacy concerns with this phone. For example, the default camera app will not open unless I allow it Nearby devices permission4. They say this is so it can capture sound from Bluetooth devices but I should be able to use the app even if I disallow that ability. To make things worse, Samsung doesn’t let me change the default camera app to something else that doesn’t require that setting. I really want my phone to have the option to lie to the apps installed and just send them fake data when they insist they need some specific permission. This is the most annoying, but not the only, example where I think the phone is trying to be too social with its environment. I spent multiple days going through every setting on this phone and revoking every permission I thought the app didn’t actually need. There were a lot.

This phone also comes with fancy AI which . . . well, I think AI is over-hyped at the moment5. It might have some potential in the future but I have both privacy and reliability concerns. The review I read about the AI made it sound more like a toy than anything actually useful. I’ve turned off all the AI features I can find.

With all that complaining out of the way, I still would buy this phone again. The flip form factor is working much better than I expected. As I mentioned above, Samsung requires an add-on to use most apps on the cover screen. However, once I had it setup, almost all apps work fine on the cover screen. The one exception is the web browser and that isn’t because of the browser, it’s because ads don’t resize to be small enough and end up taking the entire screen real estate 6. Here’s some examples of how they look (ironically, these images may appear bigger than the actual screen which is a 3.4-inch screen):

Screenshot of an audiobook player controls. All the basic audiobook controls are displayed including a play button, faster forward, position, and sleep timer. It also shows us that this is in the Willis-Connie folder and is in the middle of To Say Nothing of the Dog.

Here’s what Smart Audiobook Player looks like on the cover screen.

A screenshot of a social media post. It shows a cartoon figure of a white woman and says @kieas@sfba.social. We see there are 5 messages, 7 following, and 21 followers. The post is from December 1 and says Headed to the airport. Hopefully our trip home is smooth. Below are icons for reply, boost, favorite, bookmark, and more options. At the very bottom of the screen is a small square and a small back symbol.

How the screen looks when reading social media.

One other interesting aspect of the phone is it can work as its own stand.

Photo of a flip phone slightly open in a tent shape sitting on top of a cartography book. We can see the front screen which is showing a post by @cats_rio@sfba.social which says Look I'm busy. It's still on my list but have you seen my schedule? So much lounging to do. Those sunbeams won't chase themselves. And then shows a link.

I’m still getting use to having a flip phone but so far it’s working out better than I expected.

  1. Jaeger can’t see it when I point it out. ↩
  2. I want the sleep timer to automatically activate every time I hit play. This allows me to wake up in the middle of the night, tap my earbud to start the audiobook, and then have the audiobook automatically stop at 15 min all without me having to open my eyes ↩
  3. I really wanted the 512 GB version but I couldn’t really justify the price difference since on my current phone I’m comfortably under 256 GB. ↩
  4. In Android 11 this was bundled with the location permission, so it’s good this has been pulled out. ↩
  5. I am particularly irritated when companies shift their developer time from creating useful features to creating AI “features” to make the stock sexy. ↩
  6. This was a problem I also had on my Unihertz phone. The screen was a bit bigger so it mostly worked but some websites were mostly unusable on that phone, which I took as a sign I shouldn’t use those websites. ↩

My New Range!

The Search

In 2021, when we moved into our current house, I fulfilled my long-time dream of having two ovens in my kitchen. I had always envisioned the ovens being double wall ovens but one range and one wall oven also worked perfectly well. Both the range and the wall oven were top-tier appliances but they were 20 years old. Just a few months after buying the house the wall oven died on Jaeger’s birthday, right after his cake finished baking. Long story short1, more than a year later I was able to fix the wall oven. Everything was fine for about 11 months and I was excited to once again have two working ovens. Then, in September of 2023, I deep cleaned the range and killed the oven. I don’t know exactly what happened but my best guess is some liquid leaked down into the electronics and shorted something out. The oven kind of worked for several weeks after that but it clearly was on its last legs.

I felt both chagrined I had managed to kill the oven and excited that I finally had an excuse to get an induction range, something I had wanted ever since having a Kenmore induction range2 in Colorado. Then, I made an unpleasant discovery. Our range was in an island and it uses a downdraft range hood. This meant that the electrical (and gas) for the range was installed in the middle of the floor underneath the range.

The range has been pulled out from the island and we are looking down at the floor. There metal electrical conduit, a gas line, and electrical and gas hookups awkwardly in the middle of where the range usually is.

My old range was a pro-style dual fuel Dacor that had feet to lift it above the electrical outlet. I talked to an electrician and he said he could move the outlet a bit but I might still need to put a new range on boards to get it to clear. I did not think that would look good so this limited my options to pro-style ranges with feet. Pro-style ranges tend to be more expensive than normal ranges and, unless you spend a lot of money, seem to be inferior to the normal mid-range models3. In January, I gave up and Jaeger and I agreed that we could wait to see if better options came onto the market and this would probably be perfectly fine because most people only ever had one oven and two working ovens is a luxury, not a necessity.

Then March came. An excerpt from my A New Computer and a Cake post:

Saturday morning I woke up early and nervous because it was Julian’s birthday party day. I went downstairs to make muffins for breakfast and then discovered I had too little sugar for the cakes I was planning to make while the muffins were baking. It was still very early, and everyone else was still in bed, so I rushed to the store to pickup sugar. I got back and mixed up the muffin batter. I went to put the muffins in the oven and discovered that my oven was broken.

We ended the day with a very good toaster oven but while I was willing to go from two to one oven, I was not willing to permanently use a toaster oven for all my baking needs. So, my search for a replacement range started in earnest again. When I gave up in January, the Bosch HIS8055U was the only pro-style range with feet that was (barely) a price I was willing to pay and also seemed to work reasonably well. After some additional research, and additional time to think, I finally decided that was my best option and I should just order it. By this point it was mid-April and Home Depot showed the Bosch on sale (only for 10% but better than nothing). However, I was dubious a Home Depot installer would be able to handle our somewhat unique installation. Jaeger and I talked and decided we’d be willing to pay more to buy from a local appliance store if they could also hook us up with a good installer. To my astonishment, they quoted me a price that was cheaper than Home Depot. Install was extra but the installer did a great job and, two months after Julian’s party, we finally had a working oven again. (Before the installer arrived Jaeger also had to trim our Corian countertops a sliver on either side so the opening was a true 30″ wide. Personally, I think it looks better now than it previously did because someone had awkwardly chiseled away part of the counter for the previous range.)

Picture of the Bosch range. It's installed in an island. The range has a smooth black top. It has five knobs in front, 2 on the left and 3 on the right on a simply clock and temperature display panel. The light is on in the oven allowing you to see two oven racks through the large oven window.

The Review

This range isn’t perfect but it does everything I need. I’ve had it for a bit over a month and so far every baking recipe has turned out perfect (cakes, crusty breads, muffins, scones, etc). Everything I’ve made on the stove has also turned out well. Though, I find there’s a steeper learning curve for the stove than the oven, even with previous induction experience.

If you must have a pro-style induction range, I think this Bosch range is the best that is currently available for under $5,000. I’m particularly happy with the oven. The large window is great and it’s very easy to see what’s happening without opening up the oven. I’ve mainly been using the basic bake function, it does what I need, but I have used the convection bake a couple of times. I really like that this range doesn’t turn the broiler on to preheat the oven faster (my Dacor did this and I hated it). It is a little slower to preheat but it’s always done by the time I finish mixing up muffin or cookie dough. The time bake works great and I think it is well designed. The print on the knob is hard to read but I now mostly turn it by feel. I really like that you turn the knob and the oven is on rather than entering a temp and then having to press a start button. I do wish it had one more rack, it comes with two, but I guess that’s something to put on my birthday list.

A lot of the reviews complain about the oven fan. Both my old Dacor range and my Thermador wall oven also had fans that come on when baking. It’s not louder than either of those ovens, and it is much quieter than my range hood. What is different is the fan is a variable speed which I don’t like but find tolerable. Using an Android Sound Meter app I measured the fan at 79 dB right over the rear vent but a much more reasonable 42-45 dB standing in front of the range where one would normally be cooking. Once interesting quirk of our setup is the oven’s exhaust vent outputs directly in front of our downdraft hood. I don’t know for sure but I speculate that this makes it more efficient at exhausting the hot air on a warm day than a typical overhead hood would do.

This oven does not have a self-clean function. However, multiple appliance repair people have told me in the past not to use the self-clean function on ovens because it shortens their lives. As a result, I haven’t used self-clean in years and don’t miss it.

I mostly like the induction stove top but I do have some reservations. I wish this model had a bridge element (ideally on both sides but I think only the exorbitantly expensive models have that). My Dacor gas stove top had two full-length griddles so I could fry 12+ pancakes at a time and I really miss that ability. I have settled and bought an electric griddle, and I’ll probably get a second for when we have guests, but that takes extra storage space. My old induction range didn’t have a bridge element but still did a decent job of spreading out heat when I used a cast iron griddle. On this stove, the heat seems much more concentrated. However, it works great for everything I’ve needed except the griddle.

I really like the stove knobs, rather than having buttons and/or touch, and the small print doesn’t matter as much for the stove since you also see an indicator on the stove top. Like my last induction stove it takes a while to figure out the right settings for everything. Using the boost setting it boiled 5 quarts of water in about 5 minutes (at 200 ft above sea level). It can also do a nice low heat and everything in between. There is a detectable buzz when the stove is on but it is quieter than my last induction range.

The one unexpected thing this stove top does is it doesn’t always turn on correctly the first time. I place my induction compatible pot on the burner, turn the burner on, and sometimes it just immediately turns itself off. It works fine when I turn it on the second time. It’s almost like it has trouble with a cold start which doesn’t make sense. I’m using the same cookware I used on my first induction stove so it’s not my pans. It has trouble with both my cast iron and induction compatible All-Clad pots.

Cleaning the stove top is great and much easier than a gas stove or old-style electric stove. It’s best not to let messes cook onto the top. However, the Weiman Glass Cook Top Heavy Duty Cleaner and Polish works really well if something cooks on.

So far I’m very satisfied with this purchase. It does everything I need and the downsides are more minor irritations rather than deal breakers. If I didn’t need feet to clear the electrical, I think I would have gotten an LG induction range. However, I do need feet and this is working well and looks very posh in our kitchen.

  1. See here for the long version ↩
  2. It’s no longer made but it was a Kenmore Elite 6.1 cu. ft. Freestanding Induction Range w/ True Convection. ↩
  3. BTW, if you’re shopping for an induction range Yale Appliances has some really nice videos comparing some popular options. ↩

A New Computer and a Cake

On March 15 I received an email from Framework telling me that they were preparing my computer batch. I had been waiting a long time for this computer so I was very excited. Though, Julian’s birthday party was scheduled for March 23 and I was worried about having my attention divided if it turned up before the party. I received a shipping notice on March 21 with an estimated arrival of March 25. This seemed like a good time for the laptop to arrive.

Jaeger’s parents were coming to visit us for Julian’s birthday and so we played musical offices. Jaeger’s office is also our guest bedroom so he moved up to my office, because I’m better at blocking out random noises, and I moved to the gateleg table in our living room. Picture of a table with computer equipment. To the left is a mobile monitor which is using three books as a computer stand. In the middle is a laptop, also using three books as a stand, on the right is a closed laptop, and in front is a wireless keyboard and mouse.For a temporary space, it isn’t too bad. I borrow Jaeger’s portable monitor and my Zoom “background” can’t be beat because it shows off our bookshelves and Jaeger’s pygmy date palm. As one of my work colleagues commented, it’s the perfect zoom background1. However, I still miss my two full-size monitors at my regular desk.
A gray sofa with a sofa table behind. In back are two bookcases, filled with books, and a pygmy date palm.

Overall, my current job involves a lot of collaboration and a lot of meetings. I don’t usually have many meetings on Friday but last Friday was an exception. I ended up with five meetings that day. During my first meeting the doorbell rang and Jaeger went to answer it. I figured it was a replacement hammock which I had ordered for Julian. However, Jaeger returned with a suspiciously computer-like box and placed it down next to my desk. It was Bree, my Framework laptop, and it sat there taunting me my entire work day. Fortunately, Friday is one of Jaeger’s nights to cook so once I logged off work I started putting my computer together. Work had been a lot that day and I was still a little flustered so I didn’t get proper unboxing pictures. However, I did get a couple of pictures in the in-between stages. I purchased the DIY Framework option so the computer came without the hard drive, memory, keyboard, touchpad, bezel, and ports installed.
An open laptop showing it's internal components. Framework’s instructions were easy to follow and I put it all together and verified I could bring up the Bios right before Jaeger announced supper was ready.

After supper we played Wingspan together. Julian and Jaeger’s mom were a team and Julian kept trying to give her instructions using pseudocode, which didn’t work particularly well. However, point-wise they still ended up solidly in the middle.

Saturday morning I woke up early and nervous because it was Julian’s birthday party day. I went downstairs to make muffins for breakfast and then discovered I had too little sugar for the cakes I was planning to make while the muffins were baking. It was still very early, and everyone else was still in bed, so I rushed to the store to pickup sugar. I got back and mixed up the muffin batter. I went to put the muffins in the oven and discovered that my oven was broken.

So . . . I have a history with this oven. Back in 2021, a couple of months after we moved in, it was Jaeger’s birthday and I baked a cake for him. That went fine. However, after the cake was finished I went to bake the main entree for the evening and discovered the oven was broken. This wasn’t great but we also had a range oven so it wasn’t terrible to have the wall oven broken. I had a repair person come out and he told me it was likely the control board was broken but the oven was old enough we couldn’t get replacement parts for it anymore. However, he said I could send it into some random place on the internet and they could likely repair the board. I delayed for quite a while but eventually sent them in and discovered to my astonishment that it actually fixed the oven. I had two ovens again! However, this last fall, my range oven died and is still dead. I was thinking about replacing it but for complicated reasons it would be pretty expensive and I decided I could live with only having one oven. After all, most people survive perfectly fine with one oven. All that to say, when my wall oven broke Saturday morning, it was a problem.

I contemplated the situation in a mild panic. Clearly I could go to the store and buy a cake but Julian had already specifically requested a strawberry cake with chocolate frosting. I pulled up Consumer Reports and their top rated toaster oven was a Breville Smart Oven it was expensive for a toaster oven but Consumer Reports rated the baking component as “very good”. Miraculously, the specialty cooking store in Santa Cruz actually had one in stock so Jaeger went to pick it up. While he was gone we continued our various birthday preparations. He got back and I started baking the cake in batches. The toaster oven fit a 9″ round cake pan but it obviously would only fit one at a time. That said, I have now baked three cakes in the toaster oven2 and I can confirm that the baking function is very good. The cakes turned out perfectly. While the cakes were cooling, I started putting together the ingredients for the frosting. Then I realized I was out of powdered sugar. I have never had so much trouble making a cake before. I did a last minute pivot to a whipped chocolate ganache topping and finished it minutes before guests arrived.

The party involved a lot of kids, some adults, and a lot of overall chaos. I think it turned out well, aside from Julian having a breakdown at the end, and we all survived.

Everyone departed around 4:00pm which allowed me to squeeze in a little quality computer time with my new laptop. My next task was to install the OS (Ubuntu 22.04 LTS). That went smoothly and I had a functioning computer before I had to go make supper.

As time permits, I’ve continued tinkering with Bree. Overall, I like it. In my opinion, the big screen makes it worth the extra weight but I could definitely see it being too big and bulky for many people. I briefly tested out Sketchup and, unlike my old laptop, it looks like it shouldn’t have any problems running it. I now have all my essential programs installed but will likely continue customizing it for a while. I have the option of either having a numpad or centering the keyboard without a numpad and I’m still testing things out to see which layout I like best. Likewise, it came with the graphics module installed and I want to try it without to see if I prefer the (slightly) smaller size.

Once finish transferring everything from Myfanwy to Bree, I’m going to repurpose Myfanwy to be Julian’s new computer. Julian inherited a very cheap laptop we had original bought for our au pairs to use as a TV for our streaming services. Once our au pairs left, we gave the computer to Julian but it is a very cheap computer and is painfully slow to use. While Myfanwy is old, she still works significantly better than Julian’s current laptop. I’m also planning to switch him from Windows to Linux which will provide more complications from a parental control perspective but I’m tired of dealing with Windows. I have this Friday off, for Cesar Chavez Day3, so I plan to schedule some dedicated tinkering time.

  1. Normally they see patterned blue curtains. My curly hair makes the virtual zoom backgrounds, or blur backgrounds, look weird. ↩
  2. I made two for Julian’s party and then one for Calvin’s birthday today. ↩
  3. This is a state holiday in California but for some reason the kid’s still have school. ↩

Looking for a New Laptop

In June 2023 I decided it was time to get a new laptop. Myfanwy, my most recent laptop, has been a very solid computer. However, she is eight years old, ancient in computer years. I don’t need my computer to do much, usually, and Myfanwy has met most of my needs. Except, back in June I was trying to use SketchUp to figure out some patio options and it was too much for my poor laptop1. This, combined with Rio slowly destroying my laptop’s bezel by persistent gnawing — she loves the rubber edge — finally pushed me over the edge into looking into a new laptop.

Normally, I buy refurbished units so I probably wandered over to Dell’s Outlet to take a look at what they had on hand. I can’t remember my exact train of thought but at some point I decided I wanted a laptop where I wouldn’t have to guess if all the components were Linux compatible. This led me to the System76 laptops which I was half-way talking myself into until Jaeger asked if I’d seen the Framework laptops. Apparently they’re very popular among his coworkers, at least the ones that don’t have Macbooks. I took a look and was intrigued. I really liked the idea of a laptop that would let me easily upgrade parts. However, I didn’t want a 13″ laptop. I like my laptops big and my phones small. Lucky for me, Framework was in the midst of trying to create a 16″ laptop.

One thing led to another and in July I preordered a Framework 16. I ordered the same day it was announced and ended up getting in the 5th batch. The modular options were my downfall and I went a little crazy when ordering the options. It’s officially the most expensive computer I have ever bought and it costs more even than many Macbooks. What I ordered:

  • The base Ryzen™ 7 7840HS system
  • 180W Power Adapter (theoretically, one could get this somewhere else but it didn’t feel worth it)
  • Both the Graphics Module (AMD Radeon™ RX 7700S) and the Expansion Bay Shell (so I could slim it down when traveling)
  • 1 32 GB of Ram (this leaves another slot free if I want more later)
  • 1 TB SSD (I wavered a bit about whether I should get larger but at the moment it’s more than I need and I can upgrade later if necessary or get a second drive)
  • The basic keyboard
  • A numpad and spacers for when I don’t want the numpad (this is flat out just an indulgence but it might be useful when I balance bills and I am not docked for some reason)
  • Expansion ports: 2 USB-A, 2 USB-C, MicroSD, HDMI, ethernet, and headphone jack (I can only use 6 at one time but I wanted the option to slip in MicroSD, HDMI, and ethernet as needed. I’m still debating though if I should get more USB-C ports.)

Back in July the Framework 16 was estimated to ship in Q4 of 2023. However, it was a brand new product and the timing slipped. This wasn’t particularly surprising but I was disappointed I didn’t get a fancy laptop to play with over winter break. They did start emailing bi-weekly emails explaining exactly where they were in the process and I found them interesting to read.

During the delay, I started creating a migration plan for what I was going to move to the new laptop. In addition to replacing Myfanwy as my primary laptop, I initially thought it should also be able to run Windows. Anna is my 14-year-old all-in-one and currently my Windows computer for the rare occasion when Linux won’t work (i.e. iTunes and the occasional special PDF doc that needs a digital signature). Anna is barely functional at this point and it’s time for her to retire. Doing some sort of dual boot on the new laptop made sense. I had almost decided to go with two hard drives: one for Linux and one for Windows so I wouldn’t have to deal with partition nonsense, when Jaeger proposed an alternate option: a shared Mac Mini. He was already thinking about getting a Mac Mini both so he could have a personal computer that ran iTunes and so he could have a computer that ran his code. If he was getting a Mac Mini as a supplemental computer, it made sense to just buy one big enough to handle any reasonable iTunes needs I might have also2.

In January Framework shipped out review laptops and the reviews started coming in toward the end of the month. There was a fairly wide, range of reviews. Everyone thought the concept was fascinating but not everyone was convinced the novelty was worth the price. Some people questioned whether they wanted to cancel their preorders (which one can do without penalty). However, based on what I could see, it still met what I was looking for in a laptop.

Once the review models hit I started haunting the Framework community forums to keep an eye on when customers from the various batches received their computers. The very first report of a customer getting their Framework 16 computer happened on February 2 with more getting them by the first full week in February. However, there were numerous complications such as the factories shutting down for Lunar New Year and bottlenecks with specific configurations. In particular, “International English – Linux” keyboards were delaying shipments for some Batch 1 customers3. While waiting for the delayed components to arrive, Framework started shipping Batch 2 computers for those who didn’t have delayed components.

One advantage I’m anticipating with the Framework laptop is the ability to add relatively cheap add-ons to my Birthday/Christmas wish lists. For example, it’s designed to easily switch out the bezel. I don’t really love the colors currently available but I suspect that more colors will be added later4

Today Framework sent out an update saying that batch 5 should ship before the end of Q1. I’m tempted to take the day after it arrives off work so I can dedicate time to setting it up5. I have my USB drive ready with Ubuntu, I have a name for the computer, and I have a plan for what software I want to install and the files I want to transfer. I think I’m ready.

  1. I’ve been using SketchUp for years to model our houses and Myfanwy has been getting progressively worse at being able to handle it. ↩
  2. I have not completely given up on the iPhone SE. I have hopes that someday there will be an iOS audiobook app that meets my needs. If that happens, I want iTunes to be able to backup the phone locally. ↩
  3. As an aside, they do not currently offer a Dvorak keyboard. I’m not convinced I’d want one even if they did offer it but I was a little surprised it wasn’t an option given how many other custom keyboard options there are. Possibly they expect people with alternative layouts to get one of the blank keyboards. However, while poking around I learned that there were more people, at least on the forums, who were interested in Colemak keyboards, which I hadn’t heard of before. ↩
  4. The 13″ currently has black, gray, green, lavendar, orange, and red. Red might be interesting but I’d really prefer a blue. ↩
  5. Though, I have concerns it may arrive right before Julian’s birthday party, on the 23rd, which would be very bad timing. ↩

This Day On Twitter Update

In August of 2023 I was trying to decide what to do with my old Twitter posts and decided to start posting them in the format of “this day on twitter”. It’s been interesting to go through and see little snapshots of my life throughout the years. However, the Twitter updates are overwhelming the rest of this blog. As a result, I’ve decided to move all the Twitter posts off my home page. Instead, you can get to them by clicking the This Day on Twitter menu link.

I haven’t tested yet but I believe, based on how I made the code changes, that the RSS feed will still contain the Twitter updates.

Update: I’ve confirmed the RSS feed does still contain the Twitter updates. They’re only hidden from the home page.

Reading Holiday Recap

As I mentioned in the Reading in 2023 post, I decided to take a reading vacation just a few days after getting back from our winter vacation.

What I Read

What Went Well

  • I got really lucky and enjoyed all the books I read. My favorite was probably Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date followed by Loki’s Ring.
  • I really liked having a goal of reading a different genre each day.
  • On the first day I got a massage in the early afternoon. This was a great way to emphasize the vacation was suppose to be relaxing and fun. The early afternoon time was also good because it gave me plenty of time to do some reading in the morning and drop by the library to pick up even more books before going to the appointment.
  • It was really nice to schedule this when the kids didn’t have school so I could just sleep in as long as I wanted.
  • It was fantastic having supper options made ahead of time. I basically didn’t have to spend any time on supper at all, just grabbed things from the freezer and heated them up.
  • During the day I read in the purple chair in the sunroom. Jaeger got this chair off Craigslist when he first moved to San Francisco and it is the perfect reading chair. You can lean back and put your legs up on an ottoman or lounge sideways equally well. In one of our moves it lost a rear leg but we propped it up on a short plastic stool and it works fine.
  • I ordered a winter tea sample pack from Friday Afternoon and started each reading session with a pot of tea. The whole setup was very cozy.

Lessons Learned

  • I think having one of the genres being Science Fiction or Fantasy was a mistake, at least with the goal of only reading new authors. It was a little stressful to try to find a new author that I was fairly certain I would enjoy. Instead, it might have been nice to set aside the last day of the reading vacation for a re-read of something comforting.
  • I tried to do too many things on Saturday. In addition to reading a book, I also tried to play a long board game with the family and then go out to dinner with Jaeger. Next time I should probably try to do no more than one non-reading thing a day.
  • Because I knew Saturday would be full, I stared Saturday’s book on Friday. That was necessary to finish the book by Saturday evening but I didn’t find it as satisfying.
  • I was planning to do a little bit of exercise first thing in the morning, before reading, and then going on a short afternoon walk. I felt it would be good for my body to get at least some movement each day. I did well the first two days but less well once I hit the weekend. Though, I didn’t get any weird aches from sitting too long each day so maybe it turned out ok regardless.
  • I do not know why but I kept wanting to snack. This was not something I had anticipated. Next time, I think I should spend a bit more time thinking about reasonable but fun snack options.
  • I didn’t have a plan for what to do when I was done with my book of the day. I purposely picked relatively short books but that meant I was done reading them in 4-6 hours. Because I allowed myself such leisurely mornings this was a pretty good length to finish before supper. However, I usually read in the evening too and wasn’t sure if I should start a new book or do something else.

Other Ideas

  • One of my initial thoughts was to also watch TV/Movie book adaptations. I was thinking things like Jane Austen movies, Agatha Christie episodes, maybe some Shakespeare adaptations. However, we don’t have a great setup for that right now. We have one TV in the living room, which I didn’t feel like monopolizing, and I find it hard to lounge when watching on an iPad or computer. I still like the idea but don’t really know how to make it work.

Ideas for Next Time
Overall, this was an ideal vacation for me and something I would like to repeat. I really liked the one-genre-a-day format. However, some other things I might consider for the future (or not):

  • Book with movie pairings
  • Books I keep meaning to read but haven’t — slightly worried this might make it less fun but maybe not
  • One long book
  • Reading books around a theme, perhaps in different genres.
  • Potentially schedule around an author event
  • Just read books I’ve read before
  • Just read classics

Reading in 2023

Since 2016 I’ve made three interstate moves, have worked at three different jobs, had some extremely fraught years in my marriage, and lived through a pandemic. Now I’m objectively in a good place but emotionally I’m still pretty fragile and I think that’s reflected in my reading this past year.

In 2023 I read more books than in 2022 but fewer pages. About 15% of my reading this year was rereading old favorites and the new books I read were often relatively short. While I don’t keep track of my Did Not Finish stats, I know there were many books this year that I started but did not finish. In most cases, this was not a reflection of the quality of the book but rather it wasn’t the right book for me when I was trying to read it.

If you’re curious, you can see my StoryGraph stats for 2023 here.

This blog post got a little out of hand so a quick table of contents to the sections below:
My Favorite Books in 2023
Hugo Award Nominees
Reading Holiday
Interior Design Books

My Favorite Books in 2023

Below are not necessarily the “best” books I read in 2023 but they are the ones I enjoyed the most. (I linked to the author’s website if they have a good landing page for the book, otherwise it’s a StoryGraph link.)

  • A Mirror Mended by Alix E. Harrow (read A Spindle Splintered first) – Another Sleeping Beauty retelling. Both books in the series are novellas and are nice quick reads.
  • The Bald Mermaid: A Memoir by Sheila Bridges – I continue my obsession with reading interior design books. While look for new books, I stumbled across this memoir by interior designer Sheila Bridges.
  • Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn (this is the second in the series, Legendborn is the first) – Legendborn is one of those books where I immediately bought it after reading it from the library. It’s a King Arthur reborn story and I loved how it centers the story around a Black woman. Bloodmarked took me a little longer to get into but once I did it was also fantastic.
  • Dear Committee Members by Julie Schumacher – I think working for a university made me appreciate this book more than I would have otherwise. However, it’s a fun book regardless if you like cranky people trying to do the right thing in spite of themselves.
  • Garlic and Sapphires: The Secret Life of a Critic in Disguise by Ruth Reichl – I’m fairly certain I found this via Modern Mrs. Darcy but I can’t remember what made me pick it up. Regardless, I found this memoir both interesting and delightful. It’s the story of a food critic going undercover in order to provide real reviews.
  • Good Neighbors: The Full Collection by Stephanie Burgis – This is a delightful fantasy romance. The heroine is technically savvy and very suspicious of people. It’s a quick fun read.
  • The Grief of Stones by Katherine Addison (it would be best to read The Witness for the Dead first)
  • How to Keep House While Drowning by KC Davis – I wrote a whole blog post about this book but I think I managed to miss the essence of why I like it. This book gives you permission to not be perfect. It’s ok to try for “good enough” and if that bar is still too high, to just concentrate on staying alive.
  • Love Poems for People with Children by John Kenney (re-read) – This is a short collection of snarky poetry. As I recall, I didn’t mean to re-read it but had wanted to refer to one of the poems in it and the next thing I knew I had read the whole thing. Love Poems for Married People is also fun. The New Yorker has a couple of the poems here.
  • The Menopause Manifesto: Own Your Health with Facts and Feminism by Jen Gunter – I haven’t reached menopause yet but it’s probably only a couple of years away at this point so I decided to get a head start on reading about it. This was a good book and one I expect I’ll read again in a couple of years.
  • The Murder of Mr. Wickham by Claudia Gray – This was a delightful murder mystery. I’m impressed by how Claudia Gray brought together so many of Jane Austen’s main characters under one roof. However, I particularly liked her descriptions of the two young people who work together to solve the mystery.
  • One Year to an Organized Life: From Your Closets to Your Finances, the Week-by-Week Guide to Getting Completely Organized for Good by Regina Leeds – Still one of my favorite organizing books. Mind you, I haven’t followed any of her suggestions, I just like imagining a perfectly organized life. That said, I’m thinking about trying a light version of her approach this next year. We’ll see.
  • Red Team Blues by Cory Doctorow – Most of Doctorow’s books are not for me. However, Jaeger notified me about a kickstarter he was doing for his newest book at the time, Red Team Blues. I took a look and the premise sounded interesting. In addition, I am very anti-DRM (I want to own my books, not lease them, and be able to use them on all of my devices) so it seemed like a good fit. I got the audio version, which is how I usually listen to mysteries, but Jaeger bought the hardcover. It’s a quick fun story and I’ll probably listen to it again.
  • Rest You Merry by Charlotte MacLeod – This was a recent holiday listen and I really enjoyed the dour and moderately cranky professor. After years of being harassed for not decorating his house for Christmas the professor snaps and commissions an excessively gaudy display to be installed and then leaves for the weekend. When he returns, he finds a dead body in his house. Everyone wants to believe it’s just an accident but the professor thinks something else is going on and starts investigating.
  • Several People are Typing by Calvin Kasulke – Slack is my work’s primary communication method so a story about someone somehow getting uploaded to an internal Slack channel was quite fun.
  • The Splinter in the Sky by Kemi Ashing-Giwa – This is the type of Science Fiction novel I particularly enjoy. One person starts out with a hopeless situation and manages to both survive and win in the end (at least for some definitions of “win”).
  • System Collapse by Martha Wells (if you have never read a Murderbot book, start with All Systems Red) – Murderbot is loved by many and I’m no exception. I love Murderbot’s annoyance with having to deal with people.
  • The Thursday Murder Club by Richard Osman – As I get older I appreciate books with older protagonists. I love the idea of a group of retired people getting together and solving crimes. Plus, they all have their own backstories that we start learning.
  • Translation State by Ann Leckie – Another book in the Ancillary Justice universe. It would be best to read that series first. I’m always impressed by how Leckie can write very different perspectives.
  • Vera Wong’s Unsolicited Advice for Murderers by Jesse Q. Sutanto – Another older woman who decides to solve a murder. This was such a nice cozy book.
  • The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna – This was a really fun story. I love the idea of a real witch pretending to be a fake witch on social media.
  • Where Peace is Lost by Valerie Valdes – This was probably my favorite space opera of the year. It’s an interesting story and the ending gets delightfully operatic.

Hugo Award Nominees

I did not set a reading goal for last year but reading the Hugo Award nominees is often an unofficial goal and I did fairly well this year. I read:

  • Best Novel – all 6 nominees
  • Best Novella – I also read all 6
  • Best Novelette – 5 of the nominees. There’s one author I have given myself permission to not even try because, while objectively a good writer, they never work for me
  • Short Stories – all six short stories though a couple I had to read via computer translation
  • Series – This is always a hard one for me. Usually I try to read at least one book in each series. This year I had read books in 5 of the series but have never read any in this year’s winner, the Children of Time Series
  • Best Graphic Novel or Comic – none
  • Best Related Work – none, though Blood, Sweat & Chrome: The Wild and True Story of Mad Max: Fury Road still intrigues me
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Long Form – I watched two of these: Everything Everywhere All at Once, which won, and Turning Red which I also liked
  • Best Dramatic Presentation, Short Form – none
  • Best Editor, Short Form – probably none – short stories are hard for me
  • Best Editor, Long Form – I did reasonably well, for me, in this category and ended up reading works edited by three of the nominees. That’s only 50% of the nominees but it’s 75% of the nominees with English works (as far as I could tell, two nominees only edited works available in Chinese).
  • Best Professional Artist – none
  • Best Semiprozine – none
  • Best Fanzine – only one
  • Best Fancast – I’ve listened to episodes from four of the six nominees
  • Best Fan Writer – I think this is where I may have inadvertently read some of the nominees’ works but I didn’t vote in this category
  • Best Fan Artist – none
  • Lodestar Award for Best Young Adult Book – I read four of these nominees and started a fifth which I was unable to finish (but may try again later)
  • Astounding Award for Best New Writer – I read works from three of the six

Reading Holiday

I’m once again reluctant to make a reading goal for next year. However, I have decided to start the year with a reading holiday. I’m taking three days of vacation from work, around a weekend for a total of five days. This is before the kids go back to school so I don’t have to worry about waking up early or making school lunches for them (they’re perfectly capable of getting their own breakfasts/lunches at home). In addition, this gives me extra time to relax and recover from the chaos around Thanksgiving/Christmas holidays. I’ve been mulling this idea for about a month and it took a while but I have a general idea of what I want the reading vacation to look like.

I’ve decided to try to read one book a day during the reading holiday. I’m not entirely sure if I can realistically do this or not. I’ve definitely read entire books in one day but I don’t know that I’ve ever done it multiple days in a row before. Each day will be a different genre and I’m going to try to stick to authors I haven’t read before. I’ve identified both a first choice and backup book (in case I start the first book and hate it, or I can’t get it in time). Most of these books look like they should be quick reads.

Thursday – Young Adult or Juvenile

Blood Debts by Terry J. Benton-Walker

Backup: Damned If You Do by Alex Brown

2nd Backup: The Marrow Thieves by Cherie Dimaline

Friday – Romance

Iris Kelly Doesn’t Date by Ashley Herring Blake

Backup: Ana María and the Fox by Liana De la Rosa

Saturday – Mystery

The House Keepers by Alex Hay

Backup: The Penguin Book of Murder Mysteries edited by Michael Sims

2nd Backup: Death on the Down Beat: An Orchestral Fantasy of Detection by Sebastian Farr

Sunday – Memoir or Non-fiction

Kiss Me in the Coral Lounge: Intimate Confessions from a Happy Marriage by Helen Ellis

Backup: Now What?: How to Move Forward When We’re Divided About Basically Everything by Sarah Stewart Holland and Beth Silvers

Monday – Science Fiction or Fantasy

This one I’m a bit stumped. I was originally planning to read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin but belatedly realized it wasn’t SFF (I’m not sure why I thought it was).

My backup is The Salvation Gambit by Emily Skrutskie. I’ll probably make that one my primary and come up with another backup. On the other hand, I have quite a few SFF books checked out so maybe I’ll just grab one from my existing TBR stack.

Interior Design Books

I’m still reading a lot of interior design books. It’s slightly obsessive and there’s something going on there but I’m not exactly sure what. It’s probably related to moving so much the past couple of years and being determined to take root this time. In any case, this is a bit tricky because while the library generally will buy books I request, they have been reluctant to buy more interior design books. After my most recent request was denied I asked and was told that it was due to shelf space and that they don’t circulate well enough to justify the cost. Clearly, I could straight-up buy more interior design books but we spend a lot of money on books already and I’m reluctant to buy interior design books because I rarely reread them. If I don’t think I’m going to reread a book, I usually weed it which seems overall like a waste. After some thought, I’ve decided to try buying used copies. I don’t love this approach because, unlike the library or buying directly, the author doesn’t get any cut of my purchase. However, if I end up really loving the book I can always repurchase it new.