Spritz, Part 2

It's been a week since I first started Spritzing, and I've read four books using it:

• Typee by Herman Melville
• The Gambler by Fyodor Dostoevsky
• God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater by Kurt Vonnegut
• The Captain Is Out to Lunch, and the Sailors Have Taken Over His Ship by Charles Bukowski

Jeffrey Dahmer, Infamous Serial Killer and Cannibal

I also read Breakfast of Champions by Kurt Vonnegut on audiobook, plus parts of Hell Is Empty by Craig Johnson and Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Pirsig on audiobook.  And, of course, there are are the comics I've detailed in this blog.  I bought five comics on Monday and six on Wednesday.  These are comics I just don't get behind on, but I feel like Jeffrey Dahmer, with too many dead bodies in the refrigerator and not enough time to eat them.


You're probably wondering what my retention is on Spritz.  How much of the books do I actually remember?  The Captain Is Out to Lunch is still fresh in my head - I read it this morning - so I want to compare God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater with Breakfast of Champions, which are by the same author.  I tend to laugh a little bit more using Spritz (I used the app ReadMe on my iPhone and an ePub I downloaded from one of the three library systems of which I am a member).

Kurt Vonnegut

Breakfast of Champions took me six hours and 27 minutes to read on audiobook.  God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater took me one hour and 39 minutes to read, a morning's "work."  Of course the only way to compare the two media objectively would be to take a comprehension test at the end of each one or a day after finishing each one.  Both books feature a lot of the same characters, although I didn't really get into Breakfast of Champions until I was 1/3 into it.  I did like the book, but I think I got more out of Spritzing God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater; however, I did read an hour or two of Breakfast of Champions while walking through the San Diego Zoo, which was lovely.

Most of my reading is at 550 w/m, compared with 130 w/m for your average audiobook.  I read The Gambler at 735 w/m and was still able to retain most of it, but I was tired afterward, and I didn't enjoy it as much.  I read The Gambler and Typee on the same day, took a two-hour nap, and slept 11 hours that night.  Even 550 w/m is very fast compared to normal reading speed, and it's downright brutal compared with an audiobook.

I do worry about not taking care of my daily activities and work because I'm too wrapped up with reading.  It's 11:00 A.M., and although I have gone to the store and bought toilet paper, as I had planned (but not before going to the store, buying paper towels, getting to the car, realizing my mistake, and going to a different store, so I wouldn't look like an idiot), but I haven't started any of my work for class tonight.

I haven't really gone on Facebook or Twitter today, which is a nice surprise.  I have been spending an hour or two on them a day for years, not accomplishing much of anything.  I do promote this blog on Twitter, and hardly anyone would read it if I didn't.  I didn't post a link to my review of International Iron Man #1, and it has only gotten two views since last night, compared with 15 to 30 for most of my other reviews.

Anyway, check out Spritz's website, and check out ReadMe in your local app store.  If my stepmother can figure it out, you can, too.