What are you reading in 2025?

[Autumnal]

They definitely do. I should have qualified that to specify readers who say things correctly.

 

[Cadence]

Picked up a copy of John McAleer's "Killer Conversations" that just came out. It was originally published as the limited edition "Royal Decree" in 1983 and is just over 100 pages, 80 of them being questions and answers with Rex Stout. A sizeable number (although I think well less than half) are ones I remember from elsewhere, probably either from some Wolfe Pack publication, its FB page, or the biography.

My favorite part was the Chapter 2 "Rex Stout on his Peers" where he mentions some very well known authors and books, and many I had never heard of but will have to check out. A few example of the later include John Buchan's "The Thirty-nine Steps", Leslie Ford's Mr. Pinkerton stories, and Anthony Berkeley's "Malice Aforethought".

He also mentioned Josephine Tey and one of my all time favorites when answering about the "least appreciated detective storywriter you know of: "I think Josephine Tey. You almost never see her mentioned by anybody. And she wrote two or three of the very best stories. 'Franchise Affair' is beautifully written." He then continues about the "Daughter of Time" and mentions Leslie Ford as another under-appreciated one.

 

[prabe]

I have noticed that audiobook readers sometimes pronounce things wrong themselves though.

Fictional names/words ... yeah, they might not be able to find a good source. Real-world names and words, though, there are good sources for practically everything if you're willing (or required) to put in the effort. The company I worked for that recorded audiobooks did so under contract from the US Library of Congress, and we had a long list of approved sources, including a number of unabridged dictionaries.

Of course, sometimes those sources fail to capture/reflect actual pronunciations in use. That's a different ball-O-wax.

 

[Pedantic]

Fictional names/words ... yeah, they might not be able to find a good source. Real-world names and words, though, there are good sources for practically everything if you're willing (or required) to put in the effort. The company I worked for that recorded audiobooks did so under contract from the US Library of Congress, and we had a long list of approved sources, including a number of unabridged dictionaries.

Of course, sometimes those sources fail to capture/reflect actual pronunciations in use. That's a different ball-O-wax.

Oh that's fascinating! I have a friend working in that exact field. I get updates on absolutely random books.

 

[the Jester]

Currently reading Morning Star, the third Red Rising book. Then on to Harrow the Ninth. And I just finished Snuff, by Terry Pratchett, who is an author about as enjoyable and humorous as Douglas Adams for me.

 

[prabe]

Oh that's fascinating! I have a friend working in that exact field. I get updates on absolutely random books.

It had its moments. Did a bit of a number on my reading for pleasure (which I've relatively recently gotten back) and utterly ruined me for audiobooks and podcasts. Which is more about "listening to someone talk" being "work" than any aesthetic judgment. Also, because we only got to read in like 2.5-hour blocks, it turned out that, at least for me, nonfiction worked better than novels, most of the time--and there were some authors whose writing was digressive enough that it flat didn't survive the experience, from the engineers' perspective; I'm sure the narrators had different thoughts, there.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Real-world names and words, though, there are good sources for practically everything if you're willing (or required) to put in the effort

A lot of the errors I have heard are old fashioned terms in historical fiction, or English characters using US/Australian pronunciations, and, of course Raymond Luxury Yacht is often pronounced wrong.

 

[Cadence]

A lot of the errors I have heard are old fashioned terms in historical fiction, or English characters using US/Australian pronunciations, and, of course Raymond Luxury Yacht is often pronounced wrong.

It's interesting sometimes listening to old times radio shows and commercials from the 30s-50s and how some words pronunciations have changed: protein as pro-tee-in and Los Angeles as Los An-guh-lees (hard g) show up that way regularly. One commercial had smooth as smewth.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Los Angeles as Los An-guh-lees (hard g)

That’s an easy one. Soft g would be a more correct, Spanish pronunciation, whereas hard g is anglicised. I would pronounce it with a hard g.

 

[Voadam]

I remember a British radio production of The Shadows Over Innsmouth which was great except the pronunciation of Innsmouth as inns mouth was grating to my New England native ears.