Tag: reading

Not reading but legibility

I have a question to the people who buy the paperback versions of my stories. Not a difficult one, but I hope you want to be honest about it.

Last week I put this image on twitter:

Jinn paperback

It looks good.

But… I wonder if you, dear and valued reader, feel good about the inside. And specifically about the font size used.

Simply put: do you find the pages easy to read?

I could bore you with all kinds of technical things, but that is not the reason for this post. I would just like to know if you feel the used font could be a tad larger.

If yes, when you think that makes the pages a bit easier to read, I need to point out that this will have an impact on the size of the book. A book will grow by a few pages if I change the size of the font. Not dramatically, but it might add a few dimes to the price of the book.

For that reason also, I would like to know if you´re fine with the books they are now, of if you would like the size of the letters a bit larger.

Don´t be afraid that I will laugh, this is a serious question. Reading should be a joy, not something that costs too much or be done with a magnifying glass.

Thank you in advance all for your comments. (And in case you were waiting for the paperback of Jinn to come out, you can find it here.)

~Paul

Being naked. It’s like reading a book.

(and the textile world doesn’t get it.)

Paul reading
Reading,. Naked.

Maybe this subject requires a tad of elaboration.

Why do you read a book?

Right. Because you want to read it. Perfect reason.

And why are you naked?

Exactly. Because you want to be naked. Again: perfect reason.

I think that completes this blog post, doesn’t it?

Not entirely, because, as usual, there is more to this than the ‘naked’ eye can see. (Interesting phrase, that naked eye.)

Woman reading naked

I am convinced that one of the major misconceptions of the textilised humans around us is that they aren’t aware of the simple fact that we want to be naked for ourselves. It’s not for showing off or any other outgoing purpose – most of the time.

In fact, let’s be honest, most of us aren’t the model that would be ‘shown off’ in the textile world. They have different measures and standards, and they hide their own nature beneath their layers of fabric.

The subject title of this post suddenly came to me. It’s such a simple truth that I’m surprised I hadn’t thought of it sooner. We eat and drink because we want to. We read because we want to. And we ‘naked’ because we want to.

There are many things that we do because we want to do them, and in general most people have the same wants, cravings and needs. Books being one of them. Put in that light, there might be a way to make the textile world understand us, provided they want to listen. Because many minds are made up, set in stone and locked behind the cast-iron doors, courtesy of their peers and leaders.

Let our fight never dwindle. Each person convinced that we’re not the loonies is a win. Each person who finally sees that wearing clothes when they’re not needed is silly, is a big win.

Let’s stay naked. It’s good. I could write a book about that…

The naturist library

The library

You may have visited the naturist library page already. It’s a big, fat list of naturist books in a lot of genres. I had a quick look for you. 12 genres. There should be something in it for everyone.

How did this start?

Basically I started this for myself as I was getting tired of running over all the book stores online to find decent naturist fiction. Most of was erotica or porn, and it was nearly impossible to find the worthy gems in there.

I knew there were books. Good books. I had read them. As the list grew, I had this idea to put them online. I was proud to see that first list of about 50 or 60 books up there on this website, and people started helping me by sending titles and references.

Reading is good for the soul. Being naked is as well. Why not combine the two?

The work

At times it takes a bit of time for a new book to ‘come online’ in the library. It’s not a fully automated process. Some is, but most of it is manual because the site is hosted on a WordPress base.

My source is a spreadsheet.

It’s a very convenient way to keep things in order, and I wrote a few sorting macros to make the exports from there more convenient. There are 2 exports, 1 sorted on Genre/Series and 1 on author.

After downloading those, I run a script and a program I wrote, that together convert those exported text-files into handy dandy HTML files. I wrote those programs because I’m too lazy to code and link and x-ref (by now) over 170 books by hand. It’s also a bit too time-consuming. 😉

With that part done, I load the 2 files into an editor (snippet here on the left, doesn’t that look cool? 😀 ) and I log into the site, where I update the HTML code for the actual sets of books on each page; the main library page sorted by Genre and the one sorted by Author. This might not sound like a lot of work (it’s ‘only’ 15 minutes) but it’s not something I want to do for each new book.

Before a new book is in there

Because that’s not all the work. When a kind soul sends me a message to tell me there’s a great naturist book out by Smarty Johnson, that’s not exactly enough to add to the library. I go online, google Smarty Johnson, run into a thousand links of use tire dealers called Smarty Johnson and finally locate 2 of them on Amazon. 1 wrote a book on selling used tires, and 1 wrote, indeed, a book on naturism and its relation to, you guessed it, used tires. Yay, that means I found the link on amazon. But the book might also be on Barnes and Noble. And Kobo. And Apple. And perhaps some obscure other place. So there I go to search as well, often without a result as most people don’t seem to know there are books sold outside Amazon. Of course then I also investigate the actual book. Is this real naturism? Is it naturism enough? There’s always this difficult fine line, so I may ask someone to have a look as well. And if then the book passes the ballot, I’ll add the book to the library sheet.

Trust me, that takes longer than 15 minutes per book. Which is fine. That keeps the quality of the books high.

It’s a good source.

That brings tweets like this to life – and that is what the library is meant to do. It’s meant to help you find books about and dealing with our lifestyle.

Reading naked in the park
Reading naked in a park

So keep reading, people. And let me know if you find a good book that belongs in the library!

A naturist’s view on reading

A view on reading?

Okay, if this surprises you, you haven’t been paying much attention. Hibernationists excluded of course, they have a valid (I hope!) reason.

Paul readingYes. Naturists read books. And whenever possible this naturist likes to read in the nude. There’s nothing to it really. Just make yourself comfortable, get a good book, and you’re ready to go.

It’s that easy. Although finding a good book might throw you at times.

Why in the nude?

Well, I did say comfortable, didn’t I? As long as you’re comfortable, you’re in the right state to read. If you feel great and ready to read for a while when you’re uncomfortable, I’d love to hear from you how you do that. And certainly also why.

And what do naturists read?

Anything. Literally anything. Horror like you can expect from Anthony Crowley (@crowley_anthony on Twitter, he’s a naturist), poetry and introspective works like Robert Longpré writes (find out more about him on our new site NaturistFiction.org!) but there’s no limit to what naturists read. Romance? Historical fiction? Sure. Detectives? Fantasy and Science Fiction? Why not? And no, that doesn’t necessarily have to be naturist-related fiction. I can enjoy a good Agatha Christie story, or most anything by Ursula Leguin.

So who reads in the nude?

Probably more people than you’d guess if you’re not a naturist yourself. People in parks can do that, people at home, at a camping or anywhere that you can take a book to. In New York there’s an actual group of woman, ToplessPulp reading in parkunited in ToplessPulp, that get together and read topless in parks all over New York. This because women can legally be topless in that city (even when many police people don’t seem to be aware of that).

When I go to our local nude beach I always have a book with me. Reading’s fun and you can do it in most places.

So there you have it. Reading in the nude isn’t something awkward or mad or new. It’s nude, nothing else.

Next time you get your hands on a good book, try it yourself. Experience the ease of reading without clothes pulling in places you don’t like pulling. You could be in for a nice surprise!

 

A reading, nude writer

read naked dayI love writing as much as I love reading. I also love being naked. Sometimes I even read about writing. Naked.

At the moment I’m working on 2 naturist stories – not at the same time of course, but alternating between them. It’s magical for me to do that, to crawl inside all these different characters, to find out what makes them tick. To ‘feel’ how all the naturists in those stories feel about their naturism. To ‘feel’ the non-nudists in those stories and experience their surprise, their shock and horror even. It’s an incredible feeling to switch back and forth between so many interpretations of how life should be lived. I vote for the nude life of course, as do many visitors of this site.

Mirror EarthI’ve taken up the challenge to write a sequel to Mirror Earth. It won’t be easy. It will be scary too because Mirror Earth might well be the best naturist book I wrote to date, and to write a sequel to something good is daunting. It will have to be at least that good, if not better.

I’ll take my time and it will happen. Not fast, because usually good and fast are not good together. My gratitude to everyone who told me they like Mirror Earth. Or love it, as even that happened. I’ll keep writing because I love making people happy.

Be safe and well, and be naked wherever you can!

lanzarote walk

Mirror Earth

Hi!

I thought I’d tell you a bit more about the new Scifi I’ve been working on for a long time. “Mirror Earth”. You may have seen the post where I showed off the cover already.

What I want to tell you is: it’s almost there! Now… what the book is about…

Earth. The future. Researchers have discovered how to detect fluctuations in time and found that there is the possibility for alternate realities. Complicated calculations, big laboratories and big interests are at stake.
A group of researchers is dedicated to pursuing the biggest experiment in their lives: to see if there are indeed other worlds like ours. And what will they look like if there is anything like another Earth?

Step into the world of Mirror Earth to discover what’s out there…

For the paper version I had a very funny idea. This is the front, as you may have seen already (which is also the front image of the e-book):
Mirror Earth Front
This will be the paper version’s back:Mirror Earth Back

🙂 My aim is to get the e-book version out into the world (our world) by next Saturday. As usual, the paper version is slower but that will come out as well.

Naked Crow 4 – Shaman

Hi everyone,

I’m on vacation now (yes, this is a pre-programmed post!) and I have nothing serious to tell for that reason, I though it a good time to show you the cover of the new Naked Crow book that’s going to come out soon. You already caught the title, I’m sure.

Naked ladies and nude gentlemen, I present to you:

The book should come out soon after I return from nakation!

Gosh. Did you know that Naked Crow 2 is available?

I’m entirely stumped to find that I never posted about this.

The second Naked Crow book, Evil Spirit, is out and about in the usual places. Most of you may have found the Naked Crow 2 page I made already, but just in case you didn’t… Here it is!

Naked crow 2The book is available from: