What’s a chapter book?
this post was submitted on 21 Jul 2025
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Most adults just call them ‘books’. But in case you want more, it’s a book with chapters like “Chapter 1 - in the beginning’ and so on. Very few pictures, lots of words. in the US, youth call them chapter books because it’s a moment of transition from reading short simple stories to books more than 100 pages long.
If you do the chapter crime, you do the chapter time. Chapter book ‘im, Dan-o.
Anon has aphantasia
You can still enjoy reading if you have aphantasia. I can't picture shit, but verbose books tend to be my favourites.
I read a lot of science fiction, and a younger friends at work frequently asked me for recommendations, and he liked talking about the books after reading them. At some point I found out that he exclusively consumes them as audiobooks, which is fine and I didn't think much about it. Some years down the line, when I was getting ready to retire, I had to pass on things to him. There was enough of it that, in addition to working elbow-to-elbow with him, I documented all the details in some long emails. When we meet, I'd say "The details are in the email," and focus on explaining the big picture.
It became obvious that he never read the emails. When I talked to him about it, he admitted that he really struggles with any long block of text. The guy is really smart, and he knows a lot about a lot of things, but he gets all his info from audio and video because struggles to consume text. There's clearly some kind of learning/mental issue going on there. It's going to make the job tough for him, but I hope he works it out.
If someone is trying to convey important information, I'd rather get an email, than a text. And, I'd rather get a text than a voice call.
Writing requires thought to form sentence that make sense. And, forces the person to slow down a bit and gives them time to think about what they are staying. Also, they at least have the opportunity to read before they send, to check if they left anything out. Finally, and this is especially important in business, we have a "paper trail" that can be referred back to.
It took me years to stop the owner of the business I worked for to stop giving me instructions verbally. He did end-runs around shop policy to get his own pet projects prioritized. Policies that he put into place. Why do business owners sabotage their own businesses?
I'm with you, I like written things that I can digest and refer back to, though it's worth mentioning that if you have questions, it much quicker to work through those face to face.
That is so crazy for me on a personal level because I'm the exact opposite. My brain has a really hard time processing auditory instructions.
I'm good with distilling information in whatever form, but I do get impatient with audio/video sometimes. I can read faster than people talk, so I want the audio to go faster. I've tried upping the playback speed, but we encode a lot of information in the pauses and cadence of speech, and the faster playback screws with the perception of that. Doing that is fine for technical information, but I don't care for it with a novel.
Seriously, written guide > > > > > > > video guide
This is also a great example of how, even if there are no disabilities involved, everyone has different learning styles. Some people just process information differently.
Something else I forgot to mention was a concept that I learned in the military called BLUF: Bottom Line Up Front. The idea is that most people aren't going to read past the first sentence or two before skipping to the end so you better get the absolutely critical information out right away; before your reader gets bored/decides they have more pressing matters to deal with. I would regularly see emails that started with a summary before even the salutations.
Oh, yes, we use BLUF at work a lot, but it's not really useful if you're trying to pass along detailed knowledge.
If only everyone recorded personal logs like in Star Trek you could have just bequeathed him those! On a serious note though, good on them for trying to learn and expand their knowledge even with some sort of learning disability. I was diagnosed with ADHD like 30 years ago and I understand how troubling it can be trying to read things while constantly having to re-read sentences because you spaced out, or having to keep 5 browser tabs open because each new section brings up some other topic that I now need. I describe my learning/throught process as a spider web for good reason.
I actually prefer text for the same reason. No need to pause and rewind, then once again forget what I wanted to hear and go back for the 4th time.
I by far prefer text for things that matter.
One of my favorite Youtube channels (Greg's Airplanes and Automobiles) has great videos about WWII airplanes and aeronautical technology, really digging into the weeds with original source material kind of stuff. But: they're just him reading a script he's written and showing still pictures and excerpts from pilot manuals etc. His content would make excellent written blog posts or even a book, but then nobody would read it. He has to turn what is fundamentally written material into videos in order to make any money off of his work because that's what works for most people. Just makes me sad.
That's good, when I'm medicated I can sink into a book without as much trouble but typically I need more stimulus to be able to focus. It's a fine line though bc too much stimulus and I'm right back into that zone you described.
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They found a way to learn that works for them. As someone that almost always prefer text, I understand why you feel this way but you must have realized that most people prefer this format. And as far as I can tell, so long as they can read an email when it's important (which they'll learn one way or another), it will be fine.
so long as they can read an email when it’s important
At my last job I managed a team of coders in India. They absolutely, categorically refused to ever read anything that I wrote to them, no matter what the situation. I had to maintain a 4AM-noon schedule just so I could have realtime interactions with them at least part of my day and give them instructions verbally. To their credit, they didn't really listen to what I said much, either.
I still wonder whether it was a side effect of being able to speak English but not being able to read and write it very well, or whether they were consciously trying to avoid having any paper trail that they could be held accountable for.
He's been working at the company for more than 15 years and still struggles to read any significant block of text, so I'm worried for him. It's not that he prefers audio, it's that text is a real problem for him.
And don't misunderstand me: I'm the guy's biggest cheerleader; I very much want him to succeed and am happy with any viable workaround he finds. I'm not pushing any sort of personal bias on him. The company works with a lot of text.
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No one’s talking about anon’s weird assumption that authors go from idea directly to manga, and not that most authors start by writing a novel to attract a sponsor.
Shhhh, that would require actual understanding of the culture and not just laziness.
The problem with comic books is that they're all about this big flashy pictures and they never have any words in them. Oh well, anyway, off to read some more Chainsaw Man and One Punch...
He looks absolutely enthralled by the wall of text lol. 
God I'm remembering in Hunter X Hunter how there were entire spreads detailing complex rulesets for world building, and they legit felt like the silmarilion at times.
You can build up literacy like a muscle. I can read a lot if I forget to take my ADHD worsener (valproic acid), but even with that I can sometimes "rawdog" it.
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I've known several men that were proud that they didn't read books. (Not that they read manga or anything, either.)
One of them, in particuular, was a grown up version of a stereotypical highschool bully. Willfully ignorant doesn't begin to describe him. I ever meet him in a dark alley, I'd fucking gut him.
Anyhow, this behaviour (pride in ignorance) among women is rare enough that I've never seen it. When I was doing online dating, I had great success asking what they're reading and using decent grammar and vocabulary.
Anti-intellectualism and willfull ignorance have a lot to do with the situation here in the US. I think it's mostly a male problem as well.
Have you ever done any sort of IT support? I was internal IT in my first job and we had those people. It was mostly women 50+ years old who were proud that they know nothing about computers and would actively avoid listening when I tried to tell them how to do something trivial. Even when it was part of their jobs to do it. Then they would ask for help with the same stupid shit a few weeks later.
Fucking hell, so much this. They're so goddamn proud of their ignorance. This is why I enforce a very strict "we're mechanics, not chauffeurs" policy in my team. We've got no duty - either literal or moral - to make up for incompetence.
Not IT support directly but I've had that same experience with plenty of boomer men in machine shops. They're fucking proud that they suck at computer yet CNC has been around since the '80s in a big way.
Ran a shop for a while and still have the terminating document from when I fired one of those fuckers.
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Highschool bullies are just a grown up version of middle school bullies. That shit was supposed to stop there.
And many of them never grow out of it and become President.
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Do note: The US public education system has raised a significant number of younger millennials, genZ, and gen-α (especially in impoverished areas) to be functionally illiterate due to both profiteering and desire to destroy education. Effectively, they switched to literacy programs meant to help people with cognitive disabilities somewhat function in a world that has writing everywhere. This does not teach people how to read or comprehend. It also robs them of capacity to self-learn from texts.
So, there's a massive cohort of people whose parents and/or caregivers were not able to be spend time teaching this extremely important skill who are likely below 6th grade reading level.
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