Kev's Book Rants
This podcast is about books. Well, kind of.
Really, it's about beliefs. How we form them, why we hold on to them, and what happens when they're challenged. Because beliefs, they don't change easily. They need pressure. Pressure that forces us to rethink, to question deeply, to break down old assumptions, or even strengthen a belief that was already there.
Welcome to Kev's Book Rants, where we use books as a tool to apply that pressure, digging deep into their ideas to challenge our own thinking, refine our beliefs, and see if we really believe what we say we believe. And whether we fortify the beliefs we already hold or build something entirely new, the result is still the same: A better understanding of who we are, what we believe, and why we believe it.
I'm Kevin, and these are my book rants!
Kev's Book Rants
Ep 1 - Gaming & Audiobooks Changed my Life
Alright, so I love books. I love video games. But let’s be real—I don’t always have time for both. Life is hectic. Between work, family, and just trying to stay sane, sitting down with a physical book isn’t always an option. That’s why I started pairing audiobooks with gaming, and let me tell you—it’s a game-changer.
In this episode, I break down why audiobooks let you keep reading when life gets crazy, why chill, low-stress games are the perfect pairing, and how combining the two makes everything feel way more productive. Plus, I’m kicking off a new series: Video Games & Audiobooks. If you’ve ever zoned out to a game while listening to a book (or wanna start), this is for you.
🔥 What’s your go-to game for zoning out? Drop a comment!
#audiobooks #gaming #productivityhacks #booklover
===
📺 Watch the video here.
so I love books and I also love video games. Unfortunately, though, I've come to the soul crushing realization that I don't really have time to do both. Every year, I start off with this new year's resolution and, you know, I tell myself this is the year that I'm going to read like 50 books. I'm going to do like four or five books a month, maybe, you know, maybe even five or six if I'm feeling really good. And every year, I start off like gangbusters, reading like two or three books at a time, and I mean, it never fails, right? I get to about February or March and I fizzle out. And the reason I fizzle out is because, you know, I think a lot of us can relate to this.
Speaker 1:Like life happens, and for me in particular, I'm a homeschooling father, which, you know, that's a whole episode, maybe even a whole channel in and of itself, right, I homeschool a six-year-old and a two-year-old. I mean, how much you can actually homeschool a two-year-old? But I'm doing that. I'm married to a beautiful, smart woman which, you know anybody who's married understands that takes time to kind of nourish that relationship. I have two part-time jobs. I'm working on a third one, like I've got a lot going on and by the time I actually get some time to myself, like I'm done, my brain is done. Like I'm not trying to do anything because I'm completely wasted by the end of the day. Like I'd love to be the kind of guy who can, you know, sit in this cozy, comfortable chair with a cup of coffee or you know a whiskey, depending on how the day went. You know smoking a pipe, you know, that's that's kind of how I see myself, right, like this long beard, you know reading and looking all intellectual and wise with my reading glasses. I, you know, I have this whole thing planned out in my head, but if I'm being real, I, like I just don't have time for that.
Speaker 1:And I know a lot of you listening to this might have some of the same type of obligations to deal with in their, you know, everyday life. A lot of you have got to figure out ways to squeeze in your time amongst all the craziness of life. Multitask, right to put multiple hobbies and multiple tasks together so I can accomplish not only what I need to do but also what I want to do, and that's how I landed on this weird combination of gaming and audiobooks. Now again, I know it sounds weird, I know it's an odd combination, and when I first started doing this thing of listening to books and playing games, my wife was like you know, how are you doing this? How is this even working for you? How can you have these two distractions going at the same time? You know, aren't they actually fighting against each other? No, they're not. It's weird and you know, I know a lot of people have kind of caught on to this, right, in fact, a lot of people listen to podcasts while they play games, or listen to books, or really listen to a wide variety of things while doing a wide variety of tasks. It's, it's really the who these days. It's really the thing, and I'm going to explain a little bit why that that works for me at least.
Speaker 1:Now I don't want to downplay physical books. I actually really love physical books, right, if you've seen any of my other videos, you know I got a little mini library that I'm building up behind me, and you know, mainly because you know Amazon is out here wilding and um, and I'm not. I'm not gonna get into that, because my blood just gets boiling thinking about that, but anyway, I love physical books, I love flipping through the pages. I love the smell of a new book, I love the weight of it in my hands, like I just love any opportunity that I can get to sit and read a physical book. I love it.
Speaker 1:But physical books, reading physical books, requires dedicated time, time that I just don't have these days, depending on the season of life I'm in, and I know some people might say, hey, if you really love something, if you really love a hobby or reading or whatever, why don't you just make time for it? You'll make time for something that's important to you. And I would say to those people all right, cool, let me just pause reality, for you'll make time for something that's important to you. And I would say to those people all right, cool, let me just pause reality for a second. Then, right, let me put my two kids and my two and a half three jobs on hold, let me put all my responsibilities to the side so I can just sit somewhere and read a book for two or three hours. I would love to be able to do that, but I mean, that's not how life works. I don't have that kind of time, and the time I do have I got to be efficient with that time and that's what I'm trying to do with my time right now is just that, be efficient.
Speaker 1:And audio books really allows me to keep quote unquote reading while life is happening, when I'm driving my little knuckleheads around and you know I'm taking them from, you know practice and all of this other stuff going on. Hey, throw in an audio book, right. When I got to clean the house or cut the grass or do whatever honey do list, I got going on around the house. I'll throw in some earbuds, listen to an audio book. When I'm pretending to listen to my five year old or my six year old talk endlessly about Minecraft for the hundred thousandth time, you know, hey, throw in an audio book, right. I gotta have something going, because that dude will run me dry about some dadgum Minecraft. Right, I'm out here. I'm just. I'm out here trying to evolve man. I'm trying to optimize my life so I can get the most out of the smallest amount of free time that I have.
Speaker 1:Now let's switch gears. Let's talk about gaming. Gaming is another love that I have, or at least a love that I used to have. I've been playing video games for, you know, as long as I can remember, can remember, but these days I don't always want to engage with gaming the same way I used to. Back in my 20s and my teens and you know stuff like that. Right, like my thing was I I love playing sports games and I love playing GM.
Speaker 1:Um, in these games I would take over a franchise and I would draft the players and I would simulate the whole season and then I'd try and get them to the playoffs and I'll play the playoff games. You know I would do. I would spend hours just building up this entire sports universe. I don't have time for that anymore. And even if I did have time for that, like I, just I can't do that, right. I don't need games to have, you know, some deep emotional story or some complex experience that requires me to learn all of these new mechanics, right, I don't need to sink all of these hours into building my sports universe like I used to, but I still want to play games.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I just want to vibe for a little bit. Sometimes I just want to throw on a game with some mindless repetitive tasks and just kind of go at it. And that's where these open world games or these cozy games I guess they're calling it these days, the low stress games. That's where these games come in for me. Games where the story doesn't really matter, right, where the mechanics are just so chill and relaxed that you can just zone out and turn off your brain and just you know, go at it. Games like Stardew Valley or Minecraft or Euro Truck Simulator, power Wash Simulator, like really any simulator, right? Those games really work for me.
Speaker 1:And one of my personal favorites right now that I've been sinking hours and hours in, is no Man's Sky. And if you haven't heard of no Man's Sky, it's basically this space road trip game or at least that's how I like to describe it where you're just you're getting in your spaceship, you're riding around, you're, you know, building up your fleet, or I mean really, really, you can do anything. You could be a businessman, you could be an explorer, you could do whatever you want. In that game you have an entire universe to explore, and I'm not exaggerating when I say an entire universe. I think there's like it's it's what is it? Artificially? It's, it's wild. I don't know how to describe it. It's just wild, right, there's a lot that you can do, a lot of space that you can roam around. It's just a wild game and I absolutely love that game for specifically listening to podcasts and listening to audio books. Audiobooks See, when you're an adult and you have all of these responsibilities, hobbies don't get to exist in separate little boxes anymore, right, you've got to combine them.
Speaker 1:And maybe that means you're doing your favorite hobby with your significant other, so you can actually get some quality time together. Maybe that means listening to a podcast while you're doing chores, so your house doesn't get nasty. Maybe this means including your kids in whatever hobby that you have, so you can actually get quality time with your kids too. Once you get older, once you add these responsibilities to your life, you actually have to multitask if you want to engage with the things that you love.
Speaker 1:Gaming by itself is fun, sure, but sometimes you can feel pretty unproductive messing with games. How many times have you turned on the game and played for, like you know, two or three hours and you know you get into it and everything, and then you turn it off and you're like dog man. I just I just wasted three hours of my life, right? I know I've done that plenty of times, more times that I would, you know, hate to admit, right, I just I get into these games, hoping that I can relive the excitement and the the excitement or the feeling of getting into these games like I used to. And it just doesn't work like that. I don't. I can't love the games or play the games like I used to, and it just doesn't work like that. I don't. I can't love the games or play the games like I used to, cause I know that I have so much more stuff I need to be doing.
Speaker 1:Audiobooks by themselves yeah, they're. They're pretty productive, depending on what you're listening to, or you know, or podcasts can be productive too. But for me in particular and I know a lot of other people are like this too Like I need something to do with my hands. I can't just sit there and and stare at a wall or sit and lay in the bed or sit still and listen to an audiobook, because I I'm going to be out right, you give me five minutes of sitting still and I will be out cold. Now, when I combine those two things, right now we're cooking. Now we got something going, because not only are my hands busy, but my mind is engaged and I'm making progress in both of these hobbies that I love to do.
Speaker 1:I'm being efficient with the little bit of time that I have, and so, with that being said, on this channel I want to introduce a new series, and I'm not going to give it a name, but really, what we're going to do is I'm going to talk about some of the books that I'm, you know, been going through and listening to, and I'm going to have some video game playing in the background, and these are video games that I'm actually like playing while I'm listening to the book. Each episode I'll talk about a book that I'm listening to. I'll put some gameplay footage on the background for y'all to watch. I'll break down what the book was about, what I thought about it, how it relates to the larger world or pop culture, but, you know, mainly we're talking about books and the gameplay. Like I said, it's just something to look at, right, if you want to watch it, cool. If not, go ahead and open up another tab and, you know, do your thing.
Speaker 1:Now, I know gaming and books are kind of this weird, interesting combo. People who love books don't necessarily play video games and people who love video games don't always read books. I know that's a small intersection of the Venn diagram of those two people Not too many people fit squarely in those. But if you're not watching or if you're not into the game footage, that's cool. Don't worry about it, right? You can actually listen to this in podcast form anywhere. You get podcasts, right? So check out the description for the link. And really I've got some cool ideas coming down the pipeline for this series that I'm doing.
Speaker 1:I can't always get in front of the camera. I do travel a good bit, so you know, I still want to get in the rhythm of getting you guys some content and getting you guys reading some books and thinking about some books. So this gives me a way to kind of, you know, let you in my world a little bit, let you, you know, in on the books I'm listening to while I'm gaming, and it gives me an opportunity to kind of keep some consistent content coming out for you guys. So, yeah, tell me what you think about it. Have you ever listened to audiobooks or podcasts while gaming? Is that your thing? If so, what are your go-to games for gaming out? Drop a comment, let me know what you think. And yeah, man, that's all I got. Thanks for listening to my rant. Be on the lookout for the first episode. I will be dropping it here in the next week or so, so be on the lookout. Make sure you subscribe. Like this video.