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Booktubers already confess that they read ChatGPT summaries. The question now is what is “reading” in 2025

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The booktubers (social media content creators whose identity revolves around reading) are starting to shamelessly admit that they don’t read the books they recommend: they read what ChatGPT says and summarizes about them. The curious thing is that, unlike what more veteran readers would do, they do not confess it to their smartphone as something they believe they should be ashamed of, or apologizing to their followers for generating second-rate content. They count it as a productivity hack, a clever solution to the problem of having to produce content about books they don’t actually have time to read. 100 books in a week. The most striking case of this trend (that is still kicking) spiked in August 2025, when a TikTok user published a video in which He claimed to have read 100 books in a week.. The trick: the SoBrief app, which offers more than 73,500 audio and text summaries with the hook of “finish any book in 10 minutes.” The reaction on social networks was immediate: what is left of reading if what you are looking for It’s not exactly Lee’s experience.r? It was even commented that these booktubers had managed to make what Bradbury advocated in ‘Fahrenheit 451’ a reality (possibly the summary does not talk about it). It’s all invented. Although generative AI is now capable of summarizing the book we want in seconds, the Internet has been doing this function for years (in a more laborious way, of course). CliffsNotes, in fact, is pre-internet: has been on the market since 1958 publishing books that summarize other books, as an aid for students. SparkNotes, founded by four Harvard students in 1999democratized literary summaries on the internet and made them free. Blinkist, born in 2012, transferred that spirit to nonfiction essays. There is a whole geneological line which ranges from these meeting points for students who didn’t arrive in time to read the books (we had ‘The Lazy Corner’) to NotebookILM and ChatGPT, which devastates all of the above: ChatGPT is free and can summarize anything in minutes. The novelty coincides with the growing pressure on creators of literary content to give their opinion on everything that comes to market. The perfect storm. Second-hand identities. Beyond there being influencers more or less honest with their followers, the conversation and the underlying controversy affects the cultural identity of the books. In the column cited above, Marc Watkins talks about the importance of the bookshelf that was seen in Zoom video calls during the pandemic (which led to the trend of hiring services that sent you books with the “right” authors for the background of your meetings). We have reached the point where the idea of ​​being readers is valued more than the act of being one. There is thousand incarnations of this idea: books sorted by color on Instagram, hauls of visits to the bookstore that are never read, the videos of “books that changed my life” with recently purchased titles… being a reader is the center of these new identities, when reading itself should be. No humans have been harmed. We have a conceptual caper that rounds out all this chaos: a good part of the books that circulate in these communities were not written by any human either. According to a study from January 2026 that analyzed 844 books from the “Success” self-help subcategory on Amazon, published between August and November 2025, 77% were likely written entirely by AI models (although these assertions must also be pick them up with tweezers). The same report states that less than 4% of the authors in that sample published 12% of all titles. There are profiles that published five or more books in the period analyzed. One of the extreme cases is that of an author who published an entire series of motivational books in three days. Human participation in this entire assembly line is minimal: the content is synthetic, it is summarized by an AI, it is commented on by creators who have not read it, and the public participates in a conversation about books that no one in the chain really knows what they are about (and it doesn’t matter much either). It traffics in the shadow of books: signs that there are books somewhere, data about their existence, reactions to those data. In Xataka | There is only something as fascinating as the work of Albert Camus, his death: absurd, unforeseen and with the shadow of the KGB

The new Siri will arrive soon in beta phase. It doesn’t matter when you read this

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The new Siri will arrive in beta phase with iOS 27. And yes, you have already read this news… two years ago. Gurman himself failed in his predictions, as he expected the beta version of Siri to land early this year, in one of the iOS 26 betas. With Gemini Intelligence presented and the advanced state of third-party alternatives such as ChatGPT either Claudeit may seem that Apple’s delays are getting more serious. The truth is that it matters little. The new. Gurman has revealed important details about the iOS 27 news and, among them, it seems inevitable that the new Siri will finally arrive. Although it will be an independent application (like any of its rivals), it will be fully integrated into the system and can be invoked as before. To reinforce privacy, Apple will allow you to schedule automatic deletion of conversations. A function that casts certain doubts since, whether we like it or not, the proper functioning of an AI depends on how much it knows us. And if you are going to forget what we talked about for privacy, you will have a difficult time in new conversations. If you can’t beat the enemy… Siri as a direct rival to Gemini, GPT or Claude doesn’t make much sense, so the leak suggests that iOS will not depend exclusively on its model. When she is not able to respond for herself, will continue to use third partiesas it currently does in its integration with OpenAI. After the agreement between Google and AppleGemini will be at the base of much of Siri’s behavior. The question is how much and in what way, since privacy is Apple’s main concern compared to other models. what’s happening. The internal delays in the new Siri are causing chaos that is taking a media toll on Apple, and there is no firm explanation beyond the fact that they will only release it to the public when they are ready. The shipwreck of the new Siri It is a mixture of competing visions, technical errors and an internal war between the Artificial Intelligence and software teams themselves. The obsession with privacy has led to two years of delays in a territory where progress is counted weekly. For years Apple set the pace of the industry. For two years now, for the first time in a long time, he seems to be running after her. In Xataka | Welcome to the AI ​​duopoly: the sector already has a turnover of 80 billion a year, but OpenAI and Anthropic take 89% of the revenue

This is how James Webb uses eclipses to “read” the soil of other planets

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Most telescopes specialized in the analysis of exoplanets are capable of study its atmosphere. However, James Webb has just gone further, directly analyzing the heat emitted by the surface of a planet located outside the solar system. This is very informative data, which until now had never been detected and marks a new study method for the future. LHS 3844b. The exoplanet that has analyzed the James Webb is LHS 3844b. Its size is 30% larger than that of our planet and it is located at a distance of 50 light years. According to the analysis of this space telescope, it is a dark, hot, arid rocky world without an atmosphere, quite similar to Mercury. Ideal for James Webb. This exoplanet is also characterized by being tidally locked. That is to say, It takes exactly the same time to orbit its star as it does to rotate around itself.. As a consequence, he always shows the same side to his star. Like the Moon to the Earth. Planets that always have the same side facing their star have one side where it is always day and another where it is always night. The first, in addition, usually has very high temperatures. But the best thing is that They are cannon fodder for MIRIone of James Webb’s star instruments. This has a great capacity to detect infrared emissions, such as those emitted by a hot object. In other words, the analysis of a body’s infrared emissions can give us an idea of ​​the heat it emits. eclipse chasers. On planets like this, with one side always exposed to its star, there is a problem. When analyzing the heat emitted by its surface, it can be confused with that of its star. Therefore, eclipses are ideal for MIRI to do its work. When this happens, the planet hides behind the starso the only light that reaches the Space Telescope is from this one. Thus, the data is obtained that must then be subtracted from the set that is normally measured to know exactly what the infrared contribution generated by the planet alone is. Geology enters the chat. In reality, the radiation measured by MIRI does not only provide us with information about heat. The different elements that can be present on a planet have a different emission spectrum. They reflect more or less radiation. Therefore, it is possible to know approximately what the composition of the atmosphere and surface of the planet is. This exoplanet does not have an atmosphere, so we can basically know data about its surface and even its geology. The infrared spectrum of the hot dayside of LHS 3844 b is derived from the brightness contrast with its host star in ppm (parts per million = 0.0001%) at different wavelengths. Observational data obtained from the James Webb and Spitzer space telescopes (circles and squares) are consistent with mantle (solid orange line) or volcanic rock (dashed blue line), while ruling out an Earth-like crust (green dashed dotted line). Credit: Sebastian Zieba et al./MPIA two eclipses. In 2023 and 2024, two eclipses were detected on this exoplanet that allowed James Webb to analyze its infrared emissions. The signal obtained was compared with that of planets and well-known objects, such as Earth, Mars and the Moon. It had nothing to do with Earth, so it is assumed that the surface of both planets must be very different. Possibly with very little water in the case of the exoplanet. On the other hand, there were quite a few similarities with the Moon. That would lead one to think that the planet could be covered in basalt, a very common volcanic rock on our satellite. Something doesn’t add up. The initial hypothesis Given these signs, the planet could be young and covered in fresh lava. However, with this volcanic activity, gases such as carbon dioxide or sulfur dioxide are released, which were not detected by the James Webb. That’s why, another hypothesis has been raised. The planet is likely covered in a thick layer of dark, fine-grained material formed over long periods by radiation and meteorite impacts. It is something similar to what happens on Mercury or the Moon. Planets without an atmosphere are especially susceptible to this phenomenon, known as space weathering, so it would be plausible. We will have to check it. It is hoped that James Webb will be able to obtain even more data to confirm whether this last hypothesis is correct. Be that as it may, only with what he has already been able to measure he has overcome many barriers. The achievements of this telescope seem to have no end. Images | NASA | Sebastian Zieba et al./MPIA In Xataka | The James Webb has broken another historical record: a supermassive black hole older than expected

The problem that we read less and less is not a lack of time or discipline: it is that we do not do ‘habit-stacking’

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We all know the scene: a pile of books gathering dust on the nightstand and a silent promise that, this weekend, we will finally get around to reading. However, Sunday night arrives and we have barely turned a couple of pages, so our relationship with reading has become in an “aspirational disenchantment”. We want to read, we long to get into the habit, but in the event of any temporary unforeseen event, the book is the first thing we discard. We usually punish ourselves by thinking that we lack willpower or that we don’t have enough free time. We wait for the holidays to devour novels, believing that reading requires large blocks of uninterrupted time. But behavioral science has bad news for our ego and great news for our routine: it’s not a discipline problem, it’s a design problem. The solution is not in motivation, but in a neurological “hack” known as habit-stacking or habit stacking. The motivation trap. When we don’t achieve our wellness or intellectual goals, “it’s not because we don’t care enough or aren’t disciplined,” explains Dr. Eve Glazier. to Washington Post. Failure comes because we rely too much on ephemeral motivation and lack a realistic implementation plan. This is where the habit-stacking. Popularized by behavioral experts such as BJ Fogg (creator of the method Tiny Habits at Stanford University) and James Clear (author of the best-selling Atomic Habits), this technique consists of linking a new habit that we want to incorporate to a habit that we already do automatically every day. As James Clear detailsthe formula is astonishingly simple: “After a ‘current habit,’ I will make a ‘new habit.’” Applied to our problem, the goal is to stop saying “I’m going to read more”—an abstract and overwhelming goal—and use everyday anchors. For example: “After I turn on the coffee maker in the morning, I’ll read a page,” or “After I brush my teeth at night, I’ll pick up my book.” In Xataka They are not your imagination: the best-selling books are increasingly simpler and contain less elaborate sentences The biological “hack”. As James Clear explains Based on neurobiology, our brain experiences a phenomenon called “synaptic pruning.” As we age, the brain eliminates the neural connections we don’t use and strengthens the ones we repeat daily (like showering or making morning coffee). By “stacking” reading on top of an already strong and established neural pathway, the new habit travels first class. The brain uses signal-based learning (cue-based learning), dramatically reducing friction and decision fatigue. You simply no longer have to remember to read; your coffee maker reminds you. And achieving it has an impact that goes far beyond general culture. As we analyzed recently in Xatakaa 12-year study with more than 3,600 participants showed that reading books reduces the risk of mortality by 20%. Readers have a 23-month survival advantage over non-readers, thanks to the fact that deep reading improves cognitive reserve. And no, you don’t have to read for hours: the study suggests that 30 minutes a day are enough to obtain these benefits. The voice of the experts: start in miniature. If the theory is so good, how do we apply it without failing in the attempt? The experts consulted by the main media agree on several golden rules to design our habit-stacking: It starts ridiculously small: Psychologist Beena Persaud, cited in Washington Postwarns against drastic changes. Don’t aim to “read a whole chapter”, aim to “open the book and read a paragraph”. Make the tiny habit guarantees that you comply even on your worst days. The anchor must be unbreakable: Psychologist Melissa Ming Foynes explains to Real Simple that the anchor must be bulletproof. If you want to read at night but your children constantly interrupt your sleep routine, using the night as an anchor is a mistake. Find something you do “rain or shine.” Forget the 21 day myth: As stated Dr. Axscience has shown that forming a habit takes between 18 and 254 days (with an average of 66 days). Patience is vital. Use the “Principle of “Premack”: Dr. Lauren Alexander recommends applying immediate rewards. When you achieve your micro-reading habit, give yourself a small reward so that your brain releases dopamine and closes the positive reinforcement cycle. Beware of mirages. However, before starting to pile up habits, it is important to understand our context. In Spain, 65.5% of citizens claims to read for leisure (an all-time high), but this figure may be inflated by “social bias”: we like to brag that we read because it gives us prestige. Furthermore, reports of The Economist they point out that the best-sellers current ones have a readability equivalent to that of a 16-year-old teenager. We read less deeply than we think. Added to this is the danger of misunderstanding the habit-stacking. How to warn Guardian, Now there is a viral trend on social networks known as bedtime stacking. It consists of going to bed at 8:30 p.m. but taking an arsenal of tasks: the laptop, the iPad, the skincarea snack and the gratitude journal. Far from being a productive habit stack, it’s a disaster for sleep hygiene and destroys our circadian rhythm. {“videoId”:”x7zmsee”,”autoplay”:false,”title”:”11 WEBSITES to DOWNLOAD FREE EBOOKS for your KINDLE Xataka TV”, “tag”:”Kindle”, “duration”:”321″} Consistency vs. intensity. At the end of the day, in behavioral psychology “consistency always trumps intensity”. Great personal transformations are not born from marathon reading weekends, but from ridiculously small daily actions repeated over months. We are not bad readers nor do we lack discipline. We have simply been using the wrong tools to fight a hyperconnected life. By chaining reading to our toothbrush or our coffee, we stop depending on capricious inspiration to finally put our own biology to work in our favor. Image | Photo by Matias North on Unsplash Xataka | Science has calculated the real impact of reading books on your brain. And it has a very simple recipe: 30 minutes a day (function() { window._JS_MODULES = window._JS_MODULES || {}; var headElement = document.getElementsByTagName(‘head’)(0); … Read more

There are thousands of scientific articles that ask you to pay to read them. Sci-Bot has arrived to access them for free

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Scientific knowledge is supposedly something that nourishes all human beings to continue advancing, but the problem is that in many cases the articles that contain this knowledge are in tools that require a subscription to read them. This limitation in access to universal knowledge has led to the emergence of different platforms that bring together all these articles, such as Sci-Hubwhich now improves with his AI called Sci-Bot which promises to put an end to ChatGPT’s “hallucinations” in the scientific field. How it started. At the end of this same month of April, a message on networks published by Mushtaq Bilal began to go viral, and no wonder, since it gave a notice in which, ironically, it invited us to use a new Sci-Hub tool that allowed access to scientific advances for free. Something they do through the back door and that already it almost cost them closure forced by the famous ‘Pirate Bay’ But logically this publication had the opposite effect, going viral, and also revived the eternal debate about the paywalls in science they can block access to this knowledge. But now Sci-Hub’s new tool has arrived to change this (partly). A great library. To understand the magnitude of Sci-Bot, you must first look at the size of its brain, since since Elbakyan founded the web in 2011, Sci-Bot has become in a headache for scientific dissemination giants such as Elsevier or Springer, which are behind the publication of thousands of top-level articles. Here, according to the official data of the platform itselfSci-Hub hosts 88,343,822 research documents and books, so we are talking about 100 TB of human knowledge covering more than 95% of the publications of the main scientific publishers. And with free access and without going through the checkout, as happens on the websites of some of these publishers. The jewel in the crown. As Sci-Hub’s own page reveals, Sci-Bot is an AI that is designed to be able to search within the titanic database to select the most relevant studies and compose articulated responses. Its main attraction is that compared to generalist AIs like ChatGPT or Claude there are hardly any hallucinations, such as its creators pointed out in a scientific article in which tests were carried out in this sense. And this is something very important because I have been able to experience with my own eyes how AI invents bibliographical references or assigns research to authors who have nothing to do with it. But Sci-Bot, being anchored to a real database from which it draws the information, means that there are direct references to the original papers, allowing users to jump over the hated paywalls to access scientific evidence. Still needs improvement. At the moment it is starting in its alpha phase and that is why it has different limitations, such as that it can only answer one question at a time and does not maintain the thread of chained queries, even if they are on the same topic. But the truth is that it is quite promising to have access to the vast majority of human knowledge. They put obstacles in his way. Here, logically, the magazines have a lot to say, since they do not like having the articles freely available when they request a subscription to access them. This means that right now Sci-Bot has the most recent scientific articles as its blind spot, since due to the new and aggressive security measures implemented by large publishers in recent years to avoid scrapingthe database has some gaps in articles published in the most recent months. This makes the AI ​​unable to respond regarding the most recent evidence. But without a doubt we are facing an advance that began with the arrival of Sci-Hub with the promise of democratizing science, although through the back door by freely publishing articles that are actually ‘private’. And the only thing this will do is create a new front between open access and large publishers seeking financial returns. In Xataka | More and more media outlets are going over the paywall in Spain, the big question is whether there will be subscribers for everyone

If the question is how to survive the tsunami of information in the age of AI, the answer is simple: learning not to read

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This morning I counted the open tabs on Day, my browser. Twenty-five. There was a Counterpoint analysis there that I opened five days ago to read “as soon as I can” but that I haven’t touched yet. A very good looking thread from X. Three newsletters to medium scrollwaiting for me like half-done homework. And so on a few more things. I’ve been writing about technology for fifteen years. My job is literally to read, filter and think about what I read. And yet, or precisely because of that, it is increasingly difficult for me to distinguish when I am informing myself from when I am simply moving my eyes. We have been treating reading as a virtue in itself for centuries. “Read more” has always been the universal advice, the automatic response to almost any shortcoming. AND tmade sense when the problem was the scarcity of sources. But the problem began to be different and we continued the same, with the same reflection. The mistake is that we have transferred the respect and moral inertia that we had for a good book to formats that do not deserve it. We read an endless thread of X, a marketing PDF or a newsletter inflated feeling that passing your eyes over that text is a meritorious act by default. It is no longer. Or at least, not always. I know this goes against me. AI has broken the equation in a way that borders on absurd comedy. Today anyone generates a ten-page report on any topic in three minutes. Any creator inflates an idea of ​​a paragraph until it fills a thousand words without adding a single new piece of information, just trash. And the great paradox is something we saw coming a long time ago: Our best defense is to use that same technology. We live in a loop where A machine lengthens a text to make it seem important, and we use another machine to summarize it for us in three bullets and thus save us the procedure. Some give the badge and others neutralize it. The amount of text available is no longer related to the knowledge it contains. There are more words than ever because it is easier than ever to generate them, but It is not at all clear that there are more ideas. What is growing is the pressure to consume them all. I feel like, often, that fear of being left out seems like intellectual curiosity when what’s underneath is simple FOMO. Traditional functional illiteracy consisted of deciphering the letters but not understanding a word of what they said. The new one looks more like the opposite: We understand each text perfectly, but we have lost the ability to decide if it deserves to be read.. We don’t filter. We do not rule out. We don’t say “this is bullshit that doesn’t give me anything.” Not enough. And we don’t do it because discarding information is something that we continue to feel like a loss, like an act of laziness that gives us away. But it is just the opposite. The ability to not read (identify in three seconds that something is not worth your next ten minutes) is today an act of intelligence that contributes almost as much as reading itself. And for that you need to develop your own red flag. In my case, if a text promises a revelation but the first paragraph is pure introductory nonsense, get out. If I sense grandiloquent adjectives and filling robotic structures, out. If there is not a single piece of data before the first scroll, on the run. I don’t even mention the monoline structure so common in X and LinkedIn. There, it directly catapults. When ChatGPT arrived, many of us thought that the risk of AI was that people would stop reading. It may be worse: that you read more than ever without thinking more than ever. Let it process without digesting. Accumulate information like someone who accumulates open tabs, with the vague promise of returning to them. We know he won’t. We never go back. I know this because I haven’t closed those twenty-five tabs all week and in the end I will close them all at once, without reading them, with a mixture of relief and guilt. But I have begun to understand that closing tabs suddenly after having selected the most interesting thing is a very healthy practice. In the end, the new functional illiterate is too much like my browser this morning: overloaded with tabs, full of promises to read, and completely unable to process a single more idea. In Xataka | There is a generation working for free as a documentarian of their own life: they are not influencers but they act as if they were. Featured image | Xataka

we read increasingly simpler books and it is affecting us

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A study of hundreds of bestsellers from recent years reveals that the sentences of the most popular books have shrunk by almost a third since the 1930s. What was once a paragraph is today a sentence. What was once a phrase is today a tweet. And the effects, according to several researchers and as it could not be otherwise, extend far beyond the literature. Shorter sentences. If you leaf through a hit from the 1930s, it is normal to find sentences of twenty words, sometimes more, with subordinate clauses, with clauses, with ideas that branch out. According to an analysis by The Economist elaborated on hundreds of New York Times bestsellersthe average sentence length of the most popular books has fallen by almost a third since that decade. ‘Harper’s Magazine’ estimates the average per sentence of a bestseller of that time at 22 words; Today it’s around 12. The article gives an example among many others: ‘Modern Painters’ by John Ruskin, number one in sales in its day: its first sentence is a whopping 153 words. Let’s remind Gen-Z that I couldn’t start ‘Wuthering Heights’‘ because of the subtlety of its grammar. Fewer readers. The shortening of sentences occurs while reading declines in almost all indicators. A study from the University of Florida and University College London Based on the activity diaries of more than 236,000 Americans over two decades, it quantifies the decline: the share of adults who read for pleasure daily fell from 28% in 2004 to 16% in 2023, a reduction of more than 40%. A “sustained and constant” decline of around 3% annually. In United Kingdom the data points in the same direction: 40% of Britons did not read a single book in 2024. The average Briton read three in the entire year. What is striking about the American study is that polarization is also advancing. Those who continue reading spend a little more time than before, 83 to 97 minutes on average per day. The phenomenon is not that everyone reads a little less, but that a minority reads a lot more while the majority has stopped reading completely. Mobile phone as the usual suspect. The most immediate explanation points to smartphones. It is not incorrect, but it is insufficient. ‘The Economist’ recalls that a Benedictine monk from the 4th century already described in his texts how the afternoon sun, the heaviness of lunch and the drowsiness of siesta time made it impossible to keep the book open. The problem of reading concentration predates algorithms and dopamine. What has changed in the modern age is the willingness to read. The crux of the matter. Professor Jonathan Bate, Professor of English Literature at Oxford, warns that losing the ability to read complex prose can also mean losing the ability to “develop complex ideas that allow you to see nuances and hold two contradictory thoughts at the same time.” The Economist uses data on public discourse to reinforce this thesis. An analysis of almost 250 years of US presidential inaugural addresses, applying the Flesch-Kincaid readability test, shows a clear trajectory: George Washington’s speech scored 28.7 points (graduate level); Donald Trump’s, 9.4 (high school). Reading is good. science has been documenting for a long time the cognitive benefits of sustained reading: improved reasoning, concentration, empathy and even reduced risk of mortality with just 30 minutes a day. But those benefits require reading, not planning to read. Reading has historically functioned as one of the few mechanisms of social mobility that does not require elite schools or family capital. Just a book and the desire to open it. The problem that the current data raises (from bestsellers with 10-word sentences to 40% of Britons without reading a book in a year) is that this desire does not have much firm territory on which to settle. Header | Photo of Thought Catalog in Unsplash In Xataka | In Tokyo there is a bookstore with only one book in the catalog. It has been open for ten years and works

I was about to buy the best-selling Chinese motorcycle in Spain. Until I read the fine print

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Chinese motorcycles They are driving the Spanish crazy. So much so that they are achieving the unthinkable: snatch the throne to the historic Japanese Honda and Yamaha. It is no wonder, since both in terms of performance and price, what the Chinese proposals offer is simply unbeatable. Servidor was recently at the Zontes dealership to test what is currently the best-selling A2 license scooter in Spain: the 368G. I went down from trying it convinced of the purchase, until I read the fine print. One that has a lot to do with China’s strategy to conquer Europe. The aforementioned. If you don’t understand much about motorcycles, the summary is easy: this motorcycle is “the SUV” with the best quality-price on the market. It costs less than 5,000 euros, has a 368cc engine and almost 40hp of power, and comes with extras such as rear and front cameras with Sony sensors, heated grips as standard, keyless boot and hood, screen with mirroring for the mobile… The equivalent in any traditional brand costs about 1,500 euros more. The rolling smoothness of the motorcycle is excellent, and although the general qualities are somewhat tight (something completely logical, given the price), it is an absolutely winning purchase. Everything good, except for one little problem. We are guinea pigs. China is achieving something unthinkable a few years ago in the world of motorcycles (and cars). They have not come to compete against smaller brands or carve out a niche for themselves. They have landed in Europe to take the top positions in the ranking and end the leadership of traditional brands. Decades of reign that they have managed to end in a very short time. To do this, at least in the territory of motorcycles, something key is needed in a vehicle for daily use and enjoyment: reliability. And to ensure that the bike passes through the workshop frequently, the inspection intervals are especially abnormal. Yes, but. In the case of this Zontes, the maintenance interval is 4,000km. Yes, every 4,000km you have to go to the workshop. To give you some context, its rivals like the Honda 350 ADV They go through the workshop every 12,000km, and the Yamaha Xmax 300 every 5,000km for oil changes and every 10,000 for the rest of the consumables. The brand is completely aware of the problem this poses, and the 2026 model will arrive in summer with maintenance intervals of 6,000km. It is a substantial change, since every 12,000km a 368g will have passed through the workshop three times. One 2026, two. Little by little. Zontes is not alone in this problem. Voge, the Chinese manufacturer that has managed to become the top 1 in the best-selling trail motorcycles in Spain, has several models with service intervals every 6,000km. But in its star versions, such as 900 DSXthis goes up to 10,000km. If they still sell, imagine in a year. There are many bikers who do not put too many kilometers on their motorcycle, or those who are willing to visit the workshop twice a year in exchange for taking a much more equipped, complete and powerful product. China is managing to place its motorcycles in the top 3 in sales even with this enormous handicap on the table. When your maintenance intervals match the rest of your competitors, the rest will be history. Image | Zontes In Xataka | Spain loves one thing: cheap motorcycles. Europe doesn’t like something else: cheap motorcycles.

His most iconic novels and how to read them

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Paul Auster is one of the most influential writers in contemporary literature, with works translated into more than forty languages. Despite his fame, delving into his work can be difficult given how precise and refined his prose is. To avoid unnecessary frustrations with Auster, we have prepared a reading guide for you: a tour in 10 easy steps so as not to miss any of the author’s key works. Where to start reading Paul Auster Born into a middle-class Jewish family, Auster studied French, Italian, and English literature at Columbia University before settling in Paris for three years, where he worked as a translator of Mallarmé, Sartre, and Simenon. His arrival on the American literary scene in the eighties was a breath of fresh air for a narrative that needed renewal: his work, impregnated with influences from the old continent, fused the best of North American and European traditions. His narrative universe, characterized by the exploration of chance, identity and metafiction, established a unique style that has inspired countless writers in aspects such as fiction that contaminates reality. To delve into his work, the ideal path begins with ‘The New York Trilogy’. This volume not only established him internationally, but also reinvented the detective genre with metafictional games, characters that unfold, and investigations that become existential searches. From there, two possibilities open up. On the one hand, the path of autobiography, with works such as ‘The Invention of Solitude’, written after the death of his father. On the other hand, Auster continues to explore the possibilities of pure narrative, with works such as the contemporary serial ‘The Moon Palace’ or ‘Leviathan’, a political reflection on the ravages of Vietnam on an entire generation. Finally we will stop at the ambitious ‘4 3 2 1’, which narrates four parallel lives of the same protagonist. The best novels by Paul Auster, in order 1. The New York Trilogy (1987) Consecrating work published between 1985 and 1987, which includes ‘Crystal City’, ‘Ghosts’ and ‘The Locked Room’, and which launched Auster to international recognition and marked a new starting point for the North American novel. Postmodern reinvention of the police genre where detective investigations are transformed into existential inquiries about identity, language and reality. In ‘City of Glass’, a crime novel writer named Daniel Quinn receives a wrong call that confuses him with a detective named Paul Auster, which leads him to accept the case and meet the real Auster, who is a writer, not a detective. ‘Ghosts’ presents a private detective named Blue watching a man called Black on behalf of White, in a claustrophobic urban universe where the watcher and the watched write identical reports sitting face to face, questioning who is watching whom and who is writing the other’s life. ‘The Closed Room’ closes the trilogy with the disappearance of a writer modeled after Auster himself, whose life, work and wife are inherited by the narrator, which makes him explore whether living the life of another corrodes to the point of destruction. Three seemingly independent stories that are interconnected with cross references. The New York Trilogy (Formentor Library) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links 2. The invention of solitude (1982) After that first instruction manual of the Austerian universe, we delve into the emotional engine of his work. Written after his father’s death, he explains why narrative games are not exercises, but rather tools for processing trauma. It is divided into two complementary texts that make up an autobiographical exploration of fatherhood, memory and loneliness. ‘Portrait of an invisible man’ is based on the impact of the news of the father’s death and the act of confronting the objects of the deceased to reconstruct a father who was absent even in life, including the reconstruction of a crime. In ‘The Book of Memory’ he distances himself from the initial grief and links reflections on his role as a son with his own early fatherhood. An unclassifiable text that establishes the emotional foundations of his later work. The invention of solitude (Formentor Library) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links 3. The Palace of the Moon (1989) After ‘The New York Trilogy’, Auster tackled this contemporary serial about paternity and imposture. It established Auster in Europe and for many it is his masterpiece because of how it grabs the resources of the nineteenth-century adventure novel and makes them his own. Marco Stanley Fogg (Marco Polo + the journalist who found Livingstone + Phileas Fogg from ‘Around the World in Eighty Days’) is an orphan who is left destitute after the death of his uncle. He will end up working for an old paralyzed painter, for whom he writes a biography for the son he never met. The novel is structured in a network of metaphors about the moon and light, in a journey of self-discovery full of stories within stories. The Palace of the Moon: 185 (Panorama of narratives) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links 4. Leviathan (1992) Auster’s most political novel is a reflection on the broken dreams of the Vietnam generation. The narrative begins at its end: in 1990, a man has a bomb explode in his hand and fly into pieces, an anonymous dead man that the FBI cannot identify. A writer suspects that it is his missing best friend, and decides to write his biography before the official story does so. The subject of the book is another writer, a conscientious objector imprisoned during Vietnam, the author of a youth novel that briefly turned him into a cult author, and also a possible murderer and urban terrorist who blew up replicas of the Statue of Liberty. Leviathan: 283 (Panorama of narratives) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links 5. The Music of Chance (1990) One of Auster’s most absorbing works, about destiny and freedom, which begins as a purely American road novel and mutates into Gothic literature. A Boston firefighter is abandoned by … Read more

The five best Christmas offers on Kindle depending on the price and use we are going to give it to read

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Amazon has launched many Christmas offers and, of course, the Kindles have fully entered them. But… which one to buy? In this article we are going to discuss which is the most interesting depending on what we want to spend and the use we are going to give it. Kindle by 107.99 eurosa basic model that stands out above all for its price. Kindle Colorsoft by 194.99 eurosAmazon’s eReader with a color screen. Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition by 224.99 eurosa model similar to the previous one with added functions and better features. Kindle Scribe (2022) by 264.99 eurosa slightly older eReader but just as interesting as the rest of this list. Kindle Scribe (2024) by 349.99 eurosthe latest generation of its range. Other Kindles that are not on sale. Kindle If you want a Kindle to read occasionally and are only looking for a basic experience at a not very high price, the best purchase option is the same Kindle. It incorporates a six-inch glare-free screen and its size is small to take on a trip. Its theoretical autonomy is up to six weeks and it comes with 16 GB of storage. Bad is that with this model we lose the adjustable warm light, the automatic front light adjustment (it can be done manually) and the water resistance. The good is that it costs 107.99 euros. Kindle (latest generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kindle Colorsoft Maybe the Kindle Colorsoft It is not the most suitable eReader for reading comics given its seven-inch size, but it is interesting to take advantage of the color screen to underline text in various colors and differentiate dialogues between various characters. Or to see the covers and color illustrations. With all this, it is focused on those people who prefer to add a touch of color in these situations and who can spend a little more money on a reader. Bad: It does not have wireless charging or automatic front light adjustment. The good: its price 194.99 euros It is quite tight, it is waterproof, its theoretical autonomy reaches 12 weeks of use and the frames are tighter than on the basic Kindle. In this sense, it is smaller in height, but wider and a little thinner. Kindle Colorsoft (latest generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition On the other hand, Amazon has a more complete model of its eReader with a color screen called Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition. It has exactly the same dimensions and the same specifications, with a couple of additions: it incorporates automatic front light adjustment and comes with wireless charging. Bad: its price 224.99 euros is higher than that of the basic model. If we are not going to use its two additions, it is advisable to opt for the other eReader. The good: It is a more complete eReader and the price difference right now is not excessively large. Kindle Colorsoft Signature Edition (latest generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kindle Scribe (2022) He Kindle Scribe Launched in 2022, it will not be the most recent eReader in its range, but Amazon continues to sell it at a fairly competitive price. The most notable thing is the format, since we are talking about a reader with 10.2 inch screen. It is aimed at readers of digital books, but also for those people who like to take notes of certain dialogues or just to take notes. It includes a pencil and its theoretical autonomy is up to 12 weeks of use. Its price is 264.99 euros. Bad: It weighs quite a bit (433 grams), so it is not the most suitable for traveling. Furthermore, it is not waterproof either. The good: It is quite practical if what we are looking for is a screen that covers more text with a larger size. It is also if we want to take notes. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kindle Scribe (2024) He Kindle Scribe Launched in 2024, it does have some interesting additions, but as we will mention later, it does without others. It maintains the same format as its previous generation by having a 10.2-inch screen and also includes a stylus. As in the previous model, it is oriented for use at home and for taking notes. Its price on Amazon is 349.99 euros and in MediaMarkt of 329.99 euros. Bad: Its weight is 433 grams and it is not waterproof nor does it come with wireless charging. The good: It is available in various storage configurations, its theoretical autonomy is up to 12 weeks of use and incorporates artificial intelligence functions to summarize text or notes. The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Other Kindles The Kindle Paperwhite is one of the most popular eReaders in each generation due to its quality-price ratio, but neither of them are on sale. Its use is aimed at people looking for a better reading experience and that they tend to read quite frequently. It is also ideal to take on a trip even if its size is larger than that of the Kindle. He Kindle Paperwhite costs 169 euros and it has a seven-inch screen. In addition, it incorporates adjustable warm light, water resistance, incorporates 16 GB of internal storage and its autonomy is up to 12 weeks of use. He Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition costs 199 euros and, in addition to what its basic model already includes, it comes with automatic front light adjustment, wireless charging and 32 GB of internal storage. Kindle Paperwhite (latest generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Kindle Paperwhite Signature Edition (latest generation) The price could vary. We earn commission from these links Some of the links in this article are affiliated and may provide a benefit to Xataka. In case of non-availability, offers may vary. Images | amazon In Xataka | Which Kindle to … Read more

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