Books on Tape*

Or, more accurately, audio books. I’ve never really liked the idea of listening to audio books, but many people that I know love them. Most of the people I know that love them listen on long car rides. I work from home, so don’t really have long car rides in my life. A few months ago, Maya and I were at our local Amazon bookstore, and as a Prime member, they said I was entitled to a free month with two audio books. OK, I thought, maybe I’ll use it. A few days later, I was talking to my stepmom, Julie, and she was telling me about an audiobook she had recently read (listened to) and really enjoyed. I decided that since I had two free books, I would give it a try, and listen to the book she suggested. I found that there is indeed room in my life for audio books. It has some advantages over a physical book, and some drawbacks as well.

In the advantages column, even though I don’t spend a lot of time in the car, I do take a 2 to 3 mile walk with Puppy Boy every morning, and this is the perfect time to listen to a book. I sometimes listen to NPR podcasts, but sometimes I don’t want to listen to the news, and this is an excellent alternative. Also, I am usually alone when I cook dinner, Ted and Maya not being home yet, and this is the perfect time to get a chapter or two in. So these are two blocks of time in my day to day life when I would not generally be able to read, but now I can.

In the disadvantages column, I often like to read in bed. This generally means reading a little bit and then falling asleep. If I am reading a book, I realize I am dropping off, and put a bookmark in to save my place. With an audiobook, I have woken up to discover that I missed an hour or more, and it is much more difficult to find where I left off. Similarly, if my mind wanders at some point while listening, it is more difficult to find where I was. Another drawback is that if for some reason you want to go back and find a favorite passage, it is much more difficult to do so. With one book, I really wanted to read a particular part, and ended up looking at it in a bookstore. Lastly, much like an e-book, I can’t loan it to anyone. Sometimes I really like a book and want to loan it to a friend or family member, and you can’t really do that with an audiobook.

So, do I prefer it to a physical book? No. Does it have a place in my life? Yes, at least for now. I’ve listened to 4 books so far, and ended up getting an Audible subscription. It’s $14.99 a month, which sometimes seems spendy to me, but other times seems pretty fair. I’m going to keep it for awhile, knowing I can cancel if I need to.

Here are the four books I have in my library:

A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. I read another book of his, Rules of Civility several years ago, and really enjoyed it. This is the book (Gentleman) that my stepmom suggested. It is the story of a man who is confined to his hotel in Moscow immediately following the Bolshevik revolution. I loved the narrator, loved the layers of the story and how the first half of the book feels like little stories about his life in the hotel, and how the second half brings them together. I liked it enough that I listened to it a second time, and so did my stepmom.

One Day in December, by Josie Silver. This is your basic RomCom. I was running up against the deadline for my free month/2 books, and didn’t have any ideas, so I poked around on Audible. A few months ago, I read a book that I loved, Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine, by Gail Honeyman, which has a stamp on the front saying it is from Reese Witherspoon’s book club. What? Who knew Reese Witherspoon had a book club? Not me. Anyway, I loved Eleanor Oliphant, and Reese also recommended One Day in December, and I was up against a deadline, so I gave it a try. Again, I really liked it. As I said, it’s a RomCom. The meet cute is that a young British woman is on the bus in London, sees a young man on the street outside…they make eye contact and click. Then the bus drives off, and they don’t know anything about each other. The story is told in alternating chapters, her voice and his voice, all of their thoughts and stupid misunderstandings that of course have to happen in a RomCom.

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens. My mother in law told me she adored this book, and was sad when it was over. I thought about getting it from the library, but it’s extremely popular, so I was number 500+ on the waiting list. I was thinking how much I had enjoyed listening to the other two books while walking the dog and/or cooking, so I sprung for it. This is the story of Kya, a young girl basically left to raise herself in the rural marsh of North Carolina. It goes back and forth in time between the 1940s and 1960s, and includes a love story, a murder(?) mystery, and a story of a girl becoming a woman and learning to support herself. Surprise, it is also a Reese Witherspoon recommended book.

Before We Were Yours by Lisa Wingate. This is my current book, and I read about it on Nance’s blog. She didn’t give a lot of detail, just said that she enjoyed it, and I was looking for something to listen to, so I gave it a try. I’m not finished yet, but I am enjoying it and looking forward to reading about it when I finish. It is told in alternating chapters, in the voices of Rill (1930s) and Avery (present day). The narrator of the book doing Ril’s voice at first sounded a lot like the narrator (perhaps reader is more accurate, the person reading the book to us) of Where the Crawdads Sing, which was a bit distracting at first. Rill and her family (She is 12, and is the oldest of 5) live in a boat on the Mississippi River, and when disaster hits in 1939, their world is thrown into chaos. Avery is about 30, living in present day Maryland, and is spending some time with her family in South Carolina. Her father is a U.S. Senator, and is sick and going through a bit of a political uproar. While at a political event in support of her father’s re-election, she meets a woman named May (Mae? Audiobook, so I don’t know how it was spelled) who seems to somehow be connected to Avery’s family, but we don’t know how. I’m not finished with it yet, but I think I’m close (hard to tell in an audiobook, but it feels like it’s wrapping up…mysteries are coming to light…) and I am really enjoying it.

The only bad thing about Audible is that you only get one book included per month. I don’t know if I will purchase others. I am also reading some physical books that I bought on our staycation in July, so perhaps that will have to be enough until my next audible book. That and my podcasts.

* I always call them ‘Books on Tape’ when I tell Maya I’m going to be listening to one, so if she wants to talk to me, I won’t hear her call to me from another room, since I listen on my phone with earbuds if anyone else is in the house. If I’m alone, I listen to it using our iPhone speaker/docking station.