Audiobooks
The Joy of Audio Books
I love to read just about anything and everything but there are not enough hours in a day to…
read all the books I have on my reading list. I fill in the time crunch by listening to audio books. My preference is for unabridged books and 99% of the books I listen to are unabridged, but every once in a while I end up with an abridged version that is decent.
I buy quite a few through Amazon, ebay and local used book stores and I borrow them from generous friends. But one of my main sources for audio books is my local library. Living in large metropolitan area I have many different library systems available and I take full advantage of them to reserve books and audio books. For the most part the library CD copies are in fairly good condition. Every once in a while I get one with scratches that skip and I have to return it without finishing it but surprisingly CD’s can take a lot of abuse and have many scratches on them and still play well. I usually clean them first before I listen to them just to help improve the listening quality by removing sticky fingerprints etc. I listen to them in my car, upload to my iPod or listen to them on my computer using headphones.
Besides audio books on discs and cassettes [I don’t check out the cassettes] many of my local libraries have started a download check out system for audio books. The books are checked out electronically, downloaded to a computer and then most can be copied onto CDs or uploaded to an electronic device [iPod or mp3 player]. Checkout time is usually for two weeks and the audio books can be renewed just like regular books. At the end of the two weeks [or the end of the check out period] the books are usually still on your computer but you can’t access them to listen to them. I don’t understand the mechanics of how that happens but since I usually finish a book within the two week period I haven’t found it inconvenient. I just delete the book and check out the next one. This system allows for a larger database of audio books to choose from.
While I listen to a lot of the audio books to save reading time I find I sometimes want to read a book and also listen to the unabridged audio book as well. It kind of defeats my saving time by listening to audio books theme but some are just that good I like the experience of doing both. Boring household chores like cleaning the garage and yard work is a lot easier to face when listening to a good book while working on those chores. And long car trips seem much shorter when listening to a good mystery. Thus the Joy of Audiobooks. They add a lot of pleasure to my life.
Now if only fanfiction was available on audio I’d be a very happy camper. LOL.