Reading now includes Listening for me

[alicebentley]

My love affair with reading books started early, helped along no small bit by enthusiastic parents with a hodgepodge but large collection of books. The actual -amount- of books I read has varied wildly, impacted by work, activities, inclinations and supply.

I was reading very few books during the last handful of years of my bookstore, for instance. Just too busy/tired. And for a span of time after that, as if I'd lost the knack.

In previous decades acquiring a book always meant a paper copy to me. I'd nab the occasional ebook when that was extra convenient, but I really love the whole experience of holding a book, turning the pages, enjoying all the design choices the publisher makes to bring them into being. But as we all know, that leads to having thousands of books to provide habitat for, or potentially (shudder) move. So over the last half-dozen years I've been making a concerted effort to buy ebook variants, and gift or sell a bunch of the paper ones.

It's not the same experience, but it's easier on my aging eyes (thank you backlights and adjustable text sizes) and storage issues are much reduced.

A couple years ago my process at work changed. My day was filled with assembling models, sometimes ones I'd already done many times. The perfect environment to have an audiobook on headphones - especially if it's an audio version of a book I'd already read and didn't need to be completely immersed.

The books that really swayed me to this was Murderbot. I had already bought and read each of Martha Well's books as they came out, usually with a re-read of all the previous ones once a new one arrived. Kevin R. Free's audiobook was an unexpected delight, bringing me a way to revisit this favorite story while giving me a new view of the characters and events. And while still getting good work done!

After that I started binging audiobooks quite as badly as I've ever tucked into paper - and it's past time I wrote up more of these experiences. That's my big plan for more DreamWidth posting and I hope I will hold to it.

Comments

[johnridley]

In earlier years, I read often but my reading speed was quite slow.
About 20ish years ago, I realized that I had not read a single book for several years. I had become the kind of person I don't want to be. I decided to change that immediately. Looking back at my Goodreads stats, I read 2 books one year, 10 the next, then it really took off the following year at 73. I suspect that was the year I discovered audiobooks, and I was commuting 90 minutes a day at the time.

I now have a text and an audiobook on the burn at all times. I have certain series and narrators that I quite like, the Rivers of London are one, the Nigel Planer readings of Discworld books come to mind as well.

I really don't do paper at all anymore, I find the experience cumbersome and awkward, and I don't like risking damage so I don't take them out of the house with me. The audiobooks and ebooks are always with me. And, as you say, it means another THING to find a place for in the house. Lately I'm mainly about getting RID of things as much as possible. I only buy paper if it's something I really want and there's no other option, AND the library doesn't have it.

[minnehaha]

I think of books as tools, not precious objects. Their contents can be precious, to be sure, but the object is not. Thus, I turn down page corners, I write in them, I crack their spines, I drop them in the bathtub.

K.

[alicebentley]

I'm comfortable with other people mangling their books but tend not to do so myself. Working in a bookstore will cure most folks from thinking of them as irreplaceable treasures.

audiobooks are great

[bibliofile]

My friend Becky got into audiobooks while commuting, too. Now she also listens to them while working in the kitchen at home, too.

Me, I hardly ever read short stories. But I listened to a bunch of "Selected shorts" on the radio when I was crocheting or even puttering around on the computer.

[min8ive]

I don't read books anymore. I don't have time to sit and stare at one thing. But I have an audiobook going almost 24/7 while I do other things -- housework, commuting, daily rituals such as brushing my teeth, etc.

I love dramatizations, with a cast of many.