Audible Obsessed

Recently, I reported on how I read 9 books in March, more than any previous month for the last 17 years. 7 of those 9 books were audio books. And I’ve continued that into the month of April. But I doubt that I’ll read 9 books in April for reasons I will explain shortly.

Not since I tasted bacon as a youngster have I had such a dramatic turnaround in opinion. When I was a small boy, I distinctly recall disliking the smell of bacon. Then, one day, I tried bacon and I never looked back. I’ll eat bacon at every chance I get. The same has been true for audio books. I’m probably on record here on the blog somewhere (I’m not going to go digging through 5,100+ posts as the moment) saying how I don’t think audio books are for me. My objection (it seems so silly now) was that I didn’t like being read to. That I worried that another reader’s voice would interfere with the way I imagined the story. That has proven to be a completely groundless worry.

I am Audible-obsessed.

The best thing about audio books is that they allow me to read when I wouldn’t otherwise be able to read–when I go for my twice-daily walks; when I am doing chores around the house, etc. I can multitask and this allows me to read a lot more in any given day. In March I averaged more than 3.5 hours of Audible reading per day. It’s wonderful!

But I doubt I’ll read quite as many books in April, mostly because, over the next couple of months, I’ll be reading several longer books. I’m about to finish Stephen King’s The Tommyknockers later today. Next up is George R. R. Martin’s A Dance with Dragons, which I have not yet read (and still managed to avoid all of the spoilers). One of the things that I can do with Audible is attempt to read books that I’ve always wanted to read but never wanted to carve out the time to read. So, also on my list are: David Copperfield by Charles Dickens;  and The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas (I managed to make it about halfway through on 2 occasions, and really enjoyed it, but never finished because I moved onto other things). Also on the list is Stephen King’s It, which I’ve read twice before. It’s my favorite Stephen King book, but I’ve been told the audio version is excellent so I’m more than willing to read it again.

Not all of the books on the upcoming list are long. There are some average ones and some short ones. The list includes:

• Life Itself by Roger Ebert
• Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad
• The Inimitable Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse
• Shadow of the Torturer by Gene Wolfe
• Lord Valentine’s Castle by Robert Silverberg
• Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
• The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub
• Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
• Dreamcatcher by Stephen King
• On Basilisk Station by David Weber

Some of those are long, some are not, but they are all now on my Audible to-read list. I imagine that list will grow and it is possible that I will finally break the record number of books that I’ve read in one year (set back in 2001).