audio books
This fall I put away my car keys and joined the public transportation club, riding the T to and from school/work every day. I always tried to bring something to read, but not a day went by that I didn’t wish I had something to plug into my ears to drown out the public. Friendly, I know. Finally, this spring, I spent some time researching mp3 players, and bit the bullet. It’s not an iPod (I have commitment fears with the iTunes AAC format), and it’s not very powerful, but it does the job.
Anyway, I’ve started to get into podcasts, since I don’t listen to the radio anymore. Now I’m thinking about audio books. I don’t have much time to read, but with my mp3 player and an audio book I can “read” while doing dishes and things like that. I don’t think that I would stop reading books altogether, but it seems like a nice option to have. An article in the New York Times today talks about the conflicting feelings that readers have about audio books, and what types of books are more conducive to narration. Obviously it depends on the reader, but I can see how I’d more likely get through a non-fiction book if I could listen to it while doing other stuff. At the same time I think that I like being able to inerpret text my own way, and having a narrator sort of takes that independence away. I definitley think that for our drive down to Nashville come August, b and I should give it a shot.
Loud, Proud, Unabridged: It Is Too Reading! [New York Times]
Authors on Audio: Better a Listen than a Pass [New York Times]
