One of the frugal habits I learned as a child was to love the public library. My parents aren’t bookish, but my mom appreciates a bargain wherever she can find one, and public libraries are a bargain-hunter’s dream. As a child, my mother would often take me to the Bexley Public Library–located on the other side of the tracks from our working class neighborhood in Columbus, Ohio–and read magazines while I selected an armful of books to borrow. It was a profitable endeavor for both of us. Growing up in a neighborhood without many children, I learned to love reading, and my mother didn’t have to subscribe to magazines. Where else but at a library could my mother have let her budding bookworm of a daughter wander at will, free to choose anything she’d like to take home?
One of the downsides of my teaching schedule is the relative lack of time it leaves me for pleasure reading. During a busy semester, it feels like so much of my time is devoted to reading student papers, when I (finally) find a free moment, the last thing I want to do is read more. Over the past year or so, though, I’ve discovered (and yes, this makes me a decidedly late adopter) the pleasures and downright convenience of audiobooks. Even when my eyes don’t feel like reading another written word, I can pop on my earphones and have someone read me a story. I’ve found it to be a wonderful way to relax, and during busy semesters, audiobooks (which I listen to during my frequent drives between New Hampshire and Massachusetts, or while I’m doing housework, or occasionally while I walk the dog) have been my biggest connection to my bookworm past.
This new-found fondness for audiobooks (or perhaps, more accurately, a New Year’s decision to finally come clean about my ongoing audiobook habit) is why you’ll now find a link at the top of my blog to a page titled “Audiobook Challenge.” As a way of encouraging myself to keep track, on-blog, of the books I listen to this year, I’ve signed up for J. Kaye’s 2009 Audiobook Challenge. Since I’m already in the the habit of listening to audiobooks, why not make a New Year’s resolution to continue the practice?
J. Kaye is challenging folks to listen to twelve audiobooks in twelve months, but for me, the real challenge is to blog each of the books I listen to. I have a long-dormant blog category called Book chat where I used to post my thoughts on books I read…but I haven’t written any book posts since the spring of 2007. Now that the New Year is upon us, I want to keep track of what I read and what I think about what I read. Although I’m not committing to write full reviews of the books I’ll listen to over the next twelve months, I want to keep at least a brief record of what audiobooks I’m listening to, as much for my own future benefit as for anyone else’s.
Looking back on 2008, for instance, I quickly jotted down thirty (!!!) audiobooks I listened to over the course of the year, most of them borrowed from either the Boston Public or Keene Public Libraries, both of which offer digital audiobook downloads. (Several of the titles below came from Keene State Library’s Mason Library or the Newton Public Library, which offer CD audiobooks.) Thirty audiobooks in a year is a lot of virtual “reading,” and all of it was free!
- Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Mission to Fight Terrorism and Build Nations … One School at a Time by Greg Mortenson
- A Long Way Gone: Memoirs of a Boy Soldier by Ishmael Beah
- The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute To His White Mother by James McBride
- The Zookeeper’s Wife: A War Story by Diane Ackerman
- Night by Elie Wiesel
- Beautiful Boy: A Father’s Journey Through His Son’s Addiction by David Sheff
- This Land Is Their Land: Reports from a Divided Nation by Barbara Ehrenreich
- The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America by Erik Larson
- Here If You Need Me by Kate Braestrup
- Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex by Mary Roach
- Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach
- Through the Children’s Gate: A Home in New York by Adam Gopnik
- The Discomfort Zone: A Personal History by Jonathan Franzen
- How to Be Alone: Essays by Jonathan Franzen
- Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman
- Kabul Beauty School: An American Woman Goes Behind the Veil by Deborah Rodriguez
- Madness: A Bipolar Life by Marya Hornbacher
- Middletown, America: One Town’s Passage from Trauma to Hope by Gail Sheehy
- We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will be Killed With Our Families: Stories from Rwanda by Philip Gourevitch
- Audition: A Memoir by Barbara Walters
- A Wolf at the Table: A Memoir of My Father by Augusten Burroughs
- Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison
- The Necklace: Thirteen Women and the Experiment That Transformed Their Lives by Cheryl Jarvis
- Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman’s Search for Everything Across Italy, India and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
- The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
- Worth the Fighting For: The Education of an American Maverick, by John McCain
- Promises to Keep: On Life and Politics by Joseph Biden
- Wake-Up Call: The Political Education of a 9/11 Widow by Kristen Breitweiser
- Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves and the American Revolution by Simon Schama
- Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond
In retrospect, my 2008 reading habits show several things. First, I listen to far more audiobooks than I read actual books; second, although I show a marked preference to nonfiction narratives, my tastes within the nonfiction genre truly are eclectic. I credit this partly to my own curiosity–there’s little in the world I’m not interested in learning more about–but I also credit the fact that (according to one of my mother’s favorite sayings) beggars can’t be choosers: if you’re relying upon free audiobooks downloaded from one or another of your public libraries, you’re necessarily limited to what’s available. In retrospect, having some relative limitation on your reading habits isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I typically find I learn to take an interest in whatever book I’m listening to once I’ve given it a fair chance. As my mother (again) would say, you can’t beat free.
Although I don’t have any definite reading list set out for 2009, I want to make a conscious effort to listen to more fiction. At the moment, I’m listening to Marilynne Robinson’s Gilead, which I’ve already read but which I’m re-visiting before diving into Robinson’s latest novel, Home. Since I began listening to Gilead in 2008, it doesn’t count toward J. Kaye’s challenge, but I’ll tackle that soon enough. In the meantime, feel free to follow my book-by-book progress on my Audiobook Challenge page, and consider taking the challenge yourself. What’s not to like about books for free?
Needless to say, I snapped today’s images of the bookish statue outside the Newton Free Library last June, before she was topped with New Year’s snow. Apart from the ponytail, which I acquired only as an adult, this bronze bookworm with her jacket, ball-cap, and backpack could be a clone of my younger self, at least after I was old enough to take myself to the Bexley Public Library on my bike.
Jan 1, 2009 at 9:31 pm
I’m doing the audiobook challenge, too! I used to listen to them a lot when I was in college and driving across state for visits home on break, but got out of the habit. I rediscovered them a few years ago when I was having a health problem that made it hard for me to sleep at night. I could lay in bed and “read” without keeping my husband awake with the light.
I listened to A Long Way Gone, too – can’t remember if it was this year or last year – amazing story. I listen to fiction or memoirs, mostly.
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Jan 2, 2009 at 10:07 am
I love that statue – she’s just so real. I’m a big fan of audiobooks, and as you wrote, end up reading things I might not ever read just because of what’s available. I listened to double the books I read in print version last year. Doesn’t it seem funny to say last year, when it was just a couple days ago? :<)
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Jan 2, 2009 at 11:46 am
Driving down to Columbus for work-related meetings is a good time for me to catch up on my podcasts. I don’t really do many audiobooks, but _This American Life_, etc.
One thing I might recommend, kind of the ‘Gutenberg Project’ of audiobooks, is LibriVox, were volunteers read out-of-copyright works, and they’re available as free downloads. I have ‘read’ some spiritual classics (_Practicing the Presence of God_), mythology, etc. I have queued up the _Castle of Otranto_, the first gothic novel, and _Umbrellas and Their History_. You may want to check it out at:
http://librivox.org/
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Jan 2, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Oooooh! Audiobooks and “spoken word” things are one of my great long-term pleasures – the solace of the insomniac and the salvation of one who still finds actually reading stuff unaccountably difficult. I particularly love Wodehouse, both dramatisations and unabridged readings. There are also many wonderful BBC radio programmes/series available on CD and I bought a great number over the years. I particularly enjoyed, last year, unabridged audio versions of three of Boris Akunin’s Erast Fandorin novels. Light and fluffy, that’s what I like 🙂
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Jan 3, 2009 at 11:43 am
I keep meaning to try audiobooks, especially when my husband and I drive to Alaska as we do at least once a year. But in the mean time, he and I enjoy the spoken word together. I read to him every night before we go to sleep. It puts him right out. Then I read (silently) to myself until I get sleepy. Usually this works for me, unless I get really interested. Then I stay awake too long.
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Jan 4, 2009 at 9:18 am
Audiobooks are something I enjoy on long drives when there isn’t much scenery. (Welcome to Arkansas – time to pop in the book.)
Yet there is no substitute for the tactile experience of handling a book. I actually go walk around bookstores when I want to calm down.
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Jan 5, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Good luck, Carrie, with the challenge! Since I listened to so many nonfiction titles last year, this year I’m making a conscious effort to listen to more fiction. It’s all good!
Nan, I think I’m much more likely to try something “new to me” if the book (audio or otherwise) is FREE. That’s why I like libraries so much. I probably wouldn’t buy a book that I’d never heard of or that sounded like something that wasn’t my style…but if I can try it for free, I’m much more likely to experiment.
Thanks, Wade, for recommending LibriVox: I’ll have to check it out! Believe it or not, I’ve not delved into podcasts: I know there’s so much out there, I think I’m afraid I’d get sucked into the scenario of “too many podcasts, not enough time.” As it is, I can’t keep up with the reading I do attempt…
Lady P, one of the delights of my more or less random approach to listening to library downloads is the way that something light & fluffy is followed by something more grim & serious. I guess it’s like setting your iPod to “shuffle”: you never know the mood of what you’re going to hear next.
Anne Gibert, I’ve always experienced reading as a solitary pleasure, so being “read to” is an indescribable delight. I think it exercises a different part of the imagination than reading with the eyes; there’s a different kind of attention required.
MuMun, I still love to curl up with a good book (right now, I’m slooooowly working my way through Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father). But even when I don’t have time to curl up with a physical book, there are times when I can plug into my MP3 player, so I’ve really enjoyed keeping up with some “reading” this way.
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Jan 5, 2009 at 6:50 pm
Audiobooks are a new pleasure for me, going so well as they do with knitting. I’m hooked. But I’m also limited by what’s in the local library… maybe I should be more diligent about searching the catalog and putting holds on things I want to read.
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