Slow clock

Tonight J and I are going to a library fundraiser featuring remarks by Drew Gilpin Faust and George Mumford. I always try to read the most recent books by the keynote authors at this event, so over the past few weeks I listened to audio versions of Faust’s Necessary Trouble: Growing Up at Midcentury and Mumford’s Unlocked: Embrace Your Greatness, Find the Flow, Discover Success.

In order to finish both books by tonight’s event, I listened to them at double-speed: a trick I learned from one of my former students, who several years ago wrote a literacy narrative about listening to audiobooks at double- or even triple-speed as a way of accommodating his ADHD.

In my case, I don’t have a problem listening to books at normal speed…but given that I read faster than most people talk, speeding up an audiobook more accurately matches the speed at which I read. And when I’m in a hurry to finish a book, speeding up the audio is a no-brainer.

Whenever I start a new audiobook, I initially listen at normal speed in order to acclimate myself to the reader’s voice and mannerisms. Once I have the narrator’s voice and natural cadence in my head, I experiment with speeding up the audio: does 1.5x speed sound natural and brisk, but not hurried? What about 2x speed?

Once I find a speed that doesn’t sound too much like The Chipmunks, I listen at that speed until the almost-end of the book, when I return to regular speed, which subsequently seems ohhhhh… sooooo… slooooow.