On Audio Books
Okay, so I’ve only listened to one audio book in my entire life. It was Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn: Final Empire (From the Mistborn Series). Dude… it was long. For real. 25 hours. That’s pretty long, I think.
The upside of audio books: you can do other things while you read. You can wash dishes, cook dinner, listen to conference calls… wait, not really for that last one. I really did enjoy that part of it.
The downsides… well, there are several:
- You’re less interruptible. Okay, maybe you’re not all the time, but I was listening through head phones about 90% of the time. I was definitely less interruptible.
- It’s slow. Not everyone will find this, (approaching humble brag) but I’m a pretty fast reader. Listening to someone else read seems to increase the amount of time a book takes, by maybe as much as 75-100%.
- The reader can be great or awful. I’ve tried to listen to several other audio books in the past couple of years, and they were all awful. The guy who read Mistborn was pretty good, although the voice he adopted for the female protagonist kind of annoyed me.
- It’s easier to space out. I think I remembered to rewind every time this happened, but if I didn’t, would I really know?
Anyway, that’s my current take on audiobooks. Not as bad as I thought. I’m working on Tina Fey’s BossyPants as I write this blog post. It’s read by Tina, which is fun. But, it’s also that process of figuring out that a writer / creative type person whose work you like may not find you “fun to eat dinner with” in real life.
The last time I came to visit you with Aunt Deb and gang, they were listening to an audio book in the van. I couldn’t hear it clearly from the back, but I found it annoying and nothing like reading the actual book, which I had greatly enjoyed. I guess I’m just too set in my ways!
Sorry Hermit
)
I will say that they are great for passing the time if you have to travel for work, especially if you end up stuck in traffic for hour long stretches. But you are right about the narrator – For every one I’ve enjoyed I’ve taken 3 back to the library because I didn’t like their approach or attempt at accents.
I enjoyed The Help best because they had a different person reading each of the major characters.
That made it more like the radio dramas we used to listen to.