Listen up

[susandennis]

In the late 90's I started a job that included a bitch of a commute. I survived it with Books on Tape.  This was the olden days and those books came on literal tape cassettes.  I rented them. They would come in a box 7 or 8 a box.  When I was done, I slapped on the label and popped them into the mail and ordered my next one.

Back then, I was devouring contemporary mysteries in tree book form so to keep my brain from exploding in confusion, I listened to classics in the car. I discovered Kate Chopin and devoured everything they had by her. To this day, when I get on a certain stretch of local interstate, I flash back to her plots and characters...

But, these days, except for occasional Kindle/Google Book reads, I'm all Audible.Com all the time. I have favorite authors but also several favorite readers. A good reader can make a blah book interesting or a good book great.  Once in a while I hit a not great reader and even more seldom one who's truly horrible, but most are just very excellent at a very difficult job.

More often these days, particularly with non fiction, authors read their own works. Sometimes this works. Ken Jennings does a great job. But, more often it does not.  Good writers don't always make good readers.  Recently I tried Half Empty by David Rakoff. David's writing is exceptional. But it is complicated and he is not a reader. His words are strung together with perfection and rendered deadly with his reading of them. Sadly.

Today I started Yes, My Accent is Real by Kunal Nayyar who plays Raj on The Big Bang Theory. Kunal is not a great writer by any means but he is a very clever and funny writer and he is a fabulous reader. His timing and inflection (and, yes, accent) and tone make a clever book really really entertaining.

I bought it to listen while swimming because it was only 7 hours and I thought it would be an amusing 7 hours. I've now listened to the first half hour and already I'm sorry it's only 7 hours!

At night I'm listening to the latest Jack Reacher (Lee Child is the author) book read by Dick Hill. Child is one of my favorite authors and Dick Hill is one of my favorite readers.

My ears are certainly getting treated nicely these days!

Comments

[asher63.livejournal.com]

Oh, this is an awesome post! I remember when audiobooks were a pretty cumbersome proposition, and still have several boxed sets of books-on-tape.

I definitely prefer author readings, unless the author is just a terrible reader. Toni Morrison reads all her own stuff (although recordings exist of some of her books read by other voice artists as well). Audible is a great technology.

I love Audible, but different readers for each book in a trilogy...UGH!

[beadyeyedbeth.livejournal.com]

Audible is the one luxury I wouldn't give up if I had to cut back. Neflix streaming would go before I'd give up Audible. When I was making long drives from Vermont to Long Island in the 90s I'd rent books on cassette from the local library. When Audible became available on PCs, and then on mobile devices I was in heaven! Now I listen all the time in my car, and at home from a bluetooth headset. It makes housework and computer work less of a chore.

In the last year I've been listening/reading author Robin Hobb's trilogies. Because it's fantasy fiction the readers are more like voice actors, and it's not the same one for every book, which is irritating. They pronounce character and town names differently, and they have very different and distinct voices for each character and it becomes confusing from book-to-book. I wish there was a way to retain the same voice actor for each book of each trilogy.

I have a long round trip to make to and from Aiken today, and the audiobook of "Fool's Quest" is coming with me. I look forward to the drive.

[roasted-beets.livejournal.com]

I listen to tech podcasts in the car or when I'm out walking.

Do you read when you go to bed at night? I have since I was about eight years old and have no clue about people who can get in bed, turn out the light and go to sleep. I read Kindle books on my iPad mini.

[susandennis]

I do tech podcasts in the car, too. ReCode decode and The Ihnatko Almanac are my two latest favorites. Also Sound Effect, Sawbones and Bullseye. At home, during the day, I watch a lot of the TWIT.TV podcasts.

Which podcasts are your favorites these days?

[roasted-beets.livejournal.com]

I like the iMore Show, Upgrade, CultCast is goofy but fun, Windows Weekly, MacBreak Weekly and the Tech Guy. Leo Laporte was my first inkling that I might have some fun with the Box o'Rocks on Call for Help back in the late 90s. He was my age and acted like it was no big deal. I learned a LOT from Leo.

Andy Ihnatko is a riot.

[susandennis]

Leo is amazing for sure. I was a TechTV fan until they shut it down. He's been my teacher, too!

[colestainedpage.livejournal.com]

I got my mom into books on tape. She worked second shift in a factory (a contributor to her COPD) and to drown out the drama of her co-workers she bought herself a Sony Walkman and would check out audio books from the library.

Now she has a Nook Glowlight that she keeps populated with her favorite authors and other books that she finds on bookbub.com (I introduced her to that, too. I'm such a bad influence!).

[susandennis]

Bookbub is very cool! I'd not heard of it before. I actually don't spend that much time word reading these days but when I next run out of good stuff, I'm going to Bookbub. Thanks!

[colestainedpage.livejournal.com]

NP. I just picked up another free book today. I read my Kindle on my commute as I'm finding it much easier to read on a train than on a bus.

[luzclarita.livejournal.com]

How do you listen to something while swimming? Do you have a waterproof case for your ipod and waterproof ear buds? How well does that work?

[susandennis]

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=waterproof+ipod+shuffle

Ipod Shuffle that has been waterprooffed by a third party. Works perfectly excepts requires iTunes which I hate. Otherwise, it's great.

[luzclarita.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the tip!