RSS Feed MenuUnlike my wife’s relationship with her Kindle, my relationship with audiobooks is unambivalent: I adore them. My take can be read in the new issue of Commentary or online (behind a subscription wall). It opens:
Four years ago, I resolved to get more seriously into shape. This least literary of decisions soon opened the way to the greatest revolution in my reading habits since I discovered books without pictures. The new regimen demanded many more hours on treadmills and bicycles, hiking up mountains and walking dogs. To make the exercise time more endurable, I bought my first iPod and my first digital audiobook. I had listened to recorded books for years, but only in the car, and I hated the ride-delaying or life-threatening fussing with cassettes and disks. The iPod promised to put an end to all that. As it did so, it altered the habits of a lifetime. Through my adult life I had always read a single book at a time. Now I was reading two, one on paper, one in the ear. No longer did I tuck a bound volume under my arm whenever I left home or office. I just dropped my iPod in my pocket and could go anywhere without the haunting fear that I might be stranded in line somewhere without anything to read.
JJWFromME // Apr 30, 2009 at 7:39 am
Yup. I’m hooked on Audible.com. I added Michael Barone’s “Our Country” to my Audible queue on your suggestion. I read Barone’s “Our First Revolution” last year. Learned a lot, but found some of this ramblings into the details kind of tedious. How much do we Americans need to know about European aristocracies, really? General information, helpful. All the gossipy, power-obsessed details, not as helpful. Somewhat irrelevant to an American.Although I finished the book wanting to hear more about the Dutch and William of Orange. I was reading recently somewhere else about the Dutch relationship with East Anglia. I never knew how important that relationship was. Some important things having to do with the Reformation and the Enlightenment seem to happen in the Netherlands… Anyway, I agree, thumbs up on audiobooks.
Siegelro // Apr 30, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Audio books have made my commute great! I don’t understand why everybody doesn’t use them.
johnb // May 1, 2009 at 8:17 am
I’m addicted to both. Audilble.com makes my driving much easier (30,000 miles a year on business), and Kindle makes sitting around airports much easier.To make it all more convenient, my iPhone plays the Audible.com audiobooks and has an application to act as a Kindle reader. Surprisingly, reading a book on the iPhone isn’t too bad. So a single device allows me to both listen to books and read them.