I think those who don’t
have time to read or have never enjoyed leisure reading can benefit from
audio books. In fact I know a librarian
who cannot stand to pick up a book and read it but she thoroughly enjoys audio books. I’m one of those people that love to hold a
book and feel the pages, so I have not been prone to pick up an audio book. However, I have a huge list of want-to-reads
that are not getting accomplished.
Mostly because I don’t have any time to sit down and read for
leisure. So I’m starting to think audio books
might come in handy when I’m driving to and from work or the hour I’m on the
treadmill at the gym. Think about how
many books I could get done in a year!
It doesn’t beat the tangible book, but it’s a second best. I think I have only listened to one audio
book in my life, and it was on a road trip where my husband was driving. It was great for passing the time as I cannot
read in the car. It gives me motion
sickness. Hopefully the narrators for my
want-to-read list are decent; otherwise, it may be a no go if I get one that
has an annoying voice. As far as ebooks
go, I have a Kindle and have read a few books on it. I find that I do this when I’m on vacation
because I don’t want to haul four or five books along with me. I really do not like reading on a
Kindle. Sometimes I want to go back to a
specific area of the book because I may have missed something, and this is
cumbersome using a Kindle. I just have
never gotten used to this gadget. I do
think it appeals to electronic junkies who have to have the latest and greatest
on the market, and maybe some like it because of its portability. It could have more appeal if it had a
different font and maybe a soft colored background, but it still is a last
choice for me, and I’ll stick to just taking it on vacations.
About Me
About Me
When I was teen, I was on a heavy Stephen King and Peter Straub reading jag. I couldn’t get enough of these authors. Today I still have my collection of these books residing on a shelf of my bookcase. Sometime in my early twenties I became less enamored with King’s readings. I don’t know if my taste just changed or I had burned out on his style. I have to say though that The Shining by King was the first novel I read of his and my favorite out of all his books.
I then started leaning more toward suspense and thrillers and less of horror. Some of the authors I followed were Mary Higgins Clark and James Patterson. My favorite Patterson novels were The Beach House and When the Wind Blows. They were other suspense authors peppered into the mix, but this is the one genre where I mostly stuck to favorite authors.
When my children were in grade school, the Harry Potter craze was all the rage, and I was just as engrossed in reading the books as they were. I found out at that time how much I enjoyed fantasy and many young adult novels. It seemed that YA authors were more creative in many ways than most adult novel authors. My sister-in-law is a YA librarian at a high school, so she would advise or buy certain books for me to read. For young adult reads I didn’t really stick to one author, but would go off recommendations and reviews for great YA books. Yes I devoured the Twilight series, but I can’t say this was my favorite YA read. The best young adult novels I have read are Jellico Road by Melina Marchetta and The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.
I still enjoy reading suspense and thrillers as well as many young adult books, but in the last few years, I have also started reading many gentle reads that pull at the heart strings. Again there is no specific author that I stick to, but mostly go off recommendations and reviews to select reads from this genre. Some of my favorites in this category are: Firefly Lane by Kristen Hannah, The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, and The Memory Keeper’s Daughter by Kim Edwards.
I am not much of a non-fiction reader unless I’m forced to read it. In addition, I a little romance goes a long way in a book, so I’m not a big romance novel reader.
Sunday, March 27, 2016
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You make some really great points about the appeal of audiobooks. We used to listened to audiobooks in the car with my daughter when she was small, which was a great way to pass the time instead of turning on a screen. I hadn't thought about the motion sickness until you mentioned it - a great solution to that problem!
ReplyDeleteI'm with you about using my Kindle the most when I'm traveling. It saves me a lot of room in my suitcase! Plus, I can read on the plane without turning on the overhead light and waking people up.
ReplyDeleteI said something similar in my post about not being able to easily flip back to an earlier part on a Kindle. Yes, you can bookmark/highlight certain parts, but you never really know what you will need to go back to. I too prefer reading in print, but the other issue is that it's so easy to download books from the library without having to go anywhere!