I did it… I caved…

I switched over to audio books.

It was a battle. I was the grumpy old lady on the lawn yelling at the young hip audio books to get off my lawn! But one day I allowed one of them on to my lawn. And now I’m hooked.

All thanks to the most unlikely. My husband. One who is diametrically opposed to reading of any sort. He is a gamer and one of his favourite games, the Witcher, was being made into a TV series and there is also a book series that the TV show would be based on. He, all of a sudden, wanted to read the books before the show started. It’s a 10 book series and by the time he was on book 3 he’d convinced me to try it… I’m so glad he did.

We breezed through them in about 2-3 months. All the while, my cubicle neighbour and friend from work is an avid audio book listener was also trying to get me on board. She introduced me to the app Libby to get audio and e-books from the library. She added me to her book club (I’m now in two. Hers and one at work). I was flying through book after book. Laughing and crying and gasping while I drove anywhere. The 2 hour commute to Lexington for monitoring appointments became a joy!

Then I found out that I can order audio book cd’s at our school’s library. Are you kidding me?

My list of “want to read’s” on Goodreads is starting to dwindle (still at 90 thought, yikes) and I love it. Last year my book challenge goal on Goodreads was 5. This year I’ve upped it to 12 and I’m already on the 6th book and it’s only February!

I love reading (can you tell?) but it’s been a constant battle since TV series and Twitter came into my life. Of course little Lucky bean too. A more than welcome distraction. I just can’t seem to find the time to pick up my kindle or an actual book and read. The last real book I read was Circe. It was really good but really long and I lost the will to live a few times. It took me months to read. Months! I still love the idea of books though and I still want a library in my next house. But I am an audio book convert now. Bring me all of them.

Of course it’s not always the best. I’m glad that I did the Witcher series first because the narrator was AMAZING! I was blown away. Peter Kinney is his name. He could do a conversation with 5 different characters and do 5 completely different voices and accents. Incredible. Unfortunately, now he’s set a very high bar. A bad narrator can ruin a book. The last few were autobiographies and they were narrated by the author so that’s good at least. A sufficient replacement in the absence of Mr Kinney.

So. If you listen to audio books and know all the tips and tricks I’ll note below and have a few more, please let me know! If you want to try audio books, try these tips and tricks my colleague told me about. And If you hate audio books, thanks for reading this far :).

Firstly, you don’t need Audible I don’t think. I think it’s wildly overpriced. N has audible because he couldn’t find the last Witcher book. I bought him a giftcard for Christmas too. But I don’t think it’s necessary. One thing I do like is that you can share a book with one person. We have a friend listening to the Game of Thrones books and it would be good to get them from him.

Next, open a Goodreads account if you love books.  It’s like Facebook for book nerds. You can track everything you’ve read and want to read and are currently reading. You can add other goodreads friends and see their book lists and add to your want to reads from them. You can order books (audio, E or real) from it. They have links to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. They also have links to libraries but I’m not sure how that part works yet.

Lastly get a library app. I’m currently using Libby. Another one is Overdrive (but I think it’s merging with Libby) and then SAILS has an app too. With Libby you need to attach library cards. And I believe you can get join a library online for most of them (I think). I joined Boston Public Library online. And I have a card from my local library. I just added both accounts to my Libby profile and I can find 90% of the books I’m looking for. Libby only does E-books and audio books and the only downside is that sometimes there’s a long wait but so far so good for me.

The last last thing I learned that I spoke about earlier was that I can log into my SAILS account at work and I can have audio book cd’s delivered to the library at the school. SAILS is a library network in Massachusetts with 72 libraries participating so my guess is you’ll likely find what you’re looking for at some point.

And that’s my favourite thing to do right now. I’m so happy that reading is back in my life. I’m even happier that N is into books now too. Last night he said he needs a new book asap and hopped onto Goodreads to search for something. If you have any fantasy or sci-fi recommendations for him please let me know. In fact if you’ve read anything awesome lately, please let me know too :).