One of the things I have enjoyed doing for most of my life is reading. Of course, I enjoy fiction but almost any other type of printed matter is engaging as well. From cereal boxes to soup can labels, from dictionaries to textbooks, from romance novels to science fiction, from self-help to biography, I love reading what other people have written. I love discovering what other people think. It’s fascinating how a writer can layout information, be it purely fiction or strictly fact, in a way that can either entertain or educate and in some cases do both at the same time. To a reader, writers are artists with words.
For a long time, I was a self-admitted binge reader. I easily read three or four books in a week and couldn’t wait for one or another of my favorite authors to release another masterpiece. I was never without a book close at hand and read even while watching television. I would describe reading as “seeing a movie that plays on inside my mind”. Reading consumed a lot of my time and attention.
As a complete reading purist, I printed out things that I really wanted to read when I found them on my computer. It was hard for me to trust something that I read on a screen since every bit of research that I did while going to school had been at the library. I consulted volume after volume of encyclopedias, reference books and periodicals. I had to see the source for myself in print. An electronic resource had to be verified and I wanted a hard copy. That was how it was done prior to the tech revolution.
When eBooks became a widely accepted way for people to get their reading fix, I believed it was a good idea. I could carry more books with me and have ready access to more information. But the idea of settling back with a nice Kindle edition of Gone with the Wind just never appealed to me. I’m still a little torn between paper and Kindle but I have relaxed my rigidity, especially when I decide that I just have to read a certain author’s new book at 2 a.m. It’s certainly convenient to just “buy with one click”.
Several years ago, a friend of mine told me that he had started reading audio books because he spent a lot of time on the road and it was a great way for him to pass the time. I thought this guy must have taken leave of his senses. How could he possibly enjoy a novel while he was driving? How could he keep from driving off the side of the road or slamming into a car stopped in front of him? Okay, I understand that young people multitask better than older people but still… I thought audio books were almost an affront to reading. At the time, I didn’t see the merit to audio books except for books for the blind.
Around this same time, I was spending a lot of time walking outside in a nearby park. I would listen to music as I walked along and really enjoyed just bopping along to the tunes. Then, I got interested in listening to a radio show most afternoons so I began listening to that instead of the music. Since listening to the spoken word didn’t slow down the pace that I hoped to maintain, I stopped using the music at all. The problem with walking several miles every day is that I felt somewhat isolated while I was walking. Listening to music helped to lessen that feeling but when I started hearing people talking on the radio program, it really improved my attitude.
About four years ago, the radio service that I use on my iPhone was offering a new “Premium” service for $7.99 per month. For that price, the listener would be receiving all of the standard stations that I was already listening to, plus several exclusive stations including most of the professional sports games (football, baseball, basketball). They also offered unlimited access to an extensive library of audiobooks. They then sweetened the deal by offering the first three months for free. Well, I gave this about an hour to sink in. $8 a month for major league sports, some cool radio stations AND a chance to see what an audiobook was like. And so it began…
As much as I once felt audio books were a bad idea, I was intrigued by the idea of being able to enjoy listening to a story while I was doing work with my hands or while I was walking. The first couple of audio books that I listened to were not very well read. They were Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series and the reader of those two books made it a challenge to like. The third book by that author was read by someone who really knew how to address each character with his voice in a unique way that allowed the listener to envision the story in much the same way that they would when they read them in print. I was really impressed by that. As much as I thought that the audio book was a poor substitute for spending time quietly reading, I could see the merit in them for folks who are on the run and don’t have the luxury of idle time. I still think it’s a fool’s errand to try to listen to a fascinating mystery or suspenseful thriller while trying to navigate traffic. On the other hand, it might be pleasant to listen to a well produced audio book while driving endlessly over straightaway roads in the middle of nowhere. For myself, I really came to enjoy listening to audiobooks while walking and sometimes while I work on craft projects.
It really became apparent to me that I had crossed over to the dark side and fully embraced the audio books when the radio app that I was using announced very suddenly that it was ending the use of the audio book library in a few weeks time. Twitter was really buzzing over this since the announcement was done so discretely that it took most of the users by surprise when they found that they might not even get to finish a book that they were currently reading. I was surprised and disappointed but I felt that I had really gotten my money’s worth over the time that I had been a subscriber. I had read dozens of books and found ways of gaining advanced knowledge about the narrator before I would begin a book. All in all, it was a fabulous deal and I had come to value a new way of enjoying reading.
Now, I have come to embrace every manner of reading. I still enjoy turning actual pages and can’t imagine taking courses in college with all my textbooks on an iPad or computer. But, I enjoy eBooks especially when reading before going to sleep at night or when I’m sitting in the hairdressers since I can adjust the size of the font so that I can see the print without my glasses. I’ve never read an eBook at the beach but I think it’s easier to read an actual print book out in the sunlight. Maybe, the latest Kindle edition has improved the glare factor but then the device might get damaged by the sand or water. It might be even better to listen to an audio book at the beach but then I’d lose the relaxing sound of the ocean. The audio book is definitely the champion when it comes to motivating an avid reader to climb on the treadmill and go, go, go.
In Vizzpat's World 