Audio Books

How do you read? Do you prefer reading with your eyes or your ears?

I like print. I like going at my own pace, noise from the rest of the world doesn't affect me, and I can see how names are spelled (which helps me remember them). I do listen to books, but I've taken to noting in my reading log which books were listened to because I'm never sure how much of what I enjoyed (or didn't) was because of the format.

I have started using audio books strategically because apparently I'll listen to anything. (Yes, I am one of those people who listen to public radio pledge drives.) I find I can persevere with listening in a way that I can't with sight reading. For example, for years Middlemarch had been on my to-read list. I had read and loved George Eliot's Silas Marner as a teen so I knew I liked her writing. Her epic story of a small English community with an independent woman as its central character seems like it would be right up my alley, but I tried two or three times and never got past book one. "What? You immerse me in Dorothea's story and then Lydgate? Fred and Mary? Who are these people? Where's Dorothea?"

When The Toast suggested a Middlemarch book club last year, I was determined to participate, and the audio book on CD got me over my reluctance, all the way to the realization that the book is called Middlemarch, and not Dorothea, for a reason. At some point I became impatient, grabbed a print copy and just finished it, but truly, I wouldn't have gotten there without the engagement that first came by listening.

And so, audio books are my go-to for non-fiction that I want, or need, to read. It's how I read the fascinating story of Henrietta Lacks and Norman Maclean's analysis of the 1949 Mann Gulch Fire. The Worst Hard Time informed my understanding of my parents' Kansas childhoods and Hawaii's history gained new poignancy for me through Sarah Vowell's distinctive voice.

Sometimes I'll tire of the pledge drive, grab a novel on CD off the library shelf to get me through, and a brilliant narrator will bring a story to life in a way that can't compare to the voice in my head. Neil Gaiman reads his own Graveyard Book and Alan Bennett his Uncommon Reader. They are masterful! Stephen Briggs knocks Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett out of the park. Currently Lisa is listening to The Book Thief and reveling in the reader's rendition, to the point that, though she's engaged enough to want to switch to reading print (it's faster), she can't, because she'd miss out on his narration.

Isn't it great that we have all these options? CDs, books, digital. What and why do you choose what you do?

Tiffany Aching

I just finished Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett and loved it! Funny? Oh yes, this is truly hilarious stuff! This title is the third of his three Discworld novels which feature Tiffany Aching, a young cheesemaker and witch-in-training, in cahoots with the Nac Mac Feegle, a race of 6-inch-tall men who are blue. Now whether that is because their skin is blue or because they are so heavily tattooed is uncertain. (No one really wants to look too closely at a Feegle as they are pretty ugly, nor do you want to ask a Feegle. You would likely be attacked, and believe it or not, a Feegle attack would be fierce and chaotic. The noise alone can stop a grown man. You see, they all use different battle cries and ... oh perhaps I'm getting distracted.) Anyway, the humor catches you and drags you in, and then -- kapowie! Pratchett sneaks in his ideas about what constitutes wisdom and bravery and living a life of integrity.

The Wee Free Men
Hat Full of Sky
Wintersmith

All three are highly recommended. I mean HIGHLY!! recommended.