Back in the fall I got a new car, the result of an accident involving the Jaws of Life, a night in the hospital, and a hematoma that just won’t quit. On the brighter side, my shiny, purple RAV4 has brought me into the 21st century with Bluetooth capabilities and a nice sound system. Eventually, I realized that these could be used to listen to audiobooks on my commute thanks to Libby, the amazing library app.
I was pretty stoked until I remembered that I don’t actually like listening to audiobooks because my mind wanders, and I miss things. But I gave it a shot anyway. I started with Julie Shumacher’s Dear Committee Members, a novel told through a series of letters. I thought the format lent itself to audio because it’s told in only one voice. I was reminded of the other reason I don’t listen to audiobooks when I tried French Exit by Patrick deWitt. The narrator worked for the voice of our protagonist, an aging New York aristocrat, but when she read as the male characters, it was not a pleasing auditory experience. Also, I wasn’t into the story, so I abandoned it.
I thought I would give up on the experiment until Aha! Of course! Non-fiction! This will solve the problem of multiple voices since it’s merely recounting the true experiences of others. It won’t, however, solve the problem of my attention span, but we can’t have it all. So, I settled on Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery by Robert Kolker. It was pleasing to the ear but not the best true-crime I’ve read/listened to/absorbed/whatever. That brings up another issue. What do you say when you’ve finished an audiobook? I listened to Insert Book Title? Does that count as “read” even if you didn’t actually eyeball the book? Do I need a separate list on Goodreads?
Sigh. I suppose that’s a personal choice, how you classify your audio/reading experience. I definitely prefer the reading of a book to the listening of one but when you’re trapped in a car (regardless of how nice) for an hour a day, we beggars can’t be choosers.
Happy reading/listening/whatever, y’all!
Kimberly Filkins 