Audiophile in the Making

Up until two weeks ago, audiobooks failed to interest me. Raised as a voracious reader, I was always wary of starting a relationship with books on tape. To me, there really is nothing else like finishing a book. Good or bad, you can still close the book with your own hands, sit back in your chair, and think about what you just read. Thanks to my new job, however, I am free to listen to audiobooks all day, everyday. And I do listen to them. All day, everyday. According to my newsletter from Audible.com:

Listen to this:

The average reader gets through only 5 books a year, but the average AudibleListener® member completes 16 books a year.

Side note: I love how the email begins with "Listen to this." I love it because, on more than one occasion, I have caught myself saying "I finally read Call of the Wild (eg)! Today! All of it!" Am I correct to say I "read" Call of the Wild when I actually "listened" to several volunteers recite the story? Is Audible.com correct to demand I "listen" to what they have to say when I am actually "reading" it?! I apologize for the digression, but I have struggled with the wording more than I would like to admit.

That little tidbit that Audible.com is gloating over is exactly what I thought I did not like about audiobooks. What's wrong with getting through 5 books per year? I've already been through 5 (nearly 6) audiobooks this month and I am not even sure I have fully appreciated them. I cannot, after all, grab a pencil and underline choice phrases and words (yes, I do this). I cannot savor passages and dogear pages to return to at a later time (yep, I do this, too). While I feel that audiobooks have certainly preserved my sanity over the past month, I can't help but feel like they have stolen just the smallest part of my reader's soul in exchange.

There is something to be said for books on tape, though. I recently finished Nick Hornby's A Long Way Down (not good) and I fully appreciated the authentic accents of the readers. With the exception of the Hornby book, librivox has been my guide to the books on tape world thus far. While I have been completely satisfied with the site, I sometimes cringe at the attempted accents of the readers (all volunteers, a majority of whom are Ontarians). I suppose I equate this aspect of books on tape to seeing a play - while Shakespeare's prose are very rich, who really wants to see Fran Drescher play Ophelia?

In case you are interested, tomorrow I begin Love and Louis XIV: The Women in the Life of the Sun King.