Audiobooks – my journey

I’ve recently made my 5,621st attempt at delving into audiobooks and I think it may actually work this time. I’m going to talk about that today and would love any hints or tips from those of you who regularly read audiobooks.

My first successful attempt at an audiobook was many moons ago when my youngest was still in middle school. I don’t remember how or why I had the chance to get a free audiobook on my iPod, but I remember that I chose a book we could listen to together because I knew we would be traveling just the two of us. I picked a mystery thriller geared at the middle-grade audience and it was a good experience. We listened in the car (through an old timey wimey setup of plugging the iPod into a cassette tape thingy that went into the tape deck in my car to play through the speakers. Yeesh!) and I thought it was something I would be able to do more of. At the time I had precious little free time to actually sit and read a physical book. Pages snuck in while in line, waiting for my turn with a teacher at conferences, on my lunch break, that sort of thing. Alas, that was the last audiobook that worked for me until a couple of weeks ago. Not that I haven’t tried, because I definitely have.

I cannot remember every book I attempted to listen to through the years and I don’t intend to call them out even if I did remember. What works for some people doesn’t work for others. I have long listened to podcasts. I listen while driving, cleaning, shopping, cooking, showering, baking, etc. I figured it would be just as easy to listen to a book. For me, that wasn’t the case. In most cases, if I get distracted from a podcast for a few seconds I’m not going to miss anything huge. My mind has a tendency to wander even when I’m engaged by the content. But again, I’m not going to be lost. Sure, there are times I rewind. But for the most part, I don’t feel I miss anything major. Not so with an audiobook. It’s not that I was missing things, it was my fear of missing things. A small detail that would prove important later on perhaps. I just couldn’t relax into an audiobook the same way I could a podcast. So what was different this time?

As many of you know, I’m a completionist. If you recommend book 3 in a series I will have to read books 1 and 2 first, even if I’m told they aren’t necessary to my understanding of book 3. (Okay, on occasion I’ve been able to break this mold, but not often.) I will then read all 8 books in the series because I have to finish. This has been a detriment to me in my read-along with the Fated Mates podcast. I started this podcast from the beginning in June of 2020 and I’m currently about 2/3 of the way through season 2. It’s slow going for me! I’ll tell ya, I am starting to learn to listen and believe when I’m told I don’t have to read the rest of the series though. Anyway, when I got to Texas! Chase (S02.34) the quickest way to get the book, which is book 2 of a trilogy, was to get the complete trilogy in one big book from the library. I’ll be posting my review of all three books in the next couple of weeks so I’ll just say that once I read the first book (which hadn’t been available in my elibrary) I checked for the 2nd book in my elibrary. They didn’t have it but did have the audiobook. What the heck, I thought, let’s give it a try.

So here’s what I think happened. For one, this book didn’t have a lot of world-building. It didn’t need it. I think books with too much world-building don’t work for me as audiobooks. This was also a book that wasn’t high stakes for me. I’m not saying I won’t ever listen to a book that I’m more invested in, but I think I will be working my way up to that. I listened to both the 2nd and 3rd books in that series and loved that I could read while prepping dinner, doing laundry, or taking a walk. I know that’s something people who have been listening to audiobooks for years have said over and over, but until now it just didn’t work for me.

Something I don’t like about listening to a book is not having a good way to make notes. My favorite way to read is my ebook, where I can highlight passages and make notes right then and there. When I’m reading a physical copy of a book, my phone is usually (but not always) within reach and I use a notes app to jot down page numbers and thoughts if need be. The whole point of my reading audiobooks is to be able to have other things going on while reading. So if something happens I want to note, usually I have no handy way to do so. Which makes me think this will never be my primary way of reading and I most likely won’t listen to books I know will be super deep or, as mentioned before, heavy on world-building.

I’d love to be one of those people who can listen to audiobooks at a super speed. Alas, so far I have only gotten to 1.5x. And I have to start the narrative at normal speed until I get used to the voice(s), then I gradually nudge it faster.

So tell me, friends, what books do you recommend on audio? Is there a narrator you love (or hate)? I doubt I’ll be joining Audible as they didn’t have a great variety in romance when I had that service in the past, so I’ll mostly be hitting up my online library. Of course, at times that means there are slim pickings. That’s why the more suggestions and recommendations the better.