I'm personally not a fan of audiobooks. I have a problem focusing on someone yapping in my ear while I'm trying to do other things. I tried listening to books on tape years ago when I had to drive back and forth to Houston on a semi-regular basis and this was the result:
Listen to book on tape...
Think about grocery list...
Cuss...
Rewind...
Listen to book on tape...
Pass Pappasito's and think about margaritas...
Cuss...
Rewind...
Listen to book on tape...
Realize I have to use the bathroom and wonder if I can make it to my destination without stopping...
Cuss...
Rewind...
Repeat.
Audiobooks.com has a commercial which shows people doing various things while listening to a book and smiling blissfully at the wonders of twenty year old technology. The people in the commercial are walking, cleaning house, driving and doing various other activities which aren't usually conducive to book reading in the old fashioned hold-it-in-your hands manner.
My problem with the commercial is that it also shows people sitting on the couch? sitting on a park bench? laying in bed? While listening to an audiobook. Why are they listening to a book when they could be reading a book? This caused me to go all Fahrenheit 451 in my head and freak out over audiobooks and Kindles and Nooks and iPads.
I want my book to feel like a book, smell like a book and have real actual pages that I really actually have to turn. I feel your pain Ray Bradbury. I feel it.
2 comments:
Funny, I listen to audiobooks at work allll the time. I have the exact opposite reaction; I feel like my head is compartmentalized, and the story in the background is what keeps me on task. If that place is empty, I wander off, make lists, check the refrigerator for the sake of checking the refrigerator, pluck my chin, and then oh! Suddenly remember I'm at work!
I listen to them when I have a lot of work to do at home also.
I love books; I own too many of them and know I will buy way too many more. But I also love e-books---especially ones I'm interested in that cost $11 instead of $34. I read off my smartphone and off the screen of my laptop, and then I read cloth or paperbound books, newspapers, magazines and the back of the peanut butter jar. I do NOTHING else while I'm reading. Audiobooks I enjoy in the car for a long trip if I'm the driver, but I've stopped using them because I never drive far enough to finish the book, and I never listen otherwise. And I can do a good rant if I have to.
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