I am an avid audiobook reader.Completely and totally obsessed.
There, I said it. Maybe it's really nerdy, but I don't care. I'm so enthusiastic about it that if I start talking about it I can go on and on. Maybe that's why I haven't mentioned it on the blog - I knew it would turn into a long post.
I have always loved reading ever since I can remember, but sometimes I feel like I never have time for it. When I'm home there are always too many things to do to just cuddle up on the couch and read.
My job is great and everything, but let's just say that it doesn't occupy my full attention or use my entire brain most of the time. I also work in a room by myself for a majority of the day. After a few months of doing this job I asked if it would be OK for me to wear my iPod. No one at work had a problem with it, so I started doing that. I listened to music for a few months, but after a while that started to seem repetitive and boring. My friend Hayley (who gets all of the credit for starting this obsession of mine) had given me a few audiobooks. I loaded those onto my iPod and decided to try those and see if I could pay enough attention to them and still get my work done. Turns out I can. I just wear one earbud so I can still hear the phone ringing, etc. and if anyone comes into the room to talk to me I just pause it.
My life was so much better after that wonderful discovery. I didn't dread going to work as much anymore. I found myself even wearing my iPod around the house. I listen to books when I'm doing the dishes, grouting new tiling projects, vacuuming, painting rooms, or working out. Scooter teases me because I seem to always have an earbud in.
I began by listening to the entire Harry Potter series followed by the entire Amelia Peabody series. Those were so much fun! I listened to other novels I have been wanting to read.
I became quite a connoisseur of audiobooks. I discovered that the narrator makes all the difference. I once read book 5 in a 19 part series that was performed by a different narrator than I normally listen to. I really didn't like it and thought it was the worst book in the series. I decided to go back and read it with the original narrator - turns out it wasn't the book I didn't like - it was the narrator. So, now I read "Audiofile, The Magazine For People Who Love Audiobooks." I check reviews to find the best narrator for each book I read.
After many months of just listening to fun books I somehow (Facebook, blog - I can't remember) got a list of 100 great books to read from my cousin, Lindsay. I have a few lists like this filed away somewhere in my house, but they always seem so daunting because every single one of the books looks like some huge tome that you would read for a literature class like War and Peace. I liked this list because, while it was mostly great classics from a literature class, there were also a few really realistic books on there. For example, one of the entries was "the entire Harry Potter series." I thought that this list looked more realistic. War and Peace and Crime and Punishment are both on the list, but so are Memoirs of a Geisha, Life of Pi, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. A good mix of books that are hard to get through and some that are just fun.
I made the goal in January to try and read all 100 entries by the years end. Kinda lofty, I know. Audiobooks obviously take a lot longer to read than if you were able to sit down with the actual book in front of you. But, I figured that I was averaging at least 2 a week at that point so I might be able to do it. I had also read quite a few on the list already (Harry Potter series, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Crime and Punishment, Pride and Prejudice, etc.) but I decided that I would re-read all of them because it had been a long time since I had read some of them.
I didn't know I was pregnant at the time, so I didn't take into account all the other books I would want to read this year on nursing, taking care of your baby, pregnancy, sleeping, etc. I also didn't take into account that the average length of book on this list is a lot longer than the ones I had previously been reading. There are also other books that just sound fun that I'll randomly read that aren't on the list as well, which slows me down.
Taking all those factors into consideration it doesn't look like I'll finish all 100 by the end of the year, but I'm having a lot of fun trying. As of today I have finished 31 and 1/2 of the 100. I feel like it has really stretched my brain and interests. Some of the books have been out of the "comfort zone" that I normally read in.
So, thanks to Hayley and Lindsay for their (probably unwitting) roles in this fun project!
See! I really do everything with my iPod on. Grouting and reading at the same time! What could be better?
