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My Love Affair with Audio Books

By January 3, 2017April 5th, 2021Reading Formats

I’ve always been a bookworm, right from when I could first read I have never been without a book, but audio books were never really my thing until my children were little and I used Roald Dahl stories on long car journeys to keep them entertained.

This was as much for my sanity as theirs. I’ve always loved his books so using him to drown out the sibling bickering was no hardship for me.  Fantastic Mr Fox and Danny Champion of the World were their favourites and I was glad to see that they are still available to buy today (USUK).

During the last couple of years my obsession with trying not to buy any new books whilst completing a reading challenge sent me back to my local library, which I admit I hadn’t been to in years. I was not particularly impressed by their stock of books, we live in a small town, which has like many other places a severely underfunded library provision.  I did however discover that I could access a fairly large collection of ebooks and audio books through my membership.

Once I’d worked out how to download the app to my phone (it wasn’t difficult even for the non tech savvy like myself) I then spent ages perusing the list of titles.

My first “adult” audio book was Us by David Nicholls. It took me a while to get into concentrating to listen and I quickly worked out that I had to limit my listening to when I was alone in the kitchen cooking or on my drive to work. I only listen for 30 to 40 minutes a day, but it does mean that I can enjoy a book even when I can’t read.

Us is narrated by Justin Salinger, and I’ve since realised that the narrator is as important as the story. The way the book is read can make or break the story, so my hint would be to listen to a clip before you download or buy.  My subsequent read One Day also by David Nicholls, had a narrator I didn’t enjoy and found my mind drifting. I read this instead and enjoyed it, confirming my theory about narrators.



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