AUDIBLE

As you all know, I am an avid reader of books both on paper and in electronic form. Until recently I had not thought to add audio books to my rotation. I'm not sure why. They make all the sense in the world. For someone who used to walk to school whilst reading a book (suffering occasional bumps to the head from encounters with lamp posts and the like), and who, as a child, habitually brushed her teeth with a book propped up behind the faucet, you would think this form of reading would be a no-brainer. I guess I thought it was all terribly complicated - figuring out where to buy audio-books, how to listen to them and so on. God, I sound old.

When Audible starting advertising through Amazon and I learned that it was not only easy to download audio-books, but that I could do so using my existing Amazon account and that, moreover, as an Amazon user I would receive one book credit free each month - well, it seemed silly not to try it.

I started last month and have almost finished 'reading' my second Audible book. The first was fiction and I deliberately chose non-fiction for my second, so as to better evaluate the overall experience.

And my initial assessment? Basically: HOW HAVE I NOT DONE THIS BEFORE????!!!

Finally, I can read while I'm driving and while I'm walking to the gym. Audio books conveniently fill the gaps in my time-poor life, making me more efficient.

Recently, even though I've been home with the kids, I have been finding it difficult to fit in a lot of reading. I am honestly in awe of women whose job it is to look after children all day long (their own or other people's) - it is more relentless than any paid job I have ever had. With just one baby to look after I had pockets of time to myself. But with two very little children at home, the opportunity to read while they nap or 'sleep while they sleep' (to quote the common advice given to new mothers) falls away completely. Generally, one of them will wake just as the other goes down. Or else neither naps properly because one seems intent on creating a large amount of noise just as the other starts to droop sleepily on the couch.

Since downloading Audible, my behaviour has changed in subtle but noticeable ways. I find that I will now look for reasons to load up the kids into the car and drive somewhere, anywhere, so that I can fit in some 'reading' time (the kids like it too, by the way; the narration combined with the motion of the car lulls them into soft sleep). I have taken up walking with my daughter in her stroller again, in spite of the bitter cold of this first Canadian winter, and these walks have become far longer than they once were - another time around the block means I get to find out what happens in the next chapter!

This newfound efficiency, a whole new level of multi-tasking, is the most wondrous aspect of listening to audiobooks.

Listening to a book rather than reading it also adds a new dimension: performance. The narrator is vital to the success of a particular audio-book. Luckily I have had good luck with the two I've experienced thus far. I will speak more to this in upcoming reviews, but I can imagine a bad narrator would seriously detract from one's enjoyment of a book.

There are downsides to this form of 'reading'. Continuity is a problem, for one. Even with my increased car journeys and walks, there have been periods of several days when I have not had the opportunity to crack open, as it were, the audio-book I was currently reading. This is not the case with hard copy or electronic books, which I make time for at night even if I can only read one, exhausted page at a time. Because of this continuity issue, and because listening is less conducive to intent concentration than the act of reading, I'm not convinced that I take in as much of the story or the language when I am listening to a book as I would were I reading it in other forms. With the novel that was my first Audible purchase, I ended up buying a hard copy version of the book too so that I could delve into it at home - but then I found that it was difficult to fast forward the audio version to precisely the point where I had left off reading the hard copy. I also really miss being able to flick back through actual pages to remind myself of a particular scene, or re-read a section. This is a problem for me with electronic books too, however.

In spite of these challenges, I will certainly keep using Audible. One thing I have discovered is that it helps me to read books that I might put down for one reason or another if I was reading the hard copy version. I might try to listen to some of the longer books I've been wanting to read but have put on the back-burner because of their size - Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall, for example. Big books are hard to lug about, and these days, if I have one going on my Kindle, I'm likely to want a change halfway through and might read another book in between starting the lengthy tome and finishing it. Not great really, my reduced attention span, though probably an inevitable result of today's Twitter- and YouTube-fueled society.

But for precious books that I know I will truly love, I will be reading them on paper (or on screen) - or at least supplementing the audio experience with a hard copy version.

How about you, fellow readers? Have you tried audio books? How do you feel about them?