Family Life

Don’t be fooled by the photo: I very rarely get to read books. That is, I never have the time to sit down to read an ink-on-paper real-life book. Instead, I listen to audio books. This has the advantage that I can do something else while I listen to the book, as long as the “something else” doesn’t require any thought. Stuff like repairing the bathroom wall, or shoveling snow, or washing dishes, or driving. In fact, my 20-minute daily commute to work is where I do most of my book listening.

It’s funny to notice the associations that arise from combining a book with another activity. For example, whenever I look at the bathroom wall I fixed, I remember exactly what book and author I was listening to at the time, and where I was in the story, and how it made me feel. Thus, a seemingly mundane task is overlaid with a richness of thoughts and emotions that far exceed the boring drudgery of the job, and I remember the occasion with a smile.

Or take driving, as another example. Here the books I listen to are improved by my impression of the seasons. It takes about 6 weeks to finish a 20-hour audio book when I only listen to it driving to and from work. So a book I listen to in the summer ends up with a bright, warm flavour, even if it’s a dark, suspenseful, detective thriller. Or I may perceive a book I listen to in the fall as damp and gloomy, even in its humorous parts.

Sometimes the plot is quite complicated and I really have to pay attention. That’s how an hour of shoveling snow can pass by in a blink.

The only downside to audio books is that I have to consume them at the speed they were recorded. There’s no skimming over the boring parts, or slowing down and re-reading the complicated parts. There’s no flipping back the pages to check the implications of a sudden revelation. On the other hand, most audio books are recorded by professionals. They often include accents (the Irish speak with a lilt, the Russians sound angry), and there have been many times when I thought, “Aha! So that’s how you pronounce that word!” Even non-fiction can be entertainingly read.

You may wonder why I am bringing this up now. I’ve just finished a couple of months of weekly customer service calls. With a three-plus hour drive each way, I went through books quickly. Now that I’m back to twenty minutes at a time, the suspense is killing me. Each day I have to wait until tomorrow to find out what happens next. I’m taking the Christmas week off work, so I’d better finish my current book by Friday. Otherwise I won’t know how it all ends until the new year.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 19th, 2007 at 10:45 pm. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated if this is your first time, otherwise they will appear immediately. I reserve the right to delete inappropriate comments.