So I now ride the bus three days a week. Not only do I feel very righteous about shrinking my carbon footprint, I am able to devote a considerable amount of time listening to audiobooks. Last week, I signed up for my very own Audible.com account membership and am well on my way. And as a matter of fact, I just finished Uglies by Scott Westerfeld (BTW, am I the only person who habitually calls him, Paul Westerberg–ya know, from the Replacements?).

It was read by Carine Montbertrand, and I have to say, I got a little tired of her voice. Additionally, I flat out didn't like her portrayal of the main character, Shay. But I did enjoy the story and despite how sick I am of the word "pretty," it was a fun way to pass the time standing on the bus while I drank my coffee. All in all, I thought it was a fine…read? Book?

That leads me to one of my audiobook quandaries…. and it's really bugging me. When discussing the books you listen to, Do you say "Oh totally, Uglies. I absolutely love it. I'm reading it right now." Or, " Oh, I read Uglies, it's great." Or do you stick to the truth–after all the former is sort of a lie, technically. Do you say, "I'm listening to that on my iPod right now." Or "I love that book. I listened to the audiobook version." I guess If you want to be honest you describe your experience as the ladder, but it's so clunky. I'm going to propose a new word: risten (read+listen). As in… "Ah yes, War and Peace. An excellent piece of work, I 'ristened' to it last week," or "I'm 'ristening' to War and Peace in my car on the way to work, it's fabulous. You should totally 'risten' to The Fountainhead. "

I wonder if my discomfort around the language you use to describe the audiobook thang betrays a subconscious feeling I have that I'm cheating. I'm sort of old school. It feels like I'm cutting corners. But does it matter? If I'm absorbing the story, the words, what's the problem?

I think there's a misconception that it's easier and faster to listen to a book than to read it. It isn't. There's no skimming. No speed reading. No mutttering to yourself, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yada, yada, yada…" (Flip, flip, flip.) (Not that I would ever do that.) No, it takes way longer to listen to a book than read it. Each sentence is s-p-o-k-e-n and each pause fully actualized. They're long. Uglies clocks in at about 12 hours, and I think I probably could have read it in like, 4. But alas, who has four spare hours? And that's the point. The thing that you can do while listening to a book is multi-task: Clean up the kitchen, walk, ride the bus, drive, wash your face. And while it's true you need to be doing something relatively mindless, it makes an audiobook worth its weight in gold.

For example, I'm about to go and 'risten' to Eragon while I knit a sweater for my son and wait for dinner to cook.

You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.