My Audiobook Experiment - Update

Just a quick update on my audiobook experiment for this summer. I am enjoying the books so far with a mini-review of the audio experience.

I have read "Ender's Game" by Orson Scott Card a re-issue of a Sci-Fi Classic, which was exciting, moved well, and made me want to read more about the pre-story and other character. The ending did leave me a little flat.

I have read "The Forgotten 500" which did not translate well into audio. It sounded like a reading of a series of internal memos given before a Congressional Committee to explain the incident, which was probably how the book was researched and written. Tough listen and I did not finish it.

A good listen was "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by Junot Diaz, the Pulitzer Prize winner. This was a good read about a culture that I am not often exposed to in my life. I enjoyed the readers movement into Spanish phrases and takes on life. It would be a good book in paper as well.

Another good listen was "A Thousand Splendid Suns" by Khaled Hosseni (author of the acclaimed Kite Runner). Another story set in war torn Afghanistan that ranges over years and the lifetimes of families. I especially enjoyed the female reader of the story. I think it made the telling more powerful, and I would not have gotten as much out of it without the female voice given the context. I especially enjoyed (perhaps not the best word here) the view into a war torn culture and as in Oscar Wao a view into a culture I am not accustomed to. I "know" about male dominated Islamic societies but to see it played out in the daily lives of the characters increased my appreciation of what that life is. The female reader heightened the experience beyond what I would have gotten by reading the paper.

Couple more books to go that I will report on later.

As to the overall experience, here are a couple of notes. Audiobooks are hard to read at night. If you have an older iPod there is not a "sleeps shut off" like on newer models. So, if you start listening and nod off you find the iPod going off hours after you are snoozing. At least with a paperbook your finger stays some where in the page! So, bedtime and beach time has not worked out so well for me as I sometimes have to backtrack to find my place.

Listening in the car has proven to be great. I have several long driving trips this summer and the audiobooks have been wonderful. Often you would get to where you were going and want to stay to listen. At night when tired, it would tend to make you sleepy just like reading in bed, except behind the wheel. Audiobooks were banned after dark in favor of rock and roll!