Audiobooks And How I Learned To Listen

If you're an avid book lover like me, some places and situations fill you with dread because you know you won't be able to read your favorite book. Driving, going to the gym, doing chores or cleaning seem so boring without a book! But until recently, the thought of -- gasp -- listening to a book filled me with as much dread and disgust as the thought of watching the miniseries adaptation of a Hemingway novel.

Recently I picked up a few audiobooks when I needed to make a drive across the country. The books helped me stay awake and alert during my many hours behind the steering wheel. I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed listening to these books.

Some audiobooks are unabridged, meaning every word from the written version is faithfully reproduced in the audio version. I particularly enjoyed listening to The Nanny Diaries, as read by the sultry-voiced Julia Roberts, and The Norwalk Watch, as read by the expressive, baritone voiced George Watson.

After my holiday, I added audiobooks alongside the traditional printed versions. While driving to work, taking care of other business, tidying the house, looking things up in the library, in the kitchen, or even bathing, I can now "read" as a brief diversion.

I became even more obsessed with works of literature after I found hundreds of thousands of audio books to download from websites online. Downloading audiobooks proved to me to be simpler, faster, more convenient and less expensive than purchasing new hardcovers or paperbacks at a bookstore.

I also found out that audiobook genres were not limited just to fiction -- in fact, there is a wealth of nonfiction titles available, running the gamut to self-help and finance to astronomy to biography to biology. I even discovered that there are many fascinating lectures given by top-ranking professors available online.

Many people feel that listening to an audiobook is just as much fun as reading. Unabridged versions of audiobooks guarantee you won't miss any of the content or meaning of the printed page.

Avid book lovers dread being caught in places where they cannot read. Audiobooks offer a more flexible format for enjoying books than the traditional paper. You can listen while driving or working out, and many books are available in unabridged format, meaning that the original text is recorded without editing. Online you can find hundreds of thousands of audio books to download, and often it's cheaper to click "download audiobook" than to buy a hardcover. Books are available from many genres, such as fiction, self-help, finance, biographies, and even lectures.