The Life-Changing Magic of AudioBooks

I don't know that I ever tried audiobooks before. Did I?

Well... maybe once. For a long, 16 hour drive from northern BC to Vancouver. Rather than just listening to my self-made collection of music cassette tapes, I borrowed an audiobook (on cassette tapes) from the local library. I think.

See, I can't really remember... it was that non-memorable an event. No idea what the book was... or if I even finished it. After all, rummaging around in a cassette holder, looking for the next cassette, while still maintaining eye contact with the 100 km/h road... well... not such an easy thing.

And so... audiobooks have never really been part of my "thing", so to speak. Until a few months ago.

My partner expressed an interest in getting an audiobook by Clarissa Pinkola Estes. This particular "book" was really a collection of talks that she had given and was only available in audio format. The question became... how does one listen to an audiobook nowadays and... where do you get them?

I, being the Research Digger in the family, did a quick scouting expedition.

Well... one could buy it from Amazon for $90 and get 6 cds. Which meant we would need a cd player...  or use a laptop. But that didn't really fit the need. My partner wanted something mobile.

So I was off to Audible... having seen a large number of Audible advertisements lately. Audible is owned by Amazon and is an app that you can install on your phone (mobile - check!). It is a subscription based service - pay $14.95/month and get one free audiobook credit per month. On top of that, you get a 30% discount on audiobooks while subscribed. And... the books you get via credit or purchase are yours forever. Sooo... via Audible, we could buy the Clarissa book for $60 (less 30%). Still seemed a bit pricey. And then I learned that Audible has a free 30 day trial! Sign up and get 30 days free... including one audiobook credit. Done!

So I used my Amazon account to install Audible on both of our phones... and my partner happily spent hours listening to the tranquil voice of Clarissa, while putzing around the garden.

But... I didn't stop with Audible... I installed Libby, the audiobook app that our local library uses, onto both of our phones as well. What's not to like about free audiobooks! Mind you, their selection isn't as comprehensive as Audible and one sometimes has to be patient waiting for a book... but still... they have quite a nice selection of Jodi Picoult books which my partner gobbles up like candy.

Watching my partner puttering around with ear buds, I decided to give audiobooks a try as well. I knew that Kobo had an audiobook app and also included a 30 day free trial. But before I could deliberate as to which book to get... my partner was already finished Clarissa's book and asking for another book... Burnout by Emily and Amelia Nagoski. There went the free Kobo book credit! Which was fine because I wanted to listen to that book too. But because I had just used my Kobo account... we both had the same account on our Kobo apps... which meant that only one of us cold listen to Burnout at once. Otherwise the bookmarking got all wonky!

Still... we both now had Audible, Libby and Kobo on our phones and a treasure trove of audiobooks just waiting to be tapped. Mind you... Audible and Kobo would require an ongoing monthly subscription ($9.99 for Kobo) if we wanted to stay with them. And... $10-15/month for just one audiobook seemed a bit steep.

And then I remembered Scribd... pay a monthly subscription fee ($10 US) and get unlimited audiobooks, e-books, sheet music, journals and goodness knows what else. It seemed too good to be true but... I am on a 30 day free trial with them and so far... doing OK. I have two audiobooks and one e-book on the go in Scribd and loving it. Mind you, some people say that their ravenous book consumption has been, at times, throttled by Scribd. Remains to be seen if "unlimited" is really that. I guess the romance readers can go through a LOT of books in a month. The one thing with Scribd is that... you only have accesses to the audio books while you are a subscriber. End the subscription and access stops. Which is different from Audible and Kobo.

Will we get value out of Scribd? Is this just a passing fad thing for us? I've always told myself that I'm a visual learner, not so much an audio learner. I learn best when I can see things. If I just hear something, it can be a case of "in one ear and out the other". This might, however, be due to my habit of multi-tasking... doing more than one thing at once. Like listening to someone on the phone whilst typing up an email. Let me tell you... it doesn't work!

But... listening to an audiobook does seem to work well for my early morning jaunts around the neighbourhood. Whether it's just around the block (15 minutes) or up Beast Hill and down several other streets (45 minutes)... listening to an audiobook seems to dovetail nicely with a solo street walk.

I am currently listening to a book by Ken Ilgunas called Walden on Wheels. The story of a young 20-something American college student trying to get out of student debt and settling upon the idea of living out of his van. His narrative style seems to stick better in my brain than some of the other books I've been reading/listening. Marie Kondo's book - The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying-up - rubbed me the wrong way mostly because the narrator sounded robotic! So I'm not so sure I got a lot out of that book... but I read it as a "real" book a few years ago anyhow...

Once our 30 day trials all run out... I'm not yet sure what we will do... Perhaps give Scribd a try? Does anyone out there have any tips or pointers? I like the idea of audiobooks and e-books from an environmental point of view... no trees being cut down... but I miss the permanence of a "real" book... and the ability to easily flip forward and find out what happens at the end!