Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is “easy/hard.” Use one, use both, use ’em any way you’d like. Bonus points if you get both words into your post. Enjoy!
Well I'm going to use both by asking is it easy/hard to listen to an audio book?
I have never really settled to listening to audio books. Some years ago my daughter gifted me a six month subscription to audible but I was still working at the time so the only time I really had for reading was when I went to bed.
Well I'm sure you can guess what happened. I would often fall asleep listening to the book so I consequently found myself having to backtrack, trying to work out at what point I was up to when I fell asleep and often reading the same chapter over and over.
Needless to say I did not renew the subscription when the gift period expired.
Fast forward to now and I read a lot. I'm retired so I can really read as much as I want and when I want. I do love a physical book but I also like the convenience of reading on my Kindle App, especially when on holiday. But I've kept away from audio books.
Until today. I mistakenly ordered an audio version of a book from the library rather than the physical copy. I decided to give it a go.
Straight off I had to speed it up. The narrator's voice was boring and slow. I worked out how to speed it up and I actually managed to listen to the whole book during the course of this afternoon and evening.
It was Wednesday's Child by Peter Robinson which is a DCI Banks story. (Actually #6 in the series.) This is a very English crime series that has been televised. I enjoyed the TV series and the books have been ok so far. (I'm trying to read them in order.) They're not 5 star material but they're quite gritty at times. This one was a bit more graphic than some and the crime centred around a child abduction.
My main problems with the audio version were that:
1) I found the narrator annoying - and it was the same one for all the characters, men and women; and
2) I noticed how much detail there was in all the descriptions. Of everything.
Perhaps when I've been reading the books I've skimmed over that or maybe this book was just more descriptive than previous ones.
Anyway I finished it.
But it hasn't persuaded me that audio books are my thing. I was knitting while listening so it was productive in that way but I'm not sure I would necessarily keep all the plot details in my head if I was doing something that required a bit more concentration. Chick lit might work I suppose but I'm not convinced.
I'll definitely be more careful when ordering books from the library in future though!
Are you an audio book fan?
I am so glad that someone else has trouble with audio books (add podcasts to my list)!! I can't concentrate after about 10 minutes. The voices just drone on and on and on! LOL Some people listen in the car when traveling. I would tune it out and lose track with what's going on. Not even going to try that. With you, Wendy!
ReplyDelete