{"id":780,"date":"2013-08-11T07:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-08-11T11:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=780"},"modified":"2013-10-08T19:18:14","modified_gmt":"2013-10-08T23:18:14","slug":"listen-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=780","title":{"rendered":"Listen Up!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>So many friends tell me they don\u2019t have time to read any more that I\u2019m surprised more of them haven\u2019t taken up audio books. While it\u2019s true the old-fashioned klunky tapes or CD\u2019s were a bit of a pain\u2014and expensive, too\u2014I\u2019ve listened well over a hundred audio books on an MP3 player and now an iPod. One book a month is my Audible.com subscription plan, and that\u2019s about what I can \u201cread,\u201d Audibly.<\/p>\n

Apparently lots of people read in the car, and that\u2019s OK for longer trips, but short trips around town with a lot of stops wouldn\u2019t work for me. I like at least a half-hour, uninterrupted. Longer, if possible. So I read while mowing the lawn (electric mower), weeding the garden, making dinner, anything that doesn\u2019t require my full concentration. My mind picks what to focus most on–another reason listening and driving might not be the best idea. Listening while cooking goes a long way to explain some of the meals around here.<\/p>\n

On the Reading . . .<\/a> section of this website you can scroll down to mini-reviews of the 10 books I\u2019ve listened to so far this year. Thrillers are good. If you don\u2019t catch every word, it isn\u2019t a tragedy, and the excitement of getting to the next chapter keeps you on task. If you stop mowing and go do something else, like return emails, you might actually have to turn the book off.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also listened to some classics I knew I\u2019d never read: Crime and Punishment<\/em> (endless); The Brothers Karamazov<\/em> (the mind wanders); Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man<\/em> (the first audio book I ever listened to\u2014scary). These experiences suggest a book like Dr. Zhivago<\/em> with a lot of long foreign names (two to three per character, at that) would not<\/em> be a good choice.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s most impressive is the quality of the narrations. They add immeasurably. Sometimes when I recommend a book, I mention that I listened<\/i> to it, and can\u2019t be sure whether it would be quite as wonderful an experience if read. The humor comes through better, for one thing. Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk<\/em> is a perfect example.<\/p>\n

In the marketplace, audiobooks are on the rise. Producers released more than 13,000 titles (some classics, some new) in 2012, compared to only 4,600 three years earlier. Libraries are getting on the bandwagon, too. Patrons of the member libraries of Digital Library NJ<\/a> and eLibraryNewJersey<\/a>, for example, can borrow audio books just like regular books. They expire after a set number of days, and the collection is large. And free. Libraries all over the country are doing this.<\/p>\n

I buy my audiobooks and own them \u201cforever.\u201d Some I\u2019ve listened to multiple times. Amazon-owned Audible.com<\/a> (my supplier) has the greatest market penetration and is adding nearly 1,000 titles a month to its already deep collection. The technology options are expanding, but I\u2019m dubious about some of them. You can read a while on your Kindle (when you have time to sit) and pick up where you left off with the book\u2019s audio version (when you don\u2019t). This sounds confusing to me. I would be hearing one set of voices in my head and suddenly they\u2019re all different. You can have the e-version read to you as you read\u2014which would be super-annoying, since most people who have read this far can read faster than the book would be narrated. It would be like taking a walk with someone who moves at half your pace. And, new audiobook creation tools akin to the self-publishing \u00a0tools for print are designed to help authors affordably create their own<\/a> audiobooks. Let\u2019s hope the tools turn them into stellar actors at the same time! The early days of desktop publishing provide a cautionary example.<\/p>\n

No time to read? Listen up!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So many friends tell me they don\u2019t have time to read any more that I\u2019m surprised more of them haven\u2019t taken up audio books. While it\u2019s true the old-fashioned klunky tapes or CD\u2019s were a bit of a pain\u2014and expensive, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[77,62,21,68,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-780","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-books","category-authors","category-narrator","category-publishing","category-readers"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-cA","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=780"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":985,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780\/revisions\/985"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=780"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=780"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=780"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}