Bookish Tuesday: Books on Tape

Well, I guess it technically isn't correct to say book on tape, since I've been listening on my mp3 player. Anyway, Katie and I finally got it all sorted out so that we can "checkout" audiobooks from the library online and download it to the computer and our mp3 players.

Thanks to this, we were able to listen to about half of David Sedaris' Barrel Fever and Naked read by Mr. Sedaris himself over the weekend, and as much as I love reading his books, listening to him tell it makes it about 3.5 times funnier.

There are a lot of books that I have enjoyed listening to in some form (whether CD or tape or mp3), and then there are some that I just have to read. The audiobook version of Terry Pratchett's Going Postal is so good that I've listened to it as many times as I've read the book (3 times each). On the other hand, as much as I love reading The Hobbit, the audio version that I have puts me to sleep incredibly fast. I have a radio drama version that is really awesome and maybe that has tainted it, but for some reason, I haven't found it as good to listen to as it was to just read. The same goes for the Chronicles of Narnia. I have a really nice boxed set of the audio books, but I have a hard time getting into them.

Part of this has to be the time constraint of audiobooks. The best time for them is on a long road trip or while playing World of Warcraft (at least before I started listening to a ton of podcasts). Regular books allow you to put a bookmark in after reading just one sentence and it's really easy to go back a bit to catch up if you forgot a little bit. Audiobooks have the trouble (at least for me) of finding where you last were. If I take the CD out of the player in the car in order to listen to some music for a minute, I'd better write down the exact track and time, otherwise I'll waste 5 minutes finding my old spot.

All this comes back to this weekend. Katie and I were able to enjoy Sedaris while we were cleaning around the house, and I did everything I possibly could to make sure that we didn't stop working until a story/track was over and that worked out well, even if it was a pain. So, while I absolutely love certain audiobooks, it seems as though they will always come second to regular old reading for now.