What are audiobooks like - i've never listened to one and kind of thought it defeated the object (unless of course you are visually impaired), do you get the same level of engagement when you are listening rather than reading?
They always seemed ridiculously expensive too?!
Any you'd recommend?
To be completely honest, I think it's even a higher level of engagement, although it depends on your reading style. Some people have a hard time staying focused on a paragraph. Jumping around, looking ahead to the next line or paragraph, etc. But what you pay for when you buy an audiobook isn't the words, actually, it's the performance. The production quality is extremely high. Nowadays publishers hire fantastic readers, sometimes teams of readers to do multiple voices, who make it a point to bring the book to life the best they can through their voice.
And the convenience is incredible. You can't read a book while walking to and from class or while driving to and from work. You can listen to an audiobook while doing those things because they don't require your hands and/or eyes. You can listen to them while working, although I've found that that's generally not a great idea because the good books will engage your mind enough that the book itself becomes a distraction from your work. I like to listen while in bed trying to fall asleep. You don't have to have the light on for that. Eating as well. You can certainly listen while cleaning or doing chores. Think about all the time you spend doing those things and that's the time you can spend listening to performances of books you wouldn't otherwise have time to read, and at the same time make some of the more mundane tasks of your day a little less boring. You can carry all of your books on an iPod or other player so it takes up no more space than you would normally take up by carrying your music around. Also, like I mentioned, I never would've attempted a book like
The Count of Monte Cristo if it weren't an audiobook. Pick up a physical copy and it's a daunting 1300+ page behemoth that you have to carry around wherever you go. There's something about seeing the same book listed as "47 hours" that makes it seem less intimidating. It makes it even seem like you're getting a good deal for 47 hours of entertainment. While reading a book some people require a quiet environment. You don't need that with an audiobook, because the book itself drowns out the surrounding noise.
Of course there's drawbacks. With DRM it's hard to share audiobooks. You can, however burn to CD and give it to anyone so there's ways around that problem. Also every spoken word matters in the audiobook. If someone bothers you while reading the print version, you can just put the book down and come back later to the same spot and pick up reading where you left off without too much trouble. When the same thing happens with an audiobook, you have to fumble around and pause your music player, and find your spot again after the person leaves. Sometimes not a problem, but sometimes I personally get distracted by something else while listening and don't realize it until maybe ten minutes after the fact and it's much harder to go back and find your place in an audiobook than in a print book. Fall asleep while reading? You're most likely on the same page when you wake up. Fall asleep listening to an audiobook and it just keeps going, which causes problems when you wake up in the middle of the night 2 hours further ahead than you expect and all of a sudden a huge spoiler is revealed. I've had to develop the habit of immediately shutting off my iPod when I wake up in the middle of the night.
They're not all that expensive either. Assuming you're from the UK, audible.co.uk (owned by Amazon; audible.com if you're from the states) has a great selection of audiobooks. If you get an account with them they have different packages where you can get one or two books a month for a certain price (£7.99 / month for one and £14.99 / month for two) which is usually far less than you would normally spend on an audiobook. I don't know if the same deal is offered in the UK, but in the states, I opt to pay for a year's worth of books (24) all at once and they give a discount for that as well so it comes out to roughly £6.09 per book. I think you can get two free books to try out if you go to audible.co.uk/twit2. Not sure if you have to sign up, but you can cancel if you decide you don't like it.
Of course you only get a digital copy (part of the reason the price is low since the overhead is minimal) but it's fully compatible with iTunes or you can use Audible's own media player and it's fully compatible with a bunch of devices including iPods. Of course there's digital rights management on the files, but usually that's not too big a problem. You can burn to CD without having to worry about that if that's your preference.
Personally I'd recommend pretty much anything you'd like to read. The selection is quite good at Audible. They should also have a large number of customer reviews for most of their books. Anything 4/5 stars or greater is usually well worth a listen. I like listening to really long works since they're books I wouldn't attempt otherwise. Things like traditional classics that everyone likes to talk about that I never got a chance to read when I was in school and now feel left behind for not having read. It's good for both fiction and nonfiction, so I've done everything from long fiction epics (Count, Pillars of the Earth), to overrated fiction stuff (DaVinci Code, etc) to fictional works I read as a kid (Redwall) to self help books (Predictably Irrational; Free: A New Radical Price) to informative works (Three Cups of Tea, Stones into Schools) and contemporary bestsellers (Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Girl with a Dragon Tattoo). I'd recommend just thinking of a book you've read before that you'd love to read again and using one of your free book credits on those. Then you can have some sort of comparison between experiences, although it's not quite the same when you already know the ending. Use the other one on something new.
