In Praise of Audiobooks
Over the last couple of weeks I have travelled about two thousand miles by train to various parts of Wales and St Austell in Cornwall in order to promote my book. The scenery was beautiful, I enjoyed meeting the many people enthusiastic about books and I returned each day by train, enveloping myself in audiobooks. Audiobooks are great for travelling by public transport. Railway carriages are sometimes noisy and it is difficult to concentrate, but listening to an audiobook I found I could escape this world.
So far I have listened to Solar by Ian MacEwan, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Each book quite different in character, but equally enjoyable. I think I actually appreciated the book more than if I'd read it myself.
At the moment I am listening to The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. This is a different book again - much gentler than the others, and I find myself looking forward to doing some ironing or maybe going on a walk just so I can listen again.
So far I have listened to Solar by Ian MacEwan, Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murakami and On Beauty by Zadie Smith. Each book quite different in character, but equally enjoyable. I think I actually appreciated the book more than if I'd read it myself.
At the moment I am listening to The Secret Scripture by Sebastian Barry. This is a different book again - much gentler than the others, and I find myself looking forward to doing some ironing or maybe going on a walk just so I can listen again.
posted by Clare Dudman at 7:42 pm
2 Comments:
I've never tried an audio book. I can see one distinct advantage. I'm a paragraph jumper. The book I've just finished contains a huge amount of description which bores the pants off me and I have to work hard not to scan paragraphs and if they don't advance the plot then I'll just skip ahead. I'll tell you if I was an editor writers would quake in fear of my blue pencil.
I'm also guilty on the jumping paragraph thing, Jim. I am smiling at the thought of you and your blue pencil.
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