Audio Books Made Me a Reader Again

I spend a pretty sizable amount of time in my car. Since I avoid the freeway and take only surface streets, it makes my journey even longer. I try to leave extra early in the morning when the traffic is lighter. The “way there” drive usually takes just under an hour. However no matter how early in the afternoon I leave from work, the “way back” drive will take at least 70 minutes and longer if something major is going on, like visiting dignitaries or police pursuits.

I used to listen to month inspired mix CDs that I made myself with silly names like “November Turkey Tunes” or “Moving May Music” but they would quickly get scratched. I sometimes listen to the radio but I have found listening to books on CD much more satisfying.

Strangely I have never liked talk radio. I can’t stand the non-stop yammering. I do however love storytelling. I’ve been told of the many fine programs that I would probably enjoy if I could just get past the talk radio aspect of radio. To be fair, I don’t especially like television talk shows either. The celebrity guests seem to talk about the same stuff they always talk about and it usually is the same information I can get with US Magazine and I can read US Magazine in the bathroom.

Because of the talk radio quality that books on CDs have, I was hesitant to listen to them in the car. I also thought I would have to concentrate so much on the story I was listening to, it would affect my driving. Admittedly I choose to stories that aren’t extra rich in detail or ones where if you miss hearing one detail you are completely lost.

I loved the book “Memoirs of a Geisha” and enjoy all stories that are set in another time period. If women are the central figures of the story, I will enjoy it all the more. The first book that I listened to was “Snow Flower and the Secret Fan” by Lisa See. I loved it. It was especially good to hear the correct pronunciation of the Chinese words. I could visual that time in history and still be focused enough to make a tricky Y-turn.

Since I got a lot of these books on CDs from the library I got a different cross section of books that I might not ordinarily have read. I listened to everything from “Grammar Girls Guide to Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing” to the YA book “Fallen” to “Certain Girls” by Jennifer Weiner.

My favorites have been Rob Lowe reading his autobiography “Stories I only Tell My friends” a surprisingly funny, smart and illuminating book. I also loved “A Northern Light” by Jennifer Donnelly read by Hope Davis. This is a marvelous book with a secondary storyline based on that same murder scandal that was in “A Place in the Sun.” Hope Davis does an amazing job reading, really good. Steve Martin’s “Born Standing Up” was also fascinating and funny. It adds another element when the writer reads their own story. Ruth Reichl’s “ Garlic and Sapphires” about her days as a NY Times food critic was wonderful and surprising. I even listened to the interview with her afterwards.

Once I began to get so involved in the hearing of these stories, some totally fictional, some mostly non-fictional, I started reading more again. I finished a 500 page book in a day, something I used to do all the time, but rarely do now. I always read but I feel like I’ve become a reader again. I’m like an addict craving stories.

It may seem silly that something so simple has changed my life but it has. I feel as if my life has been enriched. I am often a storyteller but it is just as important to me to be one to whom the story is told.

My long and winding road is now one of stories, vivid characters and of amazing lives lived and my commute seems to fly by.