I’ve spent weeks of my life listening to audiobooks and podcasts. It’s my favorite medium of entertainment - even over TV, or videogames, or the Metaverse. That said, I rarely use it as a complete entertainment medium. As in, I never sit in one spot and spend hours doing nothing but listening to The Joe Rogan Experience. But that’s what I like about audio. It encourages multi-tasking. Audio is like hot sauce. It doesn’t make a meal in and of itself, but it enhances everything.
You can find me with my headphones in listening to an audiobook or podcast when I’m working in my garage, cleaning the house, exercising, walking the dog, driving, or doing anything task that allows my mind to fixate on something. To be clear, I don’t encourage tuning into audio when you’re working on something that requires complex thought and focus. It’s impossible to listen to the story in your headphones while you’re trying to read something else. Those moments are what music was made for.
But there’s this sweet spot where you take a task that may be monotonous on its own and an audiobook that necessitates doing something to occupy your hands. That’s where the fireworks happen. It brings together the feeling of accomplishment you get from knocking something off your to-do list with the joy of being told a story.
I oscillate between audiobooks and podcasts, depending on where my interests are at any given moment. On the whole, I much prefer audiobooks. However, the one downside is that they’re relatively expensive (especially compared to free podcasts). Purchasing an a la carte audiobook from an online retailer will set you back $25 - $45 dollars. The alternative is to sign up for a subscription service, such as Audible, that provides you with a number of credits per month for a set monthly fee. I’ve been an Audible member since May 2016. I purchase two credits a month for around $20. That’s roughly 160 books and $1,600 over the last seven years. Audible is excellent, it’s accessible, and has access to every audiobook you could want, but it gets expensive. Especially when you listen to as many audiobooks as I do.
I recently found a better way to scratch that itch, however.
Last fall I signed up for a library card. My intention had nothing to do with audiobooks I just wanted to access a $40 woodworking book without paying an arm and a leg for it. However, a few weeks after receiving my card I heard about an app called Libby.
Libby essentially provides you with electronic access to your county library system from your phone. You’re able to browse their collection of audiobooks (and regular books) and check them out for free. I was able to listen to the entire Game of Thrones series - around 150 hours of content - without spending any of my audible credits. I’m now only using my audible credits on titles I can’t find through my library system or don’t want to wait to check out.
The downside to Libby is there is a limited number of copies available at any given moment to rent. You can often come across weeks or months long wait times for popular titles.
Fortunately, there’s a lot of accessible books. I keep a hold list of 8-10 books from different series I’m currently enjoying and typically by the time I finish one of them another one becomes available for me to rent.
I highly recommend it if you love audiobooks like I do and want to save some money. Especially in this economy.
Bonus Recommendation:
While we’re on the topic of audiobooks, a series that I’ve recently discovered and have been engrossed in over the past few weeks is The First Law series by Joe Abercrombie. It’s very similar to Game of Thrones. As in, it would take me forty-five minutes to give you the spark notes version of the plot, but there’s a lot of swords, and politics, and interesting characters. Abercrombie is quite possibly the best fantasy writer I’ve ever experienced and after listening to this series and Game of Thrones back to back I would rank him above George RR. Martin. Martin’s ability to world-build is unmatched, but Joe Abercrombie’s books have some of the best developed characters and his ability to describe action is excellent. The series has nine total books and will keep you busy for around 200 hours. So far I’ve been able to enjoy the first four through my local library without paying a dime.
Cheers!