Audiobooks 101
Years ago, I wasn’t really sold on audiobooks because I love holding physical books. I’m not afraid to admit that the feel of the cover and pages influences my book purchasing.
But now, I love them. Audiobooks come in handy when I’m working out in the landscape solo; or, now with the pandemic, when I have to stay away from other workers.
I can easily finish a five hour book in one work day. And when I do, I feel great about working and learning. This is the only form of multi-tasking I would recommend to anyone. Normally, multi-tasking is a bad idea.
2021 stats
I use Audible, owned by Amazon, for my audiobooks but there are other services you can try. (Disclaimer: The book link below contains my affiliate link and I may collect a small fee from anyone buying the book from this blog post.)
What I love about Audible is the annual stats they send me every December. It’s nice to see what I’ve done. But remember, I also read physical books. Let’s take a look at my 2021.
Total listening time: 7,923 minutes.
I binged on March 6, 2021, by listening for 301 minutes.
I’ve added 54 new titles to my library.
My library has 590 titles in it. And the bonus is that my wife doesn’t see them in our apartment. It would difficult to hide 600 books.
My longest listen of 2021 (733 minutes) was Suzanne Simard’s book, “Finding the mother tree.” Simard is a tree super-star; she teaches at the University of British Columbia (UBC). She was the one who discovered trees use underground fungal networks to communicate, cooperate and help each other. This, by the way, is the only form of communism that works. I don’t even know where the 733 minutes went. It’s a book I highly recommend. Read my blog post about it here.
Why I love audiobooks
- I can learn while I work in the landscape
- My wife doesn’t see the books
- Audiobooks are cheaper
- Audible has member sales and daily deals
- Monthly membership is US$15 which is fine and equals one free credit
- I can access my full library on my iPhone
- You can speed up the text; I rarely listen at 1.0
- I can easily finish one or two books in one day
- There are lots of free audiobooks in the Audio Plus Catalogue
- Some books work better in audio
Ready to try it?
I still buy physical books every year but audiobooks have improved my life greatly. I’m hooked. If you haven’t already, give it a try. It might just improve your life. Re-read my list of ten reasons above.
Happy listening!
