Sunday Salon: Now hear this! Or, When Florinda Met Audiobooks | The 3 R's: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness

I listened to my first audiobook ever this week. I don’t think it will be my last. It was this one:

It actually wasn’t my first choice for my first audiobook, a format I’ve resisted for years and have only recently begun to give cautious consideration. I started giving the idea serious thought just a couple of weeks ago, when I accepted the fact that it was unlikely I’d get to re-read Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before …Part 2 opened at the movies and thought maybe I’d try listening to it instead; several experienced audiobook listeners have suggested that books you’ve already read can be good choices for audio newbies. However, I was unable to locate that particular Harry Potter book on audio in a format that I could download directly to my Apple devices (I have an iPhone and an iPod nano, and planned to listen on one or both of them), and that was quite frustrating. However, my search did whet my appetite for audio, and one Audible membership and an app download later, I was in.

I have a hardcover copy of Tina Fey’s memoir/personal essay collection Bossypants in the house; the assumption was that my husband would read it first (he hasn’t yet), and I’d get to it eventually. However, last month – June was Audiobook Month – I read quite a few solid reviews of the audio version (read by the author), several of which suggested that audio was the ideal format for the book. That guidance led me to make it my first download from Audible. I’ll post a review of it later in the week, but in short, I was not unhappy with my choice – those suggestions were right on target.

My next audiobook is ~~waiting~~ in progress during my work commute on my iPhone now, and it’s in a similar vein: Craig Ferguson’s American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot. My husband has already read this one and has been after me to read it for over a year; this seems like a more efficient way to accomplish that. Meanwhile, Tall Paul has downloaded the Audible app and Bossypants – he’ll get to it sooner that way too.

Based on my very limited experience, read-by-the-author nonfiction seems to work pretty well for me in audio format. I’m a little more cautious about trying fiction on audio, but I’m pretty sure that’ll happen at some point. In the meantime, I’m open to audiobook recommendations of both fiction and nonfiction, so if you’ve got some, tell me in the comments!