Top 5 Reasons to Listen to Audiobooks

Audiobook advantages: The 5 top reasons to 'read' audiobooks

Audiobook Advantage #1: Your house will be very clean!

I recently started “reading” books on my daily commute and discovered a few advantages to listening to a book compared to reading words on a page.  I was a little reluctant to listen to someone else do the reading (I rather like the voices in my head,) but two people convinced me to give it a try; plus I was curious as to how a narrator manages the voices of more than one character. The first person told me that she downloads audiobooks to her smartphone and listens while she cleans her house. As a result, her house is very clean because she does not want to stop listening to the book she just downloaded.   

Audiobook Advantage #2: Shorter holds lists.You will probably have more chances to get your hands on the title you want to read if you are willing to listen to it. The second audiobook fan who got me started down the audio road recommended a book she had just read and the only copy available at the time was on CD. 

Audiobook Advantage #3: Follow the Reader. Right now I’m listening to the recently released In the Unlikely Event, an adult novel by Elizabeth, New Jersey native, Judy Blume. The story begins in Elizabeth, NJ in the early 1950s when airline travel was new. Judy Blume was a young girl living in Elizabeth when a series of airline accidents resulted in the shutdown of Newark Airport. She uses these actual events to tell the fictional stories of three generations of people who were brought together by the tragedies. The reader, Kathleen McInerney, convincingly uses different voices for each character and reads at just the right pace and with the right sense of drama. This brings me to Audiobook Advantage #3: If you like a particular book and want a similar experience, you can either look for more titles by that author or you can see what else the reader has narrated.  Simply search for the reader’s name the same way you would search for an author’s name. I found two more adult novels by Judy Blume to add to my reading list and two more books narrated by Kathleen McInerney that I’m adding to my reading list.

Then there is Audiobook Advantage #4: You can read 2 books at once. I listen to one book during my daily commute and read another at home on the sofa.

Audiobook Advantage # 5: the Voices in Your Head versus the Voices on the Audio.
The people who listened to the Harry Potter books, instead of reading the words on printed pages, raved about the man who read the books. Jim Dale, the reader/performer created 134 different character voices for the Harry Potter series. That was a record until Roy Dotrice started narrating the Game of Thrones series using 224 different voices. 

If you want to read In the Unlikely Event, you can place a hold on the book or the audiobook. As of 1:00 p.m. June 15, if you place a request for the book, you will be number 12 on the waiting list. Applying Audiobook Advantage #2, if you place a request for the audiobook you will be number 4 in  line.

As for me, I’m still trying to decide if I want to apply Audiobook Advantage #1. Do I have to clean while listening at home or can I just listen on the sofa? Audiobook Guilt #1: You don't have to jog or clean while you listen, but you can and it makes the job much more fun.

Take a look at our 'All Things E' page to find sources for borrowing ebooks and e-audiobooks for free.

-Melanie Edwards