I was not a great fan of audio books and always thought people who listened to them were either the ones who were completely unread, or that they were too busy doing other important things in life (and I wondered what exactly!) and had no time on hand to sit with a book to, duh, read them. Because it takes me long to commute to office and back, and though I have lots of reading material with me always, sometimes it gets a lil boring. So I thought of checking out on audio books anyway (ewww...). While browsing, I came across the website Librivox. Here there were tons of audio books all in the public domain and available for download. It was real eye-opener to find so many classics which were just lying there! Gee, it was like I had found some treasure trove :) I went ahead and downloaded the "Sign of Four" (Arthur Conan Doyle) which I thought would be easy listening. A sample chapter from the book confirmed it. There are other websites too where you can get public domain books. Here is another.
For the next one month, I listened up chapter upon chapter of the book. To be frank, it was a real treat to the mind and ears too! The lady reading the book had a wonderful voice and I could see the story unfolding in front of my eyes as I listened to it. I could see Sherlock sitting in his chair and Watson by the side as they solved another great mystery! It was fun! From then on my take on audio books has changed. Though I personally do prefer reading from a real book whenever possible, because I like to get a feel of the book, read it word by word and also have the convenience of flipping back to read up some craftily written piece, you might enjoy listening to an audio version of the book too. I would probably reserve it to light literature and not serious literary work. And anyway, there are not as many audio books either.
In the meantime, I have just downloaded 'The Man who would be King' and 'Siddhartha'! Happy reading...er..listening!
Agreed , it is convenient to listen to a book. Also takes you back to the times when in school. Personally speaking, I prefer to read, mostly perhaps because then I can choose my pace, reread, get the feel of the words and see the words. Thus all my senses in many and myriad ways are involved and all these add to the sensuality of the experience. Listening to poetry however, is a different feeling however.... But then it is different. Poetry in motion:)
ReplyDeleteSo well-written :) Gonna try it :) And totally agree that nothing beats a good ol' book!
ReplyDeleteDo try getting "Ulysses", the James Joyce version! I heard it and it was 'un-put-down-able', or rather, unstoppable! The painful office journeys became more enjoyable :)
Delete