IN WHICH The Girl Wants Benedict Cumberbatch to Read to Her

You know what makes reading easier? Listening instead. Granted, I don't really mind reading as an activity; in fact, I love it. However, I've recently started listening to audiobooks, and I actually quite enjoy the experience. If you've never listened to an audiobook, or it has been awhile, I recommend giving one a shot.

In certain circumstances, I find reading an actual book most inconvenient, say when driving a car. During the school year, I spend a lot of time transporting myself from one school to another. Last fall, I worked at four schools in four completely different cities throughout the Chicagoland area (oh the joys of adjuncting). I spent several hours a day driving and the radio gets real old after about a half hour. And even when I don't have to drive, I usually spend multiple hours on public transportation, hopping from bus to train to bus to walking etc. etc. During all of these activities, it is simply easier to listen to a book instead of read one. I even started listening to books on the beach because I can never seem to comfortably manage reading a book while lying on my stomach.

Technology, oh that wonderful and frustrating set of toys, makes it incredibly easy to use audiobooks today. While you can certainly still buy the big packs of CDs, those only really work if you have a permanent car - which I don't - because otherwise you have to keep finding your spot in the story over and over again. Plus, it's not like I still have a discman to carry around when I'm not in a car. But if you have a smart phone, you can just download an audiobook to your phone. It's fast, you don't have to go anywhere, and it will save your spot for you. In a car with bluetooth, you can then listen to it though the radio. Or you can just plug in your earphones during all sorts of activities. Science!

To make it even better, you can find tons of free audiobooks to download from the library. Audiobook CD sets are actually fairly expensive otherwise. There are also resources like Audible from Amazon for audiobooks, but they charge a fee as well. I think I give a spiel about the library to every person I know. To my understanding, people seem quite terrified of libraries after they graduate school. However, just like everything else, libraries have evolved with the times. You can now get thousands of ebooks and audiobooks from the library website without ever having to step foot in a physical library, should you not want to deal with those crazy book people.

There's even an app called OverDrive Media that will connect to your local library website and let you download your ebooks and audiobooks through it. From my experience, you can actually find more audiobooks instantly available from the library than ebooks because people don't check them out as often. Plus, even if some mean person got to the book you want first, you can put it on hold and have the website automatically check it out for you once it's available. On the opposite end, the book just disappears at the end of your lending time, usually 21 days, so you never have to worry about late fees. If you then check the book out again later, the program also saves your spot in the book. How much more convenient can it get? I strongly feel that people should both have access to and take advantage of free books. I once passed the public library in Boise, Idaho, which had an exclamation point after the name of the library, and I thought, "Yes, that's the kind of enthusiasm we need for our libraries!"

While this audiobook business is all fun and games, there are a few things to keep in mind. One, it can be hard to do two things at once, for me at least. Therefore, I tend to choose light books that I can follow even if I miss a line or two while I'm paying attention to traffic or listening to a train announcement. You don't want to have to keep rewinding to catch an important detail. In the last few months I have listened to The Great Gatsby (having read it several times before so not needing extreme powers of attention), one of the Matched young adult books, and several murder mysteries. I, nevertheless, declined to download the audiobook version of The Sound and the Fury for this reason. In addition, it can be odd to listen to a voice other than your own read the story. Sometimes the speaker's voice annoys me or doesn't fit with what I imagine in my own head, but most of the time he or she has a pleasing timbre. Why can't Benedict Cumberbatch read every book? Lastly, downloading the books can use an incredible amount of data, so always download them when you have wi-fi unless you have some amazing data plan.

Now I just need to decide which book to download for the flight I'm taking this weekend. Choices... choices...