Dirty Little Secret

Following a conversation with a woman at a local bookstore, I felt a bit guilty. I was browsing the bookstore shelves looking for something different then my normal selection of reading material. No, it was not an adult bookstore, just a regular ‘try to be all to all” bookstore in the mall.

The woman asked me if I had read The Da Vinci Code. I told her that I had last winter and thought it was a very good story and well written. She asked about other books I had read in the past few months and I started to list a couple dozen or so books. She was impressed with the volume of my reading. I told her that I have a lot of time to read and left it at that.

I have a four-foot bookshelf that I have filled with books that I have read over the past couple of years. Most I have bought and paid the full cover price. Some I have bought from the discount tables of many bookstores. Other books were gifts from family and friends. Regardless of how I got them, they have been stacking up in a few places around the house. Books are space hogs.

Now for the dirty little secret that made me feel a bit guilty. Since January, I have, in deed covered every word of the following books:

• The DaVinci Code (Unabridged), Dan Brown
• I Am Charlotte Simmons (Unabridged), Tom Wolfe
• Lord of the Flies (Unabridged) William Golding
• Angels and Demons (Unabridged), Dan Brown
• America's Secret War (Unabridged), George Friedman
• Holes (Unabridged) Louis Sachar
• George Carlin Reads to You, George Carlin
• Winning (Unabridged), Jack Welch with Suzy Welch
• Kitchen Confidential (Unabridged), Anthony Bourdain
• The Romanov Prophecy, Steve Berry

Now these titles make up about a third of the titles I have read in the past nine months. Unlike the books taking up floor and shelf space around my home, these books are stored on my computer hard drive. I bought these books through the online service called Audible.com.

Yes, the dirty little secret is that they are Talking Books/Books-On-Tape, and I did not read them but listened to someone read them to me. I did listen to every word and my imagination brought the story to life. On the days that my eyes are too sore to read or nights that I cannot fall asleep or while waiting for appointments, or out for a walk I listen to Audible.com programs. Not just the books listed above but on a daily basis listening to The Morning Read from The Wall Street Journal, and Wall Street Journal Weekend Journal which are daily digests of about a hour in length of selected stories from the WSJ.

Audible.com is a monthly subscription service that you can download audiobooks, including fiction, business, politics, science and technology and more. Radio and TV programs, newspapers, magazines, comedy recordings, special events performances and more are available on Audible. The best part you can transfer the Audible.com files to MP3 players or in my case to Palm handhelds, burn to CD or listen on your computer.

Pros

• No giant stacks of books taking up space.
• You can have a variety of books on your portable device.
• You can listen while in transit or walking or even while exercising.
• Easy to bookmark your reading, just push play.
• Easy to review and replay the programs.
• Your arms do not get tired holding up large unabridged books.
• In some cases, the author reads the book.
• Wide selection of programs available.

Cons

• Very hard to reference an Audible Program
• No way to highlight or underline passages.
• No giant stacks of books to impress people
• I have no idea how an audible.com cookbook would work.
• In some cases, the author reads the book.

I have exercised my guilt and I feel better having it out in the open.

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Now for the challenge, I have downloaded History of the World, Updated (Unabridged), by J.M. Roberts, a 55 hour program.