For the past five years I’ve identified myself as a writer. Trouble is, I don’t read or write a hole lot, and I never really have. I don’t particularly enjoy writing about my universe because it rarely stacks up to the vision I had in my head. I don’t like writing it because I want people to see Nacre Then as this awesome, magical place of wonder and power, but if my writing is all they have to go off of, that isn’t what they would imagine. At least, I don’t think so. I don’t know, I’m not other people.
So, for 2016, my New Year’s resolution was to read one book a week. But since I’m both a full time student and working part time, it was kind of hard. I don’t read quickly, am easily distracted, and under many conditions, I simply fall asleep if I try to read. (You’d think that would be useful, but it doesn’t work if I’m secretly trying to sleep. It’s annoying.) Reading is hard for me, and very rarely do I actually enjoy it. As a personality trait, I don’t dislike many things, but I also have a hard time loving them. If you show me an awful movie, I can laugh at how bad it is. If you show me a so-so movie, I’ll be very critical of it, but I won’t feel as though I wasted my time. I view a lot of things in life as experiences to be absorbed to become a more well-rounded person.
As a result of all this, I revised my resolution to “Read 50 books this year”. As of two weeks ago, I had read two, meaning I had been six weeks behind. But suddenly I realized I can listen to audiobooks at my work, and since my work is pretty mindless, I can listen to them at almost 50% increased speed. So since then I’ve read six more books. I’m back on track! Here is the list of books I’ve read so far. I’ll probably post my reviews of them sometime:
- Sabriel
- Lirael
- Bands of Mourning
- Steelheart
- Firefight
- Calamity
- Ring of Solomon
- Sunless Sea
Three through six are books written by Brandon Sanderson, a fantasy author gaining momentum very quickly these days. I’ll talk about him more later. Beyond this list, I’m reading three more books. Two of them are novels I’m reading for classes.
What I’m saying is, audiobooks are awesome. I can work for eight hours while paying attention to a book the whole time. I’m making money while reading. You can do it while driving, making breakfast, taking a walk, etc. Just be careful of doing it while performing a task that actually requires brain capacity. I can do it while playing video games or browsing imgur, but a lot of the time my brain loses focus on the book and I’ll miss an important thing that happens. So if you’re somebody who has a lot of time-consuming easy work on their hands, I highly recommend audiobooks. Every genre is out there, and if you’re listening on your phone (which I’m sure you are) you can adjust the speed at which the narrator speaks. You can even listen to them without wi-fi, because you download the books onto your phone and play them that way. It’s super nifty. I personally use Audible, and I’m making assumptions that other audiobook services would have the same features, but that may not be the case. Also, it can be troublesome. One book I read was over forty hours long, thanks once again to Brandon Sanderson.
“Audiobooks. It’s like reading, but not.” — Kollin Cooley
KR Cooley 