Listening to Audio Books While Driving around Los Angeles

I started listening to audio books mainly because with age, I have a hard time reading words on pages without my reading glasses, so spontaneous reading just doesn't happen anymore as it used to. I have to say though, I enjoy audio books tremendously.

I binge read/listened to five books over two weeks recently. 

A couple of weeks ago, I read In the Woods by Irish writer Tana French.  I was hooked enough that I wanted to get a hold of Tana French's four other novels. I found that Los Angeles Public Library didn't have all the books available to borrow on Overdrive e-Media. But, I did find two of French's books: The Likeness and Faithful Place available on Audible.com.  Audible is now a service provided by Amazon. However, the monthly subscription to it is $14.95 and I can only download one free book per month.  Additional books cost extra. This is a bit too steep especially if I am willing to wait for the audio books to be available for borrowing through the public library for free. However, Audible currently has a promotion that allows me to sign up, download two free audio books and cancel within one month and not be charged the monthly subscription fee if I choose. I wanted to check out Audible, so I downloaded the two free audiobooks onto my Samsung Galaxy Player. You can download it onto your tablets, ipad, or ipods, or smart phones.

Overdrive allows me to connect to many public libraries I am a member of and borrow from their extensive e-media catalog.  The drawback is that the public libraries have limited licenses to lend out the downloadable audiobooks, and I sometimes have to place a popular book on hold and wait in queue until someone returns his or her borrowed copy.  When available, I am notified by email that I can download the audio book. For the most part, this is not a problem because I can always find an available book to listen to while I put a hold on a book I want and wait patiently in queue. Once downloaded, I have three weeks to listen to the book. When the three weeks is up, the book is automatically returned to the library via the internet. I never have to worry about late fees.

Audible requires that I download an app to listen to my downloaded books. That was easy enough.  I used Playstore to download the app onto my Samsung Player. The experience was similar to Overdrive Media, quite pleasant. I own the books I downloaded and as far as I know, I don't have to return them. This makes sense: the $14.95 subscription fee allows me to own the books I download.

I did find the fourth book in the series: Broken Harbor, available as a hard back in the LA Public Library, so I read it the old fashioned way, turning the pages, with my reading glasses on. Just when I finished reading Broken Harbor, the final and most recent book by French, Secret Place, became available on Overdrive Audiobooks through the LA Public Library.

After finishing all five books, I came to the conclusion that I may like Audiobooks over reading hard copies of books, or reading e-books. The reasons? 1. I don't have to worry about not seeing the words if I don't have my reading glasses with me. 2. I can listen to the audio books anywhere: while driving, while eating lunch, while cooking, etc. 3. While I might miss some nuances during the readings if I am distracted, for the most part, I am forced to listen to every word and can get the descriptive details the author intended so much more. It is hard to jump ahead with the app not knowing what I am missing. When reading a real book though, I get so engrossed in the plot and would often skip descriptive lines or paragraphs and jump ahead just to find out what's next in the plot.

In my book, these are great reasons to listen to audio books.