Listening to a book
2009
Reading is about enjoying a plot. It’s also about holding a book and turning pages as you read to the end. It’s about the convenience of being able to carry it with you all over the place – cafe, car, airplane etc. Books are meant to be read, not listened to as in an audio book.
Well, there’s so much discussion about E-readers and audio books that I tried it out. I bought a digital copy of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink and downloaded it into my iPod. I was in the gym when I tried it out.
The experience is interesting. I mean, reading on the treadmill when you’re walking very fast is quite tough, what with the treadmill vibrating from the way I’m pounding on it as I try to beat my own 41-minute timing for a 5km walk. Books are out in this instance. Only magazines but it’s quite strenuous to focus on the tiny fonts on a magazine when you’re walking, breathing heavily and sweating a lot. So the reading can’t be continuous; I’ve to stop from time to time otherwise, I’ll get a headache.
Of course with the audiobook, the experience is of a different kind. You listen to the book. Okay, so I bought a kinda dry book, not the usual thriller or sci-fi that I’ll read. That’s another problem which I’ll discuss later. First the experinece of an audiobook. It’s quite good, if you’ve the right volume up and if the reader has an interesting pitch and tone and isn’t monotonous. Malcolm Gladwell read his own book, and he’s quite good. Plus it’s not that dry as he had several interesting case studies and examples. So I quite enjoyed listening to the audiobook…. except I haven’t continued to listen to it outside of the treadmill. I guess, it’s because it’s not a thriller and I’m in no hurry to find out who dunit!
Now the earphones – you need a good one which fits nicely. In-ear noise-cancelling devices would be good because it’ll cut out the very loud music they play in the gym. I’d the Apple earphones which did the job quite nicely. Even then, I’m not used to earphones – I play the iPod on a dock with speakers. So I’d to get used to the earphones plus you need a pair which won’t slip out as you walk cos it can be irritating if they don’t fit.
Right, title of the book. I chose Blink cos it’s the most interesting. There’re thrillers but I didn’t like the ones that were available. Problem is there aren’t many titles for audiobooks. Choice is limited. I guess it’s a chicken and egg thing – more people need to buy audiobooks before authors and publishers would be interested in putting out audio versions.
Now I’m wondering about the Kindle and the Sony E-reader. They are like books since they’re devices you hold in your hand except that the pages you turn are digital. It’s all the more attractive since there’s a Kindle reader on the iPhone which would make it really easy for me to start reading on the Kindle and continuing it on the iPhone if I want to read on-the-go. But I’ve to figure out if Amazon which is selling the Kindle will sell i-books outside of the US.
I’m ready to go – I’ve the Kindle app on my iPhone, now it’s just finding out if I can buy the digital books. Stay tuned while I try this out.
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