Audio books

I have a confession to make - I don't like audio books. Even as a kid, as soon as my reading speed outpaced the speed of our Sesame Street book-and-tape sets (and one awesome Popeye book-and-record), I preferred to read things myself. 
In the past decade I've attempted maybe 8 audios. Some were absolute torture, like when I forced myself to sit through three incredibly dry tracks of The Fellowship of the Ring. Even dynamic audios (Hello Redwall and Junie B. Jones) didn't hold up against the dozens of distractions around me. If I just sat and listened I felt like I needed to be doing something with my hands. As soon as my hands started moving, though, I lost track of what was happening in the book. The only audio I managed to listen to in it's entirety was Love that Dog. The audio version of Love that Dog is 35 minutes long. And I almost didn't finish it. And I love Love that Dog. 
Then came the 48 Hour Book Challenge. I really wanted to participate and I wanted to put in as much time as I could even though I had to work and had other things that needed to get done. I figured I could maximize my time if I included an audio book in my stack. I took a gamble with the audio of Eleanor & Park, a book I had adored when I read it originally. So, this weekend, I made two discoveries*.
     1. If it's really important to me I can, in fact, focus on an audio book even when doing other things. I have to really try, but I can do it.
     2. When you listen to an audio book at night, in the dark, lying in bed, the audio becomes your whole world. It's fully immersing. It's like a friend whispering in your ear. 

Given the experience of this weekend, I think I need to give audios another chance.


*Also, discovery two and a half
It's really funny when your audio book develops a skip in the middle of the f-word so all you hear as you walk down the cereal aisle of the grocery store is "fu-fu-fu-fu-fu"