audible

When we were small, we used to go on long car rides from Massachusetts to Delaware. I was (and am) the oldest and so got to direct the audiobook selection. It was heavily tipped in favor of fantasy series like The Chronicles of Narnia and Harry Potter, but we had a smattering of sensitive-yet-tough-talking kid lit from a few decades previous sprinkled in as well — From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, Ramona Quimby, The Westing Game. I memorized the lulls and spikes of those readings; I listened to them on my own on my little cassette player late at night.

Now I have a library card and an iPhone and a commute (or, you know, did), and audiobooks are a nice way to feel less alone on long walks and during those stretches of daytime when you'd like to hear a voice but don't want to talk in order to receive one back, and certainly don't want to have to metabolize the onslaught of a podcast, no offense.

I've been listening to His Dark Materials, which you can find through less-than-legal means and are extraordinarily well-acted, if not the least panic-inducing material you could consume at this present moment (although it is sort of a relief to have stakes elevated to "Let's get together and kill God.") I've also listened to a couple of recently published novels — Nothing to See Here, by Kevin Wilson, and Sourdough, by Robin Sloan, are both not too long and fairly lovely, and something is gained rather than lost, I think, in the being read to rather than the reading. I don't think all books, nor all readers, are predisposed to this treatment, but I like the low and constant hum of it.