The joy of audiobooks

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Listening to audiobooks is magical. There is a website called www.booksshouldbefree.com which has legal and free books to be downloaded. The amazing part is a lot of the books are classics. I have found listening to them is far more comforting to me when I'm on a train or bus than listening to music.

When I think of it, so many of today's problems are due to a dumbed down society. On the bus I often board there are some difficult characters who sit near me. By escaping to another world through literature, I can almost imagine these people are not there. Furthermore, I am reading through my ears a of books I always wanted to so that I can be a wittier, more worldly person.

I think this is a great coping strategy and aid to a person's character for anyone. But I thought I would share it with all of you since you have been my acquaintances for some time. I know I for one definitely benefit from almost every book I read. I learn more jokes, I understand more references in people's conversations and by learning from history can avoid making the mistakes others have. The best thing about audiobooks is you can even enjoy them if you are dyslexic or not able to read well.

So will you all give them a try for me?

I also like to listen to audiobooks (or thought provoking podcasts). I'm not dyslexic, but I'm a pretty slow reader, and also when I'm listening to a narrator I can do other things in the meantime too, so it's fun AND efficient. :D
It's sort of like listening to music, except that it tickles the intellectual part of my mind rather than the emotional.

Thanks for that link btw. Definitely something to bookmark.

I get my audiobooks from the library

Audiobooks are not for me.

My listening comprehension is not good.

My brain is not good at processing speech into meaning.

I get verry merry berry tired from listening to speech verry merry berry fast.

My ears are for music, not speech.

Me too and I also enjoy audiobooks.

Thank you so much for that link. We LOVE audiobooks. It's so nice to lay in bed together and listen to them. I especially love when Jim Dale reads them. Marlo Diane, on the other hand, (from LibriVox), not so much! But listening to audiobooks in bed at night is one of my favorite things to do.

I wonder if it even acts like a kind of stim for me. It makes me feel like someone I love and trust is telling me a bedtime story and it is very comforting and soothing and relaxing for me. Sometimes I have to keep rewinding though because if the book is really interesting I don't want to stop listening, or reading, and sometimes I am so exhausted I fall asleep and the book keeps playing!

Last edited by skibum on 29 Jul 2013, 3:43 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I can't listen for long periods of time. l end up zoning out and miss what was said. l prefer reading.

I have the same. Too bad, because there's often too much noise for reading in the train and I can't listen too music AND read.

I've tried listening too The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. But it just did not work for me.

I use audiobooks for background noise not for replacing reading. I can't tune out the background noise so audiobooks are more pleasant than music and more pleasant than nothing at times. I have a reason to be hearing stuff then.

The current book I'm listening to I've already read. Most on my wishlist I've already read.

LibriVox also has free public domain audio books. Since everything is user-submitted, you don't always get totally professional sounding recordings, but the good tends to drive out the bad.

I love audio books in theory, but with my CAPD, it just doesn't work very well. I also have an undiagnosed reading/learning disorder that makes me read every sentence on the page several times before it "sinks in," but that's easier than rewinding an audio recording again and again to re-listen.

Listening to audio plays and podcasts has improved by auditory processing no end.

Unless I'm sitting absolutely still, I can't understand audio books. My brain gets "behind" trying to work out the tone of voice and I start getting confused as to what is going on. I had a meltdown once because I was listening to an audio book for school so I couldn't just walk away from it and let my brain take a rest.

Comforting and soothing, yes! I fall asleep to them every night and (on cds) just start back at the last part I remember before falling asleep. Can't sleep without them. Also listen in the car and while cooking or sewing. A great narrator can make a book even better, but them some books are better to read, or both read and listen. Of course, in non-fiction, you don't get the visuals like photos, charts, etc. so sometimes I buy those books at used book sales even though I've already listened to them.

Thank you for posting. I corrected the spelling on my post! I think it is great that people volunteer to read on LibriVox. I would if I read out loud well enough. But it is funny because some of them have fantastic reading voices and some of them make us laugh and distract us from the story. And the books are read by different people taking turns reading the chapters so sometimes it gets distracting. But I really appreciate LibriVox very much and really enjoy their stories. My favorite so far from them has been Bram Stoker's Dracula.

That is great!

Stoker's Dracula is my favorite novel, which is saying something considering my dislike of vampires. My bookshelf reflects my obsession; my big hardcover New Annotated Dracula is a centerpiece among all the other Dracula books. I recommend it constantly. The only real problem is the chapter in which Mina and Lucy talk to Mr. Swales, whose 19th century slang makes him almost impossible to understand. Everyone should at least read the first four chapters, which make a masterful short story.