Almost two years ago, I began listening full time to audio books on the daily commute. I stopped feeling guilty about not listening to NPR.
The book that convinced me was Guns of August by Barbara Wertheim Tuchman. It was a book that for several years I had wanted to read, but never found the time to sit down with it. But sitting in the car was “found” time. There’s not many other things you can do in the car on the commute, though I do see people reading newspapers, books, putting on makeup, shaving and changing clothes on their commutes.
Thanks to the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, I’ve listened to lots of books. I stay with non-fiction, which means I can enjoy the mysterys and other fiction books when I have time to read.
I’ve listened to many books I would never have considered and found that many were enjoyable. Kevin Kelly recently wrote in Cool Tools about Books on Tape and salvaging the commute.
Kelly discusses the importance of the book’s reader, and I agree. Recently I set aside Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man because of the drone of the reader.