DisembARCing

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

That’s it. I’ve reached my limit. No more!

I hereby declare my freedom to read like a leaf on the wind… (excuse my mélange de metaphors). Watch how I soar!

Way back when — on January 1st, to be precise — I made all sorts of promises and resolutions. And, well… I suck at resolutions.

I swore that I’d cut back on ARCs and concentrate more on reading the books I already own, and to tell you the truth, I didn’t do an awful job. I did cut back. I paid attention to release dates. I made myself a handy-dandy Excel worksheet so I could track my ARCs. I tried to make sure I didn’t have more than 2 or 3 per month for the first half of 2016, and I did my best to read them all as their publication dates rolled around. And for the most part, I actually did pretty great! Yay me!

But…

I’m still frustrated. I’m down to my last 10 ARCs (ignoring the unread ARCs from previous years), and I feel duty-bound to read them — but damn it all, I have so much else I want to be reading.

My books are piling up, and I’m feeling weighted down. And my overall feeling is:

I DON’T WANNA!

I don’t want to read according to a schedule. I don’t want to read what’s next on my calendar. I don’t want to read because I said I would.

I want to read what I want, when I want.

This isn’t anything earth-shattering, and I know I’m not alone. We all get frustrated. It’s the same old, same old story:

I’ll repeat myself:

I’ve had it. I’m done. I need my space.

So yes, I’m going to finish the 10 ARCs still sitting here waiting to be read. After all, they’re all books that I wanted to read — I made sure to only request ARCs for books I’d read anyway, whether in ARC format, fresh from the library, or even requiring actual money to change hands.

But once I’m done, I’m done. I’m not requesting any more ARCs this year. Which feels like a huge step to take, but I mean it. If I want to read a new release that badly, I can get it from the library or bookstore. And once it’s in my hands, I’ll know if I really want to read it at that very minute.

I’m just sick of delaying the books that strike my fancy because there’s an obligation book staring me in the face. So no more!

I’m getting off the ARC train.

DisembARCing.

Starting now.

6Apr2016

Congratulations to Goodreads!

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

50 million reviews!

I love having Goodreads in my life. How about you?

Check out the Goodreads blog post about this milestone here.

26Mar2016

Is reading before watching always the best policy?

Posted in Pop Culture, The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

I’ve always been a big believer in reading books before seeing the movie or TV adaptations. But lately, I’ve been wondering if that’s necessarily the best approach.

For sure, I don’t enjoy a book nearly as much if I’ve already seen the movie/TV version. But the same can be said for the opposite, and I’m debating whether there are times when reading (or rereading) first doesn’t make sense.

In my case, the issue comes down to enjoyment. How much do I want to really savor the viewing experience for its own sake?

What I find is that when I’ve read the book first, especially if I’ve read it immediately before watching the movie/TV version, is that I spend the entire time watching with a little running commentary going on in the back of my head. I’m so distracted by noticing and cataloguing all the differences from the book that it’s hard to just sit and back and enjoy it for what it is. And at the same time, reading first is like intentionally giving myself spoilers, so the viewing experiences tends to lack the punch it might pack if I’d watched it as something completely fresh and new.

Two examples from last year:

One — I fell in love with Poldark on PBS. (The show, not specifically the character, although… damn. Check out my Poldark love here.) Poldark was completely new to me, and after watching the first episode, I was burning with impatience to know more. So, I dashed right out (or actually, dashed right to Amazon) and got myself the first two books in the series, which correspond to the TV show’s first season. I gobbled up the books and then watched the remaining episodes… and while I loved the books, I missed the sense of suspense that was now missing as I watched. Even worse, the big, dramatic, emotionally intense moments from the show’s finale were flat for me. I could tell that they were very well done, but the emotional impact was missing, because I’d already experienced the feels while reading the book.

Okay, second example: OUTLANDER. I think I’ve given a hint or two (or a thousand) about how much I love everything Outlander. So, season one last year — I obviously love the TV show madly and deeply. As the season progressed, I decided to read along. That is, I started the book from the beginning and read as far as I guessed each week’s episode would cover. Definitely not my first time through the book — it was more like my 4th or 5th. Still, I decided I wanted to have it all fresh in my mind so I could pick up all the little nuances that are straight from the book.

And as an approach, it wasn’t bad. I had a strong appreciation for how much dialogue was word-for-word from the source material, which is especially gratifying when it’s some of the most swoonworthy Jamie-isms. On the flip side, though, rereading right before watching made me hyper-aware of every little deviation, every little omission. And that wasn’t always a good thing.

I ended up watching each episode several times each week. The first time through, I couldn’t shut down the mental gymnastics involved in comparing the book and the show. My little internal calculator was busy tracking every change or every point of staying completely true to the book. I still enjoyed the show, but with distractions. By the second viewing, I could let go of all that. Now that I knew the content, I could sit back and just enjoy it for itself. And by a third time through, it was just a chance to soak up the atmosphere, notice themes and cinematography, and the overall artistry of each episode.

So, here’s where the dilemma comes into play. Season two is fast approaching (TWO WEEKS FROM TODAY), and I haven’t quite decided what to do about it.

I’ve read the source material, Dragonfly in Amber, more than once — but it’s been a couple of years since I last read it. I’m trying to decide whether to read along with the episodes, or just watch the show on its own, perhaps going back to the book for reference afterward. Either approach has its pros and cons, and I’m still up in the air about which path I’ll end up following.

So, share your thoughts and experiences please! Do you watch (or re-watch) before viewing, and how do you think it affects your experience? Are there times when you wish you hadn’t read the book first (or recently)? I’d love to hear some opinions!

1Feb2016

Counting up the books: February update

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Welcome to the February edition of Counting Up the Books! In which I take stock, re-set the parameters for my book counting, and decide where I’m going with this crazy monthly counting of books…

But first — the backstory:

This past fall, I wrote a post called Counting Up the Books, talking about two things I love: BOOKS and NUMBERS. That was the beginning of a monthly feature for me, in which I tally up just how many unread books there are in my house and on my Kindle.

Here are my book totals from the past four months, adding in new books and subtracting books read or given away:

October: 539

November: 548

December: 554

January: 548

You’ll notice that my numbers went up, not down, for a few months there, until finally in January we have tiny baby steps of progress in getting the numbers under control.

In thinking about this book count methodology of mine, I’ve started to reach the conclusion that my approach is a bit flawed. In general, when it comes to my reading habits, I try to avoid absolutes. I don’t participate in challenges. I don’t view my resolutions as rules, but rather, as aspirations.

And I would certainly never put myself on a book buying ban.

Why set myself up for failure? I know I won’t give up buying books for a year, and I won’t even pretend that that’s a realistic expectation. I am, however, making a conscious effort to request fewer ARCs and preorder fewer new releases — largely because I know that I already have a huge backlog of books to be read. Even when a brand new book arrives hot off the presses, I don’t always read it right away, so why do I need to buy it the second it comes out?

All that said, I think if I want to track my progress with reading my shelves, I need to have a fixed baseline as a reference point. And so, arbitrarily, I’m taking my January numbers as point zero. Going forward, my Counting Up the Books tallies will not include newly acquired books. Yes, I’ll keep track of my new arrivals (hurray, a good excuse for another spreadsheet!), but I’m going to use my January count as my 2016 point of departure. Of the 548 books that are on my list as of January, how many will I actually read in 2016? And how many will I give away, sell at the used bookstore, or donate to a good cause?

We’ll see. I’ll be posting a fresh book count at the beginning of each month to track how I do… and at the end of the year, I’ll do a re-count — or hey, I like the word recalibration! That’s it: At the end of December, I’ll recalibrate my book count to add in any new and still unread acquisitions from 2016, and start with a fresh baseline number in January 2017. Make sense?

Which brings us to today. Using 548 as my 2016 starting point, here’s where I stand as of the start of February:

So… like I said — baby steps.

How are your shelves doing this month?

Don’t forget to join me for Shelf Control on Wednesdays, where we highlight books from our shelves that we really want to read!

10Jan2016

Reactions to a random resolution

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Resolutions are tricky buggers, aren’t they? I tend to view them with suspicion, especially my own! Deciding on January 1st just how I’m going to change and do things better for the rest of the year seems blindly optimistic and generally unrealistic. Let’s face it: How many of us have resolved at some point to go to the gym more? Raise your hand if you went to the gym more last January. Okay, leave your hands up if you were still going as often in March. Yeah, right.

This past week for Top Ten Tuesday, the topic was all about resolutions for the new year. I only came up with 9, and all but one related to books and reading — buying habits, reading habits, and so on.

The resolution that seemed to be greeted with the most skepticism was this one:

I resolve to (attempt to) read series as a whole — all books in a row — rather than reading them as they come out and then forgetting all the details in between volumes.

A few comments basically said “I could never do that”, and a couple of real-life friends pretty much laughed in my face.

So, I thought I should take a few moments to explain my thoughts behind the resolution… which made sense to me at the time!

I have a well-documented problem with series. Well-documented in the sense that I’ve written blog posts about it. In any case — over the last several years, I’ve come to realize that I just don’t enjoy series when I have to wait a year or more in between installments. And it seems that all the “big” “buzz” books lately are parts of series, or in YA especially, trilogies.

Does everything have to be in three parts? Seems like the answer is yes, unless you’re making a movie out of it, in which case four seems to now be the norm. (I’m looking at you, Mockingjay parts 1 & 2.)

So what’s my problem, and why do I need a resolution?

Let’s look at a book example. I was late to the party when it came to The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer, but finally I jumped on board last December and read the three novels then available right in a row, and then the related short stories, and then the mini-novel Fairest. Loved ’em all, and couldn’t look away. But then… it was a long, long wait for the release of the final book Winter. You can read my super enthusiastic response to my Lunar binge read, and then compare my reaction to Winter. Maybe Winter just wasn’t as good… or maybe reading it on its own, once I was no longer under the spell of my binge-read, lessened the impact it had on me.

In other cases, I’ve absolutely loved the first book in a series or trilogy — books like The Diviners by Libba Bray (review) or All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin. But as much as I loved The Diviners, after waiting for the sequel for a couple of years, I found that when Lair of Dreams actually became available, I simply wasn’t interested. I read books 1 and 2 in the Zevin Birthright trilogy, and then realized when #3 came out that I wasn’t curious about what came next… so even though I had the book in my hands, I ended up returning it to the library unread.

When it comes to enjoying trilogies and finite series, time is not my friend. The more time that goes by in between installments, the less likely I am to read the subsequent books as they’re published. Maybe it has to do with laziness — to pick up a volume 2 a year or more after reading volume 1 means that I’d have to put some time into rereading the first book or finding detailed recaps in order to reenter the world of the series. And without a reread or a revisit, I move forward in the next book only halfway engaged, not quite fitting all the pieces together and wondering whether I’ve forgotten something important. (And usually, I have.)

There’s also the sense of moving backwards. I read a book, I like it, I finish it. I put it on my shelf. And I move on. So a year later the story continues? But I’ve moved on! Unless the first book left me salivating and desperate for more, I have other things on my mind, new worlds to explore, and don’t necessarily want to go back to something I consider done.

(Don’t get me started on series/trilogies that end volumes with cliffhangers. Argh. That’s a different topic entirely, although it does add fuel to my desire not to start an incomplete story unless I know I can move straight on with the next installment.)

Sure, there are some series that are open-ended and that I read faithfully, but with those, I knew from the start that I was reading an ongoing series. I’m thinking here especially of the Dresden Files books by Jim Butcher and the Mercy Thompson books by Patricia Briggs. I love both of these worlds and their characters so very much. I’ll read them forever — please don’t ever end!

Then there are the series in progress that I’m deeply invested in — number one being Outlander, but also George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. I’m up to date on both series, with no release date for a next book for either one. That doesn’t mean that I don’t love them, but I’d be thrilled to know that the next books will be here soon. (They won’t.)

As for new books, well, there’s my dilemma and my challenge. There are books that are so hot and talked-about and NOW that it’s hard not to join in and become a part of the crazy excitement. Everyone seems to be reading The Illuminae and talking about how amazing it is! And the thing is, it sounds like something I’d love to read. But hold on — there are more volumes to come over the next couple of years. Do I jump in now and break my own rules, or wait?

I also know that I should and must read Patrick Rothfuss’s books, because they’re totally up my alley… but I’ve sworn that I’m not going to read The Name of the Wind until I know that the final book at least has a scheduled release date.

I could go on, because there are lots more, but you get my point. I point-blank refused to read Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie despite constant prodding by a couple of friends, but now that the entire trilogy has been published, I’m out of excuses!

We’ll see how this whole resolution business works out. I’m quite aware that sticking to my goal here will be very hard, because as soon as I hear about a great new book, I want to immediately grab it and devour it — and my resolution means that if the book in question is the first in a series, then it’s taboo for me… for now.

I can’t promise to be perfect, but I know I really do enjoy series more when I read them straight through. That way, I stay caught up in the mood, the characters, and the plot intricacies, and maintain a sense of engagement and excitement from start to finish. There have even been series that I thought I’d parcel out and take a breather from in between books, but ended up being incapable of reading anything else at all until I’d read all the books. My chief example here is Outlander, because once I read the first book for the very first time, I basically didn’t come up for air again until three months later, when I’d finished all of the main books in the series as well as all of the novellas and offshoots. Same for Codex Alera by Jim Butcher — six books, no stopping, no reading a single other book until I reached the final page of First Lord’s Fury.

There’s something just so immersive and satisfying about reading a series that way. We all talk about wanting to live in the world of a favorite books — well, this is the closest I’ve ever come to feeling like I’ve achieved that!

So, wish me luck with my weird little resolution! I’m really going to try to stick with it — but I promise to ‘fess up if I don’t.

9Jan2016

Counting up the books: January update

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Oops! It’s January 9th, and I just realized that I never did an update post for the beginning of the month and the year!

In early September, I wrote a post called Counting Up the Books, talking about two things I love: BOOKS and NUMBERS. That was the beginning of a monthly feature for me, in which I tally up just how many unread books there are in my house and on my Kindle. I’ll omit my September numbers here, for two reasons:

I originally included non-fiction books, but have since dropped them from my totals, since I’m so much less likely to actually read any of the non-fiction books I own. (Hey, they’re there if I need them!)
Right after my September count, I did a major culling of my shelves and dropped off bags and bags of books for donation, which accounts for a big drop from September to October in the number of physical books in my house.

Okay, moving on. Here are my book totals from the past three months, adding in new books and subtracting books read or given away:

October: 539

November: 548

December: 554

Hmm. We seem to be going in the wrong direction!

How am I doing at the start of 2016? Let’s see:

So… by this reckoning, I’ve gotten myself back to where I was two months ago. Yay, progress? I guess.

How are your shelves doing this month?

Don’t forget to join me for Shelf Control on Wednesdays, where we highlight books from our shelves that we really want to read!

31Dec2015

2015: My year in books

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

As 2015 comes to an end, it’s time to take a look back at the year’s greatest hits in books! Earlier this week, I did a round-up of my favorite graphic novels and audiobooks from 2015. Today, I’m widening the focus to include the year’s reading as a whole. Here’s a summary of what I read, and what really stood out for me during a year of some truly excellent reading.

[Note: Click on the links to see my reviews if you’re interested!]

Goodreads stats as of 12/30/2015:

Total number of books read: 148
Total number of pages read: 46,616
Star rating used most often: 5 stars (57 total)
Star rating used least often: 2 stars (8 total — and I didn’t give any books only 1-star. I think if I thought that little of a book, I just DNFd.)

Longest book read: A Breath of Snow and Ashes by Diana Gabaldon, 1439 pages (a re-read)
Shortest book read (excluding graphic novels and novellas):
The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett, 120 pages

Bests & Other Stuff of Note

Best children’s (middle grade): The Expeditioners and the Secret of King Triton’s Lair by S. S. Taylor and Katherine Roy
Best young adult: The Cure For Dreaming by Cat Winters
Best contemporary: Our Souls at Night by Kent Haruf
Best graphic novel: Alex + Ada (trilogy) by Jonathan Luna and Sarah Vaughn
Best fantasy: Uprooted by Naomi Novik
Best historical fiction: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
Best domestic drama: Inside the O’Briens by Lisa Genova

Best new volume in an ongoing series: I’m always thrilled when Patricia Briggs releases a new book. In 2015, it was Dead Heat, the 4th volume in the Alpha & Omega series (which stars one of my favorite supernatural couples, Charles and Anna).

Best start of a new series: The Aeronaut’s Windlass by Jim Butcher

Best end to a great series: Winter by Marissa Meyer

Best in the “late to the party” category: Years after the first books were released, I started two terrific ongoing mystery series: The Kate Shugak series by Dana Stabenow and the Maisie Dobbs series by Jacqueline Winspear.

Best return of old friends: Secondhand Souls by Christopher Moore, the sequel to A Dirty Job, which brings back all sorts of favorite characters, including Minty Fresh, Charlie Asher, and the squirrel people.

Best use of illustration to tell a story: The Marvels by Brian Selznick is a gorgeous book to look at, using pictures as part of the plot, rather than just as decoration. Runner-up: I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest, which mixes comics with text to create a thrillingly tense novel.

Author of the year: Jane Austen! I revisited the works of Austen this year by listening to the audiobooks of her six main novels. I also read three Austen Project retellings, watched the BBC version of Northanger Abbey, and even saw a musical production of Emma!

Best classic read: I loved reading North and South with my book group, and watching the mini-series was the cherry on the sundae!

Around the world in a book: My reading took me to some amazing places this year…

Ethiopia: Black Dove, White Raven by Elizabeth Wein
New Guinea: Euphoria by Lily King
Portugal: The Day of Atonement by David Liss
Australia: Silver Bay by Jojo Moyes
Luxembourg: The Expats by Chris Pavone
Canada: Girl Runner by Carrie Snyder
Italy: A Light in the Ruins by Chris Bohjalian
India: Prudence by Gail Carriger
UK: After You by Jojo Moyes (and plenty of other books too!)
France: A Little in Love by Susan Fletcher

Journeys through time: I traveled to many different eras via terrific books; most notably…

Colonial America: The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare
Antebellum South: The Invention of Wings by Sue Monk Kidd
World War I: Maisie Dobbs by Jacqueline Winspear; The Uninvited by Cat Winters
World War II: The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown; All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr
1950s: In the Unlikely Event by Judy Blume

Best speculative/science fiction: The sci-fi works I enjoyed most were:

Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke
Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

Oh, the horror! The Dead Lands by Benjamin Percy was truly icky, but I just couldn’t look away.

Biggest let-down: I loved The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey, but I was so disappointed by book #2, The Infinite Sea, which just did not deliver, in my humble opinion.

Best sports books for people who don’t usually read about sports:

Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally (running)
Winger (and its sequel, Stand-Off) by Andrew Smith (rugby)

Best use of a grandmother: I loved the narrator of The Boston Girl by Anita Diamant.

Best return to childhood: I reread The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare and To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, and loved them both all over again.

Best author event: I had two awesome author experiences this year, hearing talks by Neil Gaiman and Felicia Day and then getting my books signed!

Best bookish TV events of 2015:

Amazon’s The Man in the High Castle, based on the book by Philip K. Dick:

PBS’s Poldark, based on the books by Winston Graham:

And (because I can’t leave it out of a “best of” list), the 2nd half of the first season of Outlander, after a long six-month Droughtlander!

Most eye-catching covers:

Quirkiest titles:

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda by Becky Albertalli
Intro to Alien Invasion by Owen King
Twittering From the Circus of the Dead by Joe Hill
You’re Never Weird on the Internet (Almost) by Felicia Day
Working For Bigfoot by Jim Butcher

Best getting-thrown-for-a-loop: Books with twists or plots that took me by surprise:

Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon
Winger by Andrew Smith

Bookish delight, all year long:

All the many, many books which, for whatever reason, I can’t quite categorize but still really enjoyed (plus a few that are probably better off forgotten). It’s been a great year of reading. I can’t wait to see what treasures I’ll discover in 2016!

What were your favorite books of 2015? What surprised or excited you the most? Please share your top reads and recommendations in the comments!

19Dec2015

The audiobook debate: What “counts” as reading?

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Earlier this week, a close friend (and one of my favorite book people – a true BBF) was moaning to me about her progress toward her Goodreads goal. Only two weeks left in December, and she’s still short 12 books! She’s planning to take a bunch of smaller books and graphic novels with her on her family holiday trip, so it’s likely she’ll make her total by the end of the year.

I’ve already passed my goal (okay, I did read a lot of graphic novels this year!), and as I was talking to my friend about some of the books that pushed me over the top, numbers-wise, I mentioned Uprooted by Naomi Novik, one of my favorite audiobooks of the year. The conversation took a sudden and unexpected turn:

BBF: You count audiobooks?

Me: Yes. (Of course! I added in my head.)

BBF: But that’s not reading!

Me: Oh yes it is!

BBF: Nuh-uh!

Me: Yuh-huh!

We didn’t stick out our tongues at each other… but in terms of childish behavior, we came close!

So what is reading? What “counts”?

The primary definition of the verb “read”, according to Dictionary.com, is:

to look at carefully so as to understand the meaning of (something written, printed, etc.):
to read a book; to read music.

Okay, that one focuses on the written/printed word. Here’s definition #2:

to utter aloud or render in speech (something written, printed, etc.):
reading a story to his children; The actor read his lines in a booming voice.

Hmm. That’s the act of reading aloud. When my son was younger, I read to him all the time, even up to age 12, when we read together such books as Eragon and The Hobbit. I had never read Eragon before, and as I read it to my son, I was reading it for myself as well.

But back to the original question: Is listening to a book the same as reading a book? Do your eyes have to be involved in order to have read something? What about someone who’s vision-impaired? Using a Braille book seems to obviously be reading… but what if they don’t know Braille? What if they can only enjoy books that they listen to? Does that count as reading?

I’ve become a big fan of audiobooks in the past few years, so my take on the issue is pretty clear-cut. For me, whether I’ve used my eyes or my ears, my brain is certainly involved, and either way, I’m absorbing a story, ideas, plotlines, themes, and more.

I suppose I’d be in favor of a more expansive definition of reading, along the lines of:

Using one’s senses to take in the content of a book.

(Okay, let’s agree to exclude taste and smell from the above! I love the smell of a bookstore, but sniffing books definitely isn’t reading! And I don’t recommend eating them either.)

Of course, as I probably should have said earlier, it doesn’t actually matter what anyone else thinks when it comes to Goodreads stats. I’ve seen people argue about all sorts of things “counting” as real books, such as novellas, graphic novels, and re-reads. I take a pretty lenient approach with myself: If I feel like I’ve read something, then I have! And that includes all of the above.

Yes, in my opinion, if I’ve listened to an audiobook, then I’ve read the book. Period.

Where do you stand on the issue? Are audiobooks books? Does listening “count” as reading? And would you (or do you) include audiobooks in your list of books read in a year?

Share your thoughts, please!

2Dec2015

Counting up the books: December update

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

Another month, another opportunity to take stock of my overflowing shelves!

My September starting point was 598:

$Book Math 1$

As of October, I’d made some progress after culling and donating a bunch of books, plus making the decision to omit non-fiction books from my total — since, let’s face it, I’m a fiction lover through and through, and I feel no urgency at all about getting to all those non-fiction tomes (as interesting as they may seem) any time soon.

As a result, my past two month totals, adding in new books and subtracting books read or given away, were:

October: 539

November: 548 (yes, that’s an increase…)

And here we are at the beginning of December… and, well, my Black Friday/Cyber Monday/used book store mania is clearly showing. Here’s the latest count, which clearly tells me that I’m heading up and not down:

Just to be clear: I actually read more than five books during the past month! But a lot of those were library books, and while I adore the public library, reading library books doesn’t help get my bookshelves under control.

How are your shelves doing this month?

Don’t forget to join me for Shelf Control on Wednesdays, where we highlight books from our shelves that we really want to read!

28Nov2015

Audiobooks and the almost impossible art of patience

Posted in The Reading Life by Lisa @ Bookshelf Fantasies

I need more patience, and I need it now!

Okay, let me back up a bit and provide a little context.

Audiobooks are a big part of my life. Who’d a thunk it?

Until about three years ago or so, I didn’t think audiobooks were for me. I tried one once, couldn’t keep my mind from wandering, and decided I just wasn’t cut out for this audio thing.

But then, I ended up giving audiobooks another try when I felt myself itching for an Outlander re-read, but had so many other books to read that I couldn’t balance my competing reading needs. Audio to the rescue! Listening to Outlander in the car while commuting back and forth to work made my drives so enjoyable, and pretty soon I added audiobooks to my weekend walks as well.

Still, I was convinced that I could only succeed with audio for re-reading books; that if I tried to listen to a book I hadn’t read already, my focus would keep slipping and I’d miss too much of the narrative to enjoy it.

Cue the time machine, and fast-forward to the present!

I’m never without an audiobook now, and while I still find audio a great medium for revisiting books that I read long ago and want to experience all over again, I’ve found that when I want to, I can do just fine with new books too.

Perhaps it’s just an acquired skill that takes practice — like playing tennis or learning to knit? (Sorry, those are totally random examples).

I eased into my new book/audiobook adventures slowly, and discovered that audio is actually perfect for me when it comes to spending time with genres and types of books that I don’t normally make room for. I enjoy non-fiction occasionally, but I’ll always choose a novel over a non-fiction book when I’m looking for a good read — but via audio, I’ve loved a few great non-fiction books in the last couple of years, especially Unbroken and The Boys in the Boat.

I’ve also discovered that while I never seem to have the patience to sit and read a book of short stories, it works just fine for me as an audiobook, probably since I can usually only listen in shorter chunks anyway.

So, here’s where my current problem enters in:

The problem with audiobooks is that you can’t binge-read!

If I fall in love with a book, or get so caught up in the action or the intrigue that I just can’t put it down, then I’ll stay up til all hours of the morning reading in bed, or keep a book open while I eat my breakfast, or read every time I take a little break from my daily routines. I can make a binge happen if I want!

But my audiobook time is really limited, and the amount I can get through in any given listen is directly related to the length of my drive or my walk. Because one thing I simply CAN’T do is listen to an audiobook while sitting still, and if I try to listen while doing odds and ends around my house, my attention is too scattered to truly enjoy it.

Right now, I’m about halfway through with an audiobook that I’m absolutely loving, and today I got up to this incredibly exciting part… and then I came to the end of my walk, which I stretched out as long as I possibly could, and now I can’t continue with the story until tomorrow! And I’m so, so frustrated.

I actually picked up a hard copy of the book from the library in order to check on a couple of names, and so I suppose I could just read ahead… but somehow, it feels like I’d be cheating on my audiobook! Plus, I’ve really gotten into the narrator’s accent (even though it bugged me at first), and when I look at the printed words on the page, it seems flat somehow.

I’ve definitely had a couple of books in the past that I started via audio, and then realized that I wanted to go faster than the narration, so I switched over to hard copies (To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee and Cinder by Marissa Meyer are two that come to mind).

With my current back, I’m trying to take deep breaths and let go of my urgent need to find out what happens next. So what if it takes a few more days than I’d like? So what if, once I go back to work on Monday, I’ll have even less time to listen each day? Will I enjoy the book less if I can’t finish it all at once? Does a book need to be consumed as quickly as possible in order to satisfy?

Patience. I need patience. Maybe I need a patience mentor…