With my workplace being nearly 40 miles away, I recently found myself with a lot of wasted time each morning and evening. Sure, I would listen to the radio: morning shows, news, talk, music, etc.., but when I thought about it it seemed very unproductive. That’s when I had the idea of listening to audio books. With nearly an hour and twenty minutes in the car each day, I can go through most audio books in a week. This would get extremely expensive if I purchased each one ($20-30 ea.).
As long as your tastes aren’t too picky, the local library should have a good selection of audio books that are “free” for you to use. I put “free” in quotation marks first, because it did cost $3.00 to get a new card, and second, we all know we pay for the library through our grand tax system whether we use it or not, but that’s another topic altogether.
In the last few months I have listened to:
- Treason by Ann Coulter
- Benjamin Frankin: An American Life by Walter Isaacson
- The Flyers: In Search of Wilbur and Orville Wright by Noah Adams
- An Army at Dawn: The War in Africa, 1942-1943, Volume One of the Liberation Trilogy by Rick Atkinson
- My Life by Bill Clinton
- On Whale Island: Notes from a Place I Never Meant to Leave by Daniel Hays
Accomplishing this list through traditional paper books would have taken me much much longer. If you have spare time in the car I would definitely recommend rediscovering your local library.
A few notes to keep in mind:
- My library’s books on tape collection is much larger but not as up to date as the books on cd.
- Many audio books are abridged, but it’s better than nothing.
- Many libary catalogs are available online, and with mine I can even reserve and renew books
- You can take more risks than with paper books since, if you don’t like it, you’ve only sacrificed a weeks worth of “WABC’s joke of the day is…”
- Your audio selection will be much larger if you have extreme disregard for George W. Bush and/or adopt more liberal ideas in general.