I Like Big Audiobooks (And I Cannot Lie)

For the past two months, I’ve been making my way through Ken Follett’s A Column of Fire on audiobook. I’m loving it. The story is great, the characters are dynamic, and it’s a good end to the trilogy.

However, it’s reeeeeeeally long. The hardcover is 916 pages. The audiobook is 24 disks. I’m on disk 22. So close!

The problem becomes that the audiobook case is huge. This has caused many problems for me since I started it. No one can sit in my passenger seat and not notice it. Normally, audiobooks fit between my passenger seat and center console but this one is in a double-wide box. It gets tossed in the back with a passenger. My husband held it on a recent shopping trip and got so used to holding it that it started carrying it into the store before he realized he still had it.

It makes it difficult to change disks, too. I can’t lay the box in my lap beneath the steering wheel because there’s not enough space between my legs and the steering wheel. It’s best to be at a stop light to change it and I’ve re-listened to track 1 a few times to get to a good place to disk change.

Lastly, I’ve had to renew this audiobook the maximum number of times. If I don’t finish by 2-November, I’m looking at late fees (or the hassle of calling the library and asking for another extension). Even with my drive to class giving me more car time, this is still taking up a lot of my life. My normal read-through rate is much lower while I’m trying to get through this book.

But I love it. I enjoy long stories and falling in love with characters that are going to stick around for a while. There are a few more massive books I want to read and enjoying them on audio is a great way to keep myself calm in traffic and save my wrists the strain of holding the book up.

So I’ll admit, I like big audiobooks. I’ll keep enjoying them for years to come. Though I think they’ll eventually become big files and will all be on my iPhone. Which means I need to archive my pictures a bit sooner. I’m not sure I’ll like that so much.

Until next time, write on.

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Why do they make abridged versions?!

As a warning, this post is being written in a flourish of anger. Be warned.

I just finished listening to a beautiful and haunting story that I loved. Between a long run and a long car ride, I finished the six hours of audio in four days and it was partially because I loved the story and was always anxious to hear what happened next. I had 15 minutes left and decided to sit down and just finish the darn thing. And I did. And the ending was great and the character arc was wonderful and I was floating on cloud nine. Before I could stop it, the credits read and it mentioned the name of the individual who abridged the book.

WHAT?!

Are you telling me that I just spent 6 hours listening to PART of a book? A book that won me over completely? What if they took out all the bad parts and the book is actually terrible? How would I ever know? I looked and it seems there is no unabridged version of this book on audio. The famous person who read it must not have been willing to give that much time.

So what am I to do? I feel seriously cheated to be sure. I want to know the whole story because, for once, there is more to a book I enjoyed! I want to know all the details someone didn’t think were worth making it to the end. The parts that seemed rushed will slow down and that excites me.

So, do I wait or read it soon? I own a copy so I could grab it next and read it, looking for the small or large changes. Or I could wait, maybe a few years, until I don’t remember the details and I can be surprised by them again instead of knowing what’s coming for the characters and not being surprised by twists. I’m at a loss. All I know is I feel cheated and I’ve never felt shortchanged by literature before.

Grrr.

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!

A Tough Nerd Decision

If you’re a WWW Wednesday-er, you might have heard me mention this before. I’ve recently made a really hard book-nerd decision and I still have mixed feelings about it but I will go on. Let me explain.

I love buying books as I’m sure many of you reading this do as well. I have an entire shelf devoted to these books that I have bought and not yet read. It’s almost full. As in this is a problem. The compounding factor is that for so long, I would buy books that were on my Goodreads TBR that also had audiobook copies available at my local library. For a long time, that was no problem as there were so many audiobooks at the library I didn’t own physical copies of. That’s ended. I’m out of easily available audiobooks that are on my TBR. I’m starting to listen to books I hadn’t planned on reading and some of the books on my TBR are sinking farther and farther away from me as they drift down the pile.

I got sick of this. I’ve listened to three books this summer I never intended to listen to (I won’t say which) and while two were good, one wasn’t and the whole time, I kept wishing I was going through my shelf books instead. So, I’ve decided to do that.

Unless there’s a very good reason I want to read a physical copy of the book (some are rather visually put together), I’m going to listen to the audiobook if I can get to it first. eaudio is the easiest by far, but some physical audiobooks can be good as well. I’m looking forward to getting through these books in one form or another so I can start with those I’ve been putting off because my TBR is just so big!

I’m still iffy on this decision. It feels wrong, like I’m betraying my books! What do you think? Is it wrong to listen to an audiobook when you own the physical copy as well? What about if it was ebook and book? Is that different? Leave a comment and let me know how you’d feel!

You can follow me on Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram. I’m available via email at SamAStevensWriter@gmail.com. And as always, feel free to leave a comment!