A Note on Audiobooks

Last weekend Joe and I took advantage of President's day (and it's 4-day weekend) by driving out to Arizona to visit my best friend and her family. We usually fly whenever we go anywhere, so I was concerned before our trip about how we would pass the 14+ hours in the car. We do enjoy some of the same music, but not enough to fill that many hours, so I knew I couldn't look forward to the Mamma Mia sing-along party I have when I make the same trip with my mom...


The solution we came up with was to pick an audiobook that we both wanted to read/listen to and that we could talk about. Joe suggested The Selfish Gene. I suggested 1Q84. Joe suggested The Moral Landscape. I suggested we listen to the entire, multi-season soundtrack from Glee. :) I think you can see where I'm going with this...


We finally agreed on the unabridged recording of The Lord of the Rings. The entire trilogy is almost two days worth of recording, so we would definitely be covered. And I'll say this: we are both totally loving it. We managed to get through about 9 hours of the recording during our trip and have since been listening separately - me on my commute to work and Joe before he goes to bed.

lotr.wikia.com

So here is my dilemma: The audiobook makes complete sense for me in the car, but listening when I don't have something to focus on with my eyes feels awkward. This weekend I had a chunk of time that I would usually devote to reading, but picking up something new while I'm still in the middle of Fellowship of the Ring felt unsatisfactory. I didn't want to start something new. I wanted to keep going in the world I had already entered. So I tried to listen to my audiobook at home. I didn't know what to do with my eyes in the meantime, so I closed them. When I opened them again, over an hour had passed and I had no idea what was going on in the book.... I tried to follow along with the printed book next, but that was weird, too. The actor who recorded the books is fantastic - he does interesting voices, emphasizes all the right stuff and has clear diction - but he's slow. When I found out that the track for "The Council of Elrond" was an hour and forty-five minutes long, I was SURE it would be at least 100 pages in the print edition. It's 31. Let's just say I wouldn't take almost 2 hours to read 31 pages. So I tried to just read the book myself. But then I missed the voices. Catch 22.


Because of my career, it is not at all unusual for me to read two or even three books at the same time (one for each grade I am teaching and one for book club or personal entertainment). But normally there's a reason why I'm reading more than one book at a time - two entertainment books seems ridiculous for some reason. So how do I deal with having an audiobook that I can't sit down and read, but not wanting to delve into a new world while I'm still in this one? Dilemma!