What is Audible?
Basically Audible is like Netflix, but for audiobooks. And
you keep the book. And you only get (X) number amount (I chose one). So
basically you’re just buying audiobooks at a steeply discounted rate because
you’re signing on to buy one (or whatever you choose) a month.
I would think it was even cooler if it was more like
Netflix/the library and you get one at a
time. I realize that the library has this through OverDrive, but I’ve never
gotten overdrive to work with audiobooks so either a) I’m an idiot or b) it’s a
bad service. (Now I feel my bi-annual need to try it again.)
What I like about it is that you deal in terms of credits.
So I’m signed up for one credit a month, 1 audiobook is 1 credit, so if it
takes me a little over a month to listen to the audiobook, I still have my 1
saved up. If I don’t listen to audiobooks for a month after that, now I have 2,
and then if it gets cold and I sit around knitting and binge-listening to
audiobooks, I can blow through those two I have saved up.
Why are you such a
geek, Jana?
I have a really hard
time running. I get so bored. And
I saw this little graphic about people who listen to audiobooks and it reminded
me that I should try running with an audiobook. I figured I would probably like
it because I loved running with
Zombies, Run! but then I realized I was running out of episodes and stopped
using it because I wanted to save it for an extra special run (read: I stopped
running). So, naturally, the audiobook I chose was World War Z, in sticking with the running-from zombies theme.
I come here to read
reviews, not have you try to sell me things
Right, right, sorry. World
War Z is written as a history of the zombie war, with many short stories
loosely strung together by the researcher, Max Brooks.
And I am loving this in audiobook style. I feel that this is
the only way to read this book, actually. The full title is World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie
War. It is meant to be listened to. The voice actors are great, and there’s
a teensy bit of soundtrack between chapters.
Normally, I have a hard time with the short story format (as
you heard from my This is How You Lose
Her review). I just can’t read a string of short stories the same way I can
marathon-read a book. It feels weird dipping in and out of characters like
that. So I’ll try and set up a system for how to read them, like at bedtime,
but it generally falls apart if I haven’t finished it by the end of a week.
What’s great about this is I have a system set up, I can listen to it while I’m
running or in the car. Hopefully I will run often enough that this works, and
the biggest problem is that when I’m done running I want to keep listening to
it. And there are so many things you can do while listening to audiobooks!
Cleaning! Cooking! All of these things I am pretty bad at doing because you
can’t do them while your nose is shoved in a book.
It also helps keep me away from my major vice of sitting and
reading the entirety of facebook, which I do a lot, but less when I have a good book to shove my nose into. You
can’t read and listen at the same time, though lord knows I’ve tried.
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| RUN. FASTER. |
What I really love about World
War Z is that you get the adventure of zombies without that really
horrifying apocalyptic moments that you get in most zombie movies. The “oh god,
they’re going to win, we’re all going to die, and even if we live what’s the point since all we’re going
to do for the rest of our miserable existence is keep fighting,” moment. I hate that moment. It is too depressing
and stressful. This book is written after
the zombie war, telling stories of the
survivors. So the voices you hear are people who lived. They’ve seen some
really horrifying things, so it’s still kind of terrifying and depressing (I
was almost crying during one of my runs), but at least you know that your
narrators have survived, and soon you will find out how the zombies were
eradicated and humanity was rebuilt. Or whatever happened. I’m only ¼ of the
way through the book. You’re right, I shouldn’t write a review on ¼ of a book.
Sue me.
UPDATE: Ok, I didn't actually post this before I finished the audiobook, but I liked what I wrote so I'm just going to post it anyway. All I have to add is that I wish I had binge-listened to it because whenever I "save" something and try not to burn through it even though I want to, I basically stop listening to it or reading it. Also I got OverDrive to work. The library app on my phone is my new best friend. Except if I try to check out an e-book it gives me the stupid non-kindle version which I can't read on my kindle which defeats the whole purpose. But audiobooks work fine.
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| Yay! library your technology has caught up with the rest of the world. |
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