The Audiobook Effect
The unique joy of listening to books.
UPCOMING CLASSES
I’d love to support your writing life in one of my upcoming online classes!
Preparing for Springtime Writing 🌸
Sunday, March 17, 3-4:30PM EST · $20
Join me on Zoom THIS SUNDAY for 90 minutes of exercises, readings, and sharing that will help your writing life bloom in the spring. Together, we'll reflect on the winter months and look ahead into the spring, returning to the goals and intentions we set for our writing lives at the start of 2024.
Growing Our Books 🌱
Wednesdays for five weeks starting March 27, 6-9PM EST · $330
ONE SEAT remaining in the second session of my Growing Our Books workshop. This five-week Zoom class is designed for any writer who'd like support on a book-length fiction or nonfiction project, whether or not you've begun writing. Includes a one-on-one meeting to discuss your writing goals.
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In her delightful newsletter mom blog my friend Olivia recently expressed her adoration of audiobooks:
“Take a favorite activity and mainline it into an avoidance technique that can be literally piped in, flooding my corporeal form with external narrative, buoying my body up and out of its physical surroundings? Yes! A form of entertainment that I can use as a drug to stimulate chore-doing, floating through my house as though a ghost-butler is the one in charge of cleaning?”
If audiobooks are a drug, I don’t want to quit.
I didn’t start listening to audiobooks until spring of 2020, a time when my inner extrovert was suffering. Audiobooks kept me company during that time. I’d aimlessly wander around my neighborhood for hours, listening to books as if they were phone calls from friends.
What’s floored me is that audiobooks became, and have remained, my reading method of choice. Here’s what my listening habits are looking like today, as well as my ears’ all-time favorite reads.
HOW I LISTEN TO AUDIOBOOKS
I mostly listen to audiobooks through Libby, which I access with my public library card.
If your city is like mine, your public library system’s budget is determined by use. Here’s what that means: the more we use our library cards, the more taxpayer dollars go toward our public libraries. All the more reason to check out materials, including digital materials like e-books and audiobooks!
WHEN I LISTEN TO AUDIOBOOKS
I’m always listening to an audiobook while I’m cleaning or doing yard work or folding laundry or getting ready for the day or for bed, and I’m often listening while I’m cooking or out on a walk. If I have an audiobook on in the car rather than the public media music station I work for, it’s a sign that it’s a really good book.
One of my favorite unwinding activities is coloring while listening to an audiobook. Big fan of the Bobbie Goods coloring books, pictured below!
AUDIOBOOKS I LOVE
Here are some of my favorite audiobooks that have replicated that ghost-butler feeling for me.
Come and Get It · What’s the audio equivalent of “couldn’t put it down?” Couldn’t hit pause? Couldn’t take my AirPods out? Whatever it is, this audiobook was it. Reid tangles three points of view to create this story of three women living in an Arkansas college town. I loved it so much that I was looking for things in my house to tidy just so I could keep listening.
Don’t Call Me Home: A Memoir · Alexandra Auder narrates her memoir of growing up in the Chelsea Hotel with her mom, Warhol muse Viva.
Make Your Art No Matter What: Moving Beyond Creative Hurdles · Beth Pickens is a therapist who helps artists pursue their creative practices, and this book feels like a therapy session (in a fun way).
Nothing to See Here · Okay okay okay okay, I know I never shut up about this novel. After all, it’s my all-time favorite book. But it’s truly one of the most unbelievable narrations I’ve ever heard. Marin Ireland nails Lillian’s character, and her Southern accent feels as authentic as Wilson’s depiction of Tennessee.
ON MY AUDIOBOOK PLAYLIST
Here’s what I’m listening to next.
Grief Is for People by Sloane Crosley · Essays on grief by one of my favorite humor writers.
Birding with Benefits by Sarah T. Dubb · A rom com about birding? Sign this bird nerd right up.
Sounds Like Titanic by Jessica Chiccehitto Hindman · A musician’s memoir with a wild premise.
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE AUDIOBOOKS?
The comments are open! I’m always looking for recommendations.
JOIN ME IN CLASS!
I’m here to support writing life in one of my upcoming online classes.
Preparing for Springtime Writing 🌸
Sunday, March 17, 3-4:30PM EST · $20
Join me on Zoom THIS SUNDAY for 90 minutes of exercises, readings, and sharing that will help your writing life bloom in the spring. Together, we'll reflect on the winter months and look ahead into the spring, returning to the goals and intentions we set for our writing lives at the start of 2024.
Growing Our Books 🌱
Wednesdays for five weeks starting March 27, 6-9PM EST · $330
ONE SEAT remaining in the second session of my Growing Our Books workshop. This five-week Zoom class is designed for any writer who'd like support on a book-length fiction or nonfiction project, whether or not you've begun writing. Includes a one-on-one meeting to discuss your writing goals.
I loved Really Good, Actually by Monica Heisey and Sorry I’m Late, I Didn’t Want to Come by Jessica Pan! I’ve only really embraced audio books this year and it’s completely altered my reading game.
Marin Ireland?! SOLD! Such valuable recommendations, thank you so much for sharing! I really enjoyed Rick Rubin's book, very good in small meditative doses. It put me into a trance!