Happy hump day my friends. I have had a very productive week. I am trying to stay on top of all the wonderful things I want to do in life. Most of that revolves around reading and writing…BOOKS! I honestly love books and the stories that so many people have to tell. I love the stories that I have in my own head.

I want to read all the books. I want to devour them. Sadly, I have to work to pay bills so I do not have the time to read as much as I want. Seriously, if anyone has a way for me to make money off of reading let me know. I thought about recording for audiobooks but I have no idea where to even start!

Since I have so many books I want to read I listen to a lot of audiobooks. I listen to books while I am driving or at work. And if you happen to come across this post and you know me and where I work…shhh, don’t tell anyone. We are not supposed to have earbuds in while at work, but my job can get boring and I need something to keep me going most days.

There are a few things that go through my mind when picking out a new audiobook to listen to. Let me put it into a list for you, because I hear people like to read lists.

1. Description- Does the book sound like something that will hold my attention?
2. The heaviness of content- If I am going to have to pay really close attention to all the little tiny details it is not going to be a good thing for me. If I am trying to learn something I will never pick an audiobook for it. If it is a high fantasy book…nope. That’s not going to work.
3. Narrator- This has to be one of the most important things for me. If I can not stand the voice that is reading to me I will cut off the book so fast. I can tell within the first few minutes if the voice actor is going to be good enough. Also, they cannot be monotoned when reading. I need some emotion in my stories!
4. Quality of production – I use scribd to listen to audiobooks and most of those have really great production quality. Most of them anyways. Audible has nice quality production as well, but they are better with how much they charge for an audiobook and their monthly subscription services. I do not like using public library services for audiobooks. I tried, I really did. Every book I tried to listen to was just awful. The quality was trash and it just made me angry.
5. The pace of the Book – When I am listening to an audiobook I need a book that is quick-paced. Or at least moderately paced. I need to get to the action quick. I need to be able to keep up and if there is too much rambling, my mind will wander off and I forget what is going on in the story. I have had a few books I had to stop listening to because of this. One of the books I was listening to was Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare. I got a few chapters in before I cut it off. I just couldn’t stay focused on the story.

Now, there seems to be this whole stigma on audiobooks. I have noticed it in the book community. Mostly for those that use how many books they read in a year as some kind of competition. I blame the reading community of youtube for all of that mess. So many of those people were reading books like most of the books had some kind of bomb on them that would go off if the book wasn’t read quick enough. I can understand wanting to read a new book as quickly as possible to avoid spoilers or to join the conversation with other people talking about it, but reading is not a competition.

Okay, I take it back, I blame all the programs when I was a kid for the reading being a competition. I remember getting free pizzas for reading so many books.

There seems to be this whole issue with people counting audiobooks as ‘books read’ on their Goodreads lists, or any list of books they read. I get the issue, that person did not sit and READ the book, but they consumed the story. I have had some books that I have read and listened to. I retained more about that book while listening to it than when I sat down and read it. It just depends on the person and the book really. I am just so sick of people dismissing people because they LISTENED to a book.

Maybe it is more so people trying to out-read someone that causes the real problem. I will count every book I listen to on my Goodreads list. I can still rate a book that has been read to me. I still absorbed the story, I just did it while I was doing something else that required me to use my hands but not my brain.

How do you feel about audiobooks? Do you count them towards your reading goals? Do you even have reading goals? I keep track of the books I read just so I can see how many I have read and so I can look back and see how many of them I remember. I just love keeping a list of things.

What is your favorite audiobook?