Is it cheating if you’re not actually reading the book?

My hypochondria started when I was young and I blame the radio. And those awesome little cardboard dolls came with outfits made out of paper that you had to cut out with great precision and fold the tabs over the doll to dress her.

paper doll

You see when I was a little girl and I got sick my mother would buy me one of these doll/clothes combos and leave me to lie in bed with the radio next to me. It’s not that we were anti-technology or that I was too ill to go to the lounge to watch telly, it’s just that TV hadn’t yet made it’s way to South Africa when I was a child. Shocking, I know but it developed in me a mighty fine appreciation of the radio.

If you listened to the radio on a week day morning you’d be treated to the best drama South Africa had to offer, or at least the best scripted drama. Stories and plays were enacted with the highest quality sound effects – where the highest quality sound effects meant doors creaking or being knocked on. Fifteen minute snatches of radio theatre made up the morning with an hour long play at 12 noon. It was the fifteen minute segments that always ended with a dramatic musical flurry that set the hypochondria in – who would want to go to school and miss out what happened in the radio play the next day? Certainly not me.

A long time has passed since I got to take a day off to listen to the radio, but recently I rediscovered that same aural joy in the form of an audio book. It’s like going back to my youth and having a radio play performed in my ears any time I like. I don’t even have to pretend to be sick.

So immediately bulk buy viagra rush to your doctor whenever you think to start the treatment. It helps to a great extend in stimulating digestion and muscle movement of generic viagra without prescriptions intestine. order viagra prescription additional info These are caused by trichomonad and gonococcus. Enhanced semen check stock viagra sans prescription volume is also necessary to enjoy enhanced sexual pleasure in copulation. I started listening to audiobooks at the gym on the treadmill because I am 789 and listening to loud music while I ran was making me feel ranty, listening to a book helped ground me and it had the added benefit of getting me to exercise longer. It was way easier to get into a good book than into a good run and I was less easily offended. Then I started taking my audiobook on my morning walk. And I started to walk longer and longer to hear more of my book.

I’ve got to the stage where I am often found wondering around the house with dramas acting out in my ears. It’s not just doing wonders for the numbers on my Fitbit it actually been really good for my anxiety – I can switch off the sound of my own worries and replace them with someone reading me a story.

The best thing is that I can read an actual book at the same time as listening to an audio book. Well not at exactly the same time – but I don’t have to be finished one before I start another. I could never do this with two paper books but somehow having someone read to me makes it easier to differentiate the characters from the book I am reading to myself.

Sometimes I feel like listening to a book is a bit like cheating… like I am somehow being lazy about reading. But to be honest, the only real problem is that I’ve been unable to replicate the joy of playing with a cardboard doll and paper clothes again. I tried it but it’s just not the same as an adult.

Do you listen to audiobooks? Any that you would recommend?

 

Comments

  1. I listen to audio books on long drives, I used to love paper doll cut outs. Was rubbish at cutting out neatly though x

  2. Love audio books!! I used to listen to them all the time when I was driving back and forth between Sydney and Canberra twice a week. It made the drives go so much faster and it often ended with me doing a few laps of my neighbourhood so I could get to the end of the chapter. It’s a fantastic way to make your brain be still – and still get things done because you don’t have to sit and put your head in a book. I’m going to have to download a couple more now you’ve reminded me how much I enjoy them! Do you just get yours from iTunes?

    • I get the neighbourhood laps – I may or may not do that to!

      I use an app called Audible for my books but often purchase through Amazon and download to Audible.

      This is all a lie – I have the tech no-how of my dog. I tell my husband which book I want to read and he magics it on to my phone and I listen to it through Audible

  3. Lana, If you love audio books look at downloading podcasts. I download and listen to Margaret Throsbys Mid Day Interview on ABC Classic F.M. every day, The Jon Faine Conversation hour on ABC 774 Melbourne and Richard Fidlers Conversations on ABC 612 Brisbane. ABC Radio National has several book programs that are pod casts and the BBC has hundreds, especially old radio plays and comedies that are all archived, even Desert Island Discs and old Test Match Specials. It a whole world of listening.

    • I LOVE podcasts and Richard Fidler is my favourite interviewer in the world. Have those all on my phone as well.! Thanks for the suggestions

  4. I haven’t entered the world of audiobooks yet but I am currently completely hooked on podcasts. I have so many downloaded that I wish my walk to work was longer (it’s 2.5km each way, so it’s already not bad!) so I could listen to more. I’m particularly loving interview style podcasts and true story ones like This American Life, and most of them have huge back catalogs so I have some listening to do!

  5. Barb Fisher says

    OK, I’ve heard so much about this Serial, that I’ve just downloaded the first Episode to listen to on my walk tomorrow 🙂

  6. I used to listen to audio books when I was a teen and loved it. I haven’t listened to one for a while though. I did get into the serial podcast but I’m only up to episode 7! I need to pull my finger out and listen to the rest.

  7. I used to play with those paper dolls as a young girl. And I listened to the Muddle Headed Wombat on the radio. My husband set up a tray on my treadmill so I can read my Kindle. It was all going brilliantly until I fell off it one day and almost broke my arm. I’ve listened to books in my car sometimes. I don’t think it’s cheating at all Lana.

  8. Hi Lana, I have been thinking of using an audio book for the gym instead of music too. I have downloaded one but haven’t transferred it to my mp3 player yet (I know an mp3 player, how old school am I?). You have given me some motivation to get onto that pronto!
    I was thinking maybe instead of the paperdolls, you could try the ultra hip thing of the moment – scrapbooking?!? I personally don’t really see the attraction, but millions of people couldn’t be wrong?

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