I love books. But sadly, I had a very limited book reading in the past several years. After 8 hours work, cooking, cleaning and internet browsing, I just don’t have much time left for reading books. Luckily, the audiobook apps have prompted my book reading.
My favorite books are classic novels and mystery fictions. I have used different audiobook apps to help me.
There are two apps associated with public libraries in USA: Libby and Hoopla. If you have a library card, you can download the audiobooks & ebooks from them for free. Libby by Overdrive, is an ebook/audiobook reader app. Hoopla, on the other hand, is a library media streaming platform, not limited for audiobooks and ebooks, also offering for comics, music, movies & TV Shows.
I guess now audiobooks have become very popular. We can listen to a book during exercise, driving or doing housework. However, since local libraries only buy limited copies of audiobooks from their budget, while the authors, narrators, and other creators should be ensured to be paid fairly for their work, the popular audiobooks usually have a long waiting line.
I found that YouTube is good resource for classic audiobooks, although sometimes only partial of the books are available. For example, when Mikki Crecelius narrated Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms”, he used a Italian accent for Italian people, which made the book more vivid. As an advantage of YouTube, there is no waiting line.
My mystery book experiences is another story. Normally details are critical in mystery books and some authors also provided illustrations in the books. For example, the map of the house in Agatha Christina’s books often gave important hints for the cases, the pictures in Becky Cooper’s “We keep the dead close” service the purpose as well. I often quickly read the mystery book even after I listened to it, because I don’t want to miss something to affect my analysis and conclusion.
Do I miss the feeling of reading the hard copy of book? Yes, absolutely! But now I read more and faster, and enjoy the great work from the narrators as well. Thanks for the technology we have today!
June’s Journeys 
I agree! Audiobooks are such a time saver! I got one I can only listen to while driving–it’s the only place I have a CD player. But then I found parts of it on Youtube, so I can listen inside too. Yay!
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Good deal👏 Glad that you like audiobooks too! They are very beneficial. Thank you for stopping by😊
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Hello June!
Interesting post! I can relate as I’m an avid reader 🙂 I have subscribed to Audible (from Amazon), and I choose 1 book per month. I do something that may seem silly: I get both the paper book as well as the audio, and read the book while listening to the audio. I feel it helps me concentrate and ignore the phone and other interruptions… I mostly do that for “large” books, that are 800 pages and more…
Anyways, I hope you are well! Best, Thierry
Le dim. 18 avr. 2021 à 15:01, The June Journal a écrit :
> The June Journal posted: ” I love books. But sadly, I had a very limited > book reading in past several years. After 8 hours work, cooking, cleaning > and internet browsing, I just don’t have much time left for reading books. > Luckily, the audiobook apps have prompted my book reading. ” >
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Thierry, thank you for sharing your experience! I didn’t subscribe the audible from Amazon, but I love the Amazon kindle. I almost did the same thing as you, only difference is that I read book after I listen to it. This way I won’t miss the clues from the mystery book😉 I agree with you, it does help the reading when listening to the books! I read books on Amazon kindle app at my iPad which downloaded from the local library. I like the screen light and the dictionary (when you click the word) at the kindle/iPad. I can imagine you read the large books: the history books have a lot of interesting stories😊 History is amazing!
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Hi June! Thanks for this great post. Totally agree about the audiobooks! I love Audible! I would also recommend the app “Chirp” where you can find audiobooks on sale for between $1.99 and $4.99. Happy reading! 😊
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Thank you, Malaika😊 Glad to know another app “Chirp”. Yes, audiobooks are great👍
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