My New Driving Companion

I am not a product placement type of fellow.  On top of that, I am enough of a dinosaur to think that "influencer" is a job created for people who are too weak-willed to think for themselves.  Question for you, sweetheart, if you cannot make up your own mind regarding what cereal to eat or shampoo to use, how the fuck are you going to answer life's big questions for yourself?  Spoiler Alert:  You are not.  Enjoy your existence in the meadow, you sheep. FYI, the wolf is not your friend.  

Add to this mix the fact that Jeff Bezos has neither solicited my help nor has any need for it.  All of these caveats notwithstanding, if you love to read then I cannot recommend Amazon's Audible enthusiastically enough.  

I had never used it until about a month ago, which is right about the time I was going through a bit of an issue with the people from SiriusXM.  Here is my ten-second rant on SiriusXM:  Love the product.  Hate the customer service.  Having decided to cancel my SiriusXM subscription, I needed something to replace it as my commuting accompaniment.  

My son, Rob, cast once again in the role of mentor, is the one who turned me onto Audible.  Am I glad he did.  My commute to/from work varies from thirty-five minutes on a good day to an hour-plus on a bad one.  Now, instead of listening to the radio or to a CD while I drive, far more often than not, I listen to an audio book.  

I love to read.  I have not given up consumption of the written word.  Now, Audible has simply added the number of books I can read in a given month by giving me a way to enjoy them at times that were otherwise unavailable, such as when driving or when working out.  It seems to me that there are certain types of books that lend themselves more readily to being listened to rather than read.  

By way of illustration, the first Audible book I completed was Unfu*k Yourself:  Get Out of Your Head and into Your Life by Gary John Bishop.  Mr. Bishop, a Scot, is the narrator of his audio book, and between the clear belief he has in his own material and the great, Scottish way in which he delivers the material, makes it an eminently enjoyable listen.  Since completing it, I have gone back to listen to certain pieces of it.  I do not know whether a book, once read, remains in your library forever but having it there for at least some period of time to go back to is quite a nice feature.  Upon completing Mr. Bishop's book, I read/listened to The Art of War by Sun Tzu, which Aiden Gillan performed.   It, too, was a good listen and is the type of work that seems to lend itself to this format.  

Presently, I am listening to Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which Duncan Steen narrates.  Honestly, this has been a bit of an undertaking.  The audio book is slightly more than five hours long.  It has been my companion for the majority of my drives to and from work for the past week...and I still have three hours left.  

Again, I do not know if "audio book" is a format that lends itself to every type of book.  None of the ones I have thus far read includes any conversation or any dialogue between characters.  At some point, I will branch out and try an audio book that does, simply to see if this format works for me for that kind of book.  

If you love to read, and find yourself pressed for time in which to read, then you really should check it out and see if it is for you.  If my experience is any guide, then you shall be glad that you did. 

-AK