10 years ago I hardly read any books, only if I had to or as a means just to spend some time. Then life introduced me to self-development and now I’ve read nearly a 100 books throughout that time (I don’t know the exact number but it’s somewhere around that mark). Not all, but most are related with non-fiction and learning something new in a certain area of life. There are months when I read several books and then there’s some where I don’t read any.
When I went to travel to SE Asia I bought myself an e-book reader (Kindle) since it just wasn’t possible to bring so many physical books with me. And that’s actually one of the best purchases I’ve ever made. I have bought only a few so called old school books after that although I have a bunch of them that I haven’t got to yet.
Now recently I’ve discovered the world of audiobooks. Main reason for that came from driving a car alone wanting to use my time more efficiently. Especially now when I have these kind of trips more often living a bit further from the city. And in my opinion it’s a really good way how to combine these 2 things – commuting and listening to a great book. It doesn’t have to be by car, you can just put on your headphones and listen while traveling by bus, train etc.
In a general picture I still prefer reading compared to listening since I seem to get more value out of it and the information sticks better but obviously while driving I cannot do that. So I’ve found a nice balance between reading one book and listening the other. I know that some people read perhaps 5 or even more books parallel but for me 2 is the max, otherwise everything just gets scrambled up 🙂
I tried 2 audiobooks providers before sticking to the one I use now. First one was https://www.audiobooks.com/ which I tested as a trial, secondly for a couple of months I used https://www.bookbeat.com which offered unlimited books for 15€ a month (but unfortunately they didn’t have many of the books I was interested in) and so I chose Audible. First of all since they have a huge category of titles available (well obviously, Amazon 🙂 ) and secondly they have a clever system of switching between audiobooks and kindle. Since I use the latter anyways it suited me best.
Here’s one overview of different providers out there.
Whether you prefer reading or listening I think books on the topic you love should be companions for You throughout your life.
“Books are the ever burning lamps of accumulated wisdom.” – George William Curtis
This quote was actually written above the chalkboard in our grammatic class back if 4th grade (which is 20 years ago), yet I remember it so vividly 🙂
The World As It Is 