Audio Addiction

I went for most of my life so far not listening to audiobooks. The first time I attempted to listen to one was during grad school, when I was trying to track down a book I needed to read for class, and the only edition I could find locally was an audiobook- on tape! Luckily, my car at the time (the one I named Silver Tongue) still had a cassette tape player. It helped me get a slight grasp on the book I was supposed to be well-versed in, as I listened to it during my commute to Boston for class, but I can't remember anything about it now.

I wasn't really good with audiobooks because I struggled to retain what I was hearing. I wasn't absorbing the words, they were just washing over me.  But I have tried some audiobooks in the past year or so, and now I am finding that I prefer listening to books rather than the inane chatter of morning radio DJs. I am more than halfway through the new biography of Laura Ingalls Wilder, Prairie Fires by Caroline Fraser. I'm enjoying it, but it's very dense. I decided to get a couple more audiobooks for when I want to listen to something lighter:

I love Jim Gaffigan. I watch his stand-up specials pretty often, and even though his book Dad is Fat included many of the jokes and stories from his specials, there was some material in there that was new to me. The books chronicles the trials and tribulations of parenting his five children. 

After I finished Dad is Fat, I moved on to Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari. When I requested this book, I thought it was just a humor book. However, this book is actually the result of a collaboration between Ansari and Eric Klinenberg, a professor of Sociology at NYU. 

Ansari writes many of his hilarious anecdotes about his dating experiences and his own observations about how courtship and marriage have changed with the span of one generation, thanks to technology. The book also includes tons of research that has been done on the topic from a variety of sources: sites such as OK Cupid, which willingly provided their stats, studies and critical work from doctors and professors, and of course interviews with everyday people, of many ages, from around the world. I've only just started listening to this audiobook, but so far I'm intrigued.

Maybe I'm not great at listening to novels via audiobook, but so far I seem to be doing well with non-fiction.